Where have all the good men gone ?

With apologies to the one and only Pete Seeger…..

Where have all the good men gone ?

Long time passing

Where have all the honest men gone ?

Long time passing

Where have all the gullible voters gone ?

Coming our way

When will they ever learn ?

When will they ever learn ?

Coalgate- Keep Smiling

The other day my child asked me after watching TV what Colgate was. I was a taken aback for a while as I did not know whether she wanted to know the meaning of Colgate or Coalgate. When she clarified that she had heard it in an advertisement I was albeit relieved that she had chosen the right kind of word at least at her age , for the time being.

With the way we are progressing as a nation, very soon we should have a subject of General Knowledge on Scams in the school syllabi as that seems to be the most happening thing in the country. Not a single day passes without our coming to know of a new kind of scam somewhere in the country, via newspaper or other media.

The country is on the brink of an economic disaster as it is and now with the monsoon playing truant , any hopes of a recovery also seems that much tougher. And then we have our political leaders who do not have any administrative will and the parliament sessions are reduced to bouts of shouting and sometimes freestyle wrestling arenas. Looks like we sent the wrong kind of team to the Olympics, our hopes of winning more medals in boxing and wrestling have been dashed as we did not pick our MPs in the contingent as they are showing quite a prowess these days.

The media unearthed a group of Karnataka MLAs running off on a world tour of eight countries on tax payers’ money, for a so-called educational trip. The trip was sanctioned by the Speaker as per norms. What education they are gaining with an agenda that spans from visit to a fur factory in Scotland to the pyramids of Egypt is anyone’s guess. The party bosses of course are happy to sanction such trips as most times it is a question of you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours. The drought affected people of Karnataka are of course waiting for their MLAs to return from their junket suitably educated enough to help them.

Till then , we have Coalgate- keep smiling !

King Lie- that is BEST !

Trust any governmental agency to turn anything into a scam these days and you will not be disappointed.

After all the hullabaloo about the inferior quality of Chinese King Long buses used by the BEST, now we understand that those buses were not Chinese after all and were manufactured by a company in India only with brand name CERITA. Every time a bus used to break down (which these buses did with regularity) the Chinese origin was blamed as if “Made in India” is synonymous to “Made in Japan” or some such thing. The uncanny similarity of the two logos cannot be coincidental.

Something is fishy definitely as all along (including in BEST website) these buses have been officially referred as King Longs. If these were not of the Chinese origin why in the first place were they ever referred as King Longs, I wonder.

The officials of BEST are as usual suffering from short term memory loss which is quite common these days. An enquiry will be in place and a committee instituted to investigate. It will take donkeys’ years to submit a report by the time the episode will be forgotten as new scams would have taken its place.

BEST has right now spun a yarn- maybe it can be said it is a King Lie on the King Long !

Thoda Khao Thoda Pheko

One of my favourite Hindi films of all time will definitely be “Jaane bhi do yaro”. I have watched it many times over in entirety and also sometimes in parts on telly, but I am not writing this to talk about the film.

I remember a dialog in the film when a piece of cake is thrown out of the window and the actor says “Thoda khao thoda pheko ! Mazaa aya ? “ ( Loosely translated: Eat some throw some- it is fun !)

The recent statement of an UP politician where he advises his bureaucracy that they are allowed to indulge in little corruption as long as they work reminds me of this dialog in the film. What a state of affairs in this country !

While Coalgate dominates media coverage and we see the mystery of the two Sahay-s. Who is in our sahay (as in help )- only the Almighty knows perhaps, or even he has given up on this country.

We have one politician indicted for murder and another for inciting communal violence. The parliament is the only office in the country where you can be present for 7 days out of 88days and still not get kicked out of the job.

The general knowledge section of every bookshop and library must now have a dedicated section for scam news as it dominates most of the news that is made in this country.

Yet they govern this country- God give us a break !!!