64 and developing...

At 64, a senior, yet labelled as 'Developing nation'! Grossly violated, repeatedly humiliated,  and frequently raped, that's my India.

Leaders who exudes leech like quality - glued to their cushioned chair, holding on the power like an armor, and hoodwinking the very people who got them the chair. If this is not gross violation, then, I wonder what is!

Our rich heritage and culture repeatedly humiliated in the name of religion. Mandir and Masjid getting demolished in this political tug of war. If this is not humiliating our art and culture, then, I wonder what is!

 Mines dug, trees cut, hills brutalized... all in the name of globalization. If this is not raping our beautiful landscape, then, I wonder what is!

And our leaders continue to make lofty claims on Independence day. 

On Pat Rot ism

The 1.21 billion people erupted in jubilation when the Indian Cricket team won the world cup. Fervid Patriotism was what we witnessed. How a game of cricket drew out the latent patriotic spirit in the 1.21 billion people surprised me immensely. Politicians, bureaucrat, and aam janta sat huddled in their seats, their heart beats synchronized with the ball, bat and the wicket, just like our coalition government.

The night sky lay sprinkled with sparklers while the stochastic night air resonated with a cacophony of the crackers, grossly violating the environmental regulations. Not unlike the garrulous news people on TV.

The scene as I saw it on television is nothing less than a biopic of a nationalist. Political leader, and film stars waving flags and shaking hands with the aam jantas on the pretext of celebrating the world cup victory… or was it to win popularity and votes? I don’t know.

A game is a game. There will be a contestant and there will be another contestant. If one contestant wins, the other loses. At the end both are contestants. So, what is this fuss all about? Let a game remain a game and not a show of nationalism.

There are more important issues that need our immediate attention. Corruption, scams, bribery, illiteracy, population growth, inflation… and the list goes on. People who indulge in these activities are anti nationalists, no less than a gun trotting terrorist.

We need to do our bit here. We have to show our patriotism now, take a pledge to curb these malice from our society in order to make our country sparkle.

A 70+ year old man plans to sit on indefinite fast to get the Jan lokpal bill passed. He is doing this for us, for our kids, our country. Let us all do our bit for our country. Let us show our true colors. I wonder how a world cup can remove corruption from our country.

( written on the night of the world cup win)

Shocked heart

A wounded cop left to die on the road and the ministers went on their merry tour. Ironically, it was the health minister with his entourage.

When grilled by the media, he defended himself by saying that he was numb with shock.

Ministers are "supposedly" leader of the masses. Do they have the privilege of standing numb with shock? Leaders should have a high emotional quotient, should have the ability to think on their feet.

The government spends our hard earned money to protect such nitwits who,ironically, are elected to protect the masses.

A brave heart died on the road trying to clean our society, without any medical attention, while the pot belied minister in spotless white lungi stood petrified.

It's time that the political parties  implement a strict screening of candidates and act responsibly.

Kurta pajama and austerity

Does wearing starched white kurta pajama defines austerity in a person?

Our Rahul Baba thinks so. "I generally tend to keep myself austere", pointing out to his simple white kurta-pyjama attire with a chuckle.

Well this makes me wonder, does it all boils down to the adage 'clothes defines a man' and not his action.

Austerity is sacrifice, it is cutting down on comforts to the bare necessity. Wearing kurta pajama is not the parameter to austerity if one travels 1st class, is palisaded by the most elite security force and is carted all over in the best of automobiles.

Mantrijis, if you want to practice austerity, cut down your spendings, stop building statues to prove a sore point and be independent, let the NSGs do what they are trained to do - protecting our country.

"I don't speak for the Government, I speak for the Congress.."

The Ishrat Jahan isssue is the hottest debate in TV these days. And our clever lawyer, Dr Abhishek Singhvi never fails to clarify that he speaks "only for the congress and not for the government".  This makes me wonder how the congress party and the goverment are different.

Congress rejoiced when it won the election with the largest majority and decorated the Parliament with its MPs and now when the Home Ministry is questioned about the Ishrat Jahan's murder, it is seperating itself.

The affidavit was filed in 2006, a year which had a congress man in the home ministry, so I remain flummoxed how the congress and the Government could be different.

Gandhian austerity and our netas.... Tweet Tweet

Politicians and Gandhian philosophy? This is a joke.

It is a fact that politicians congregate in five star hotels and resorts to gamble on "who gets what, when and how". And why shouldn't they? They are after all the policy makers, 'deliberating' on policies that are supposedly going to take the sweaty, recession and inflation strained masses to a new degree of economic and social elevation.

Tough job. Hence the need for the five star luxury. They need to plan all the high sounding, moral promises that they could air (disregarding the environmental laws) to the open mouthed gullible masses who are always ready to believe anything and everything that can make their life a little better.

True. Barkha's mulling is not wrong. But, I wonder which 'society' is she talking about here? 'Society' as in For the Richie Rich, By the Richie Rich, Of the Richie Rich?

Yes, it is contradictory. I believe so. If these Richie Rich could stay in a luxury hotel why not politicians. They are not exactly paupers or jute jhola slung social workers. They are our 'policy jugglers'. They decide our future.

Gandhian philosophy of simple living, staying content with what one has, simple eating habits,forgiving each other, practising non violence, etc is passée.

Think about it, if our politicians starts following Gandhian philosophy, what would happen to our fashion industry, our aviation industry, our out of work and over worked film stars, our internal security....(I mean the NSGs commondos would be roped in to protect our nation instead of gussying up our netas). That's a long list. No, never should our politicians compromise on their life style. They are NOT social workers.

Then what happens to Gandhiji's philosophy?
Never to worry, our politicians would gladly congregate in another luxury hotel to mull over this too.

..of lies and aam janta

The headline in today’s national newspaper – “BJP, Cong hog big biz funds” had me seething in rage. How dare they loot and exhibit the hard earned money of the working class (irrespective of the color of the collars) …..

When recession is hitting all of us and maiming us, when we are even scared to dream, when we are desperately trying to cut down on, (even), our necessities to bare minimum, when children are forced to drop out of schools and colleges for lack of fund or sponsorship, when people are resorting to the last desperate measure of taking their lives and ending the lives of the little ones – And these ‘netas’ are collecting funds, readily doled out by the very business houses that are kicking people out, to publicize their agendas.

Come election time, we hear about all these ‘… point programmes’ and how they have kept their words to the ‘aam janta’, how they have coursed the ‘Matri bhoomi’ to self reliance and wealth…blah...blah…

Do we really care to hear such bulbous self glorifications? Aren’t we having enough of them, staring at us from every TV channel and newspaper, every single day?

We see and experience what they are doing, have done and get a fair idea of the impending deeds, then why this propaganda? We, the ‘aam janta’ are their report card, then why spend such disgusting amount propaganding their virtues and the opponent’s failure. We have ears and eyes.

When organizations are kicking out people or shutting doors, I wonder from where they get such money to fill the political kitty.

According to DNA, the Aditya Birla group donated some 21+ crores to the Congress. The list is long. These very organization, don’t give a thought showing the door to many talented, educated, honest, tax paying individuals, yet they have money to placate the politicians.

There’s a whisper going around, come election time, the economy will start looking up. The logic is: Money spent on campaigning> trading > economic boost.

Simple!

We have to be idiots to buy such craps.

America just had an election, huge amount of money was spent (as reported by the media.) dressing up the contestants and their family, so did that boost the fashion industry?

This aam janta is no economist, she does not understand the statistics. What this aam janta know is she is honest (and do not fudge accounts), she works very hard trying to make ends meet, ensuring that her kids get their basic dues, cutting down on stuffs that would make her life a bit comfortable – and here are the over inflated, dodgy politicians, in their sponsored Armani’s, spending aam jantas money to advertise lies on the basis of fudged statistics. Yes, this aam janta is very angry.

Unsync....

We are a nation of 28 states, 7 union territories (Do I have the right figure?

Are we still 28 states or have I missed out on more partitions) and billions of people of all caste, creed, color and dialect. We have been living in harmony for centuries, fought battles together, and overcame disasters and calamities till the better half of the 20th century…when suddenly our dodgy, rickety, self proclaimed leaders decided to exercise their arthritic mind and dole out declarations for reservations in democratic institutions and organizations.

The result is all for us to see. The East, West, North and the South are all aflame. The East doesn’t want churches, the west doesn’t want mosques, and North doesn’t want temples.

Where does this lead us normal mortals? Living in perpetual fear, not knowing whether your head would be the next target of an over excited politician’s goon….

Cribbing is our birth right

Last week, I had a discussion with a friend on how we, the educated Indians, should be less lackadaiscal, and, instead, proactively participate in exercising our franchise to root out corrupt politicians.

Well, he may have a point there, but my cynicism is deep rooted; I have often felt that we, the so- called educated, love to crib about the rampant corruption prevalent in our country, curse our leaders and never let go a chance to air our 2 cents on 'what is right and what is wrong'.

(I do it, i.e., CRIB… yet… I bribed a cop to let my Peppy off...)

Now, how many of us really go and vote? Countable few. And why? Well, there is no dearth of reasons.

Basically, we just love to sit on our ass and hate to queue up in the smoldering heat with the lesser mortals to cast our vote. Or it could be because of lack of choice of candidates in the run… (We can only choose from highly corrupt to less corrupt) Or it could be the uncertainty of our vote already cast (CRIB…CRIB…CRIB…)

At 2:30AM, my buddies – idealism and romanticism, came knocking and nudged me out of my reverie. They suggested that voters' ID card should have an identification number. This way every citizen has an identification number.

This will benefit our country in the following way:

1. Keep tab on illegal immigrants
2. Keep tab on the adult population and indirectly on the population growth rate.

Online voting should also be made available. Educated computer literate citizen should be given a PW and user id, (like the ones we have in office). These ids would be unique; in fact it could be their citizen ID…

If this is done, we can expect the following benefits:

1. More number of educated voters turnout.
2. Indians living abroad can also vote
3. Check on corruption
4. Restriction on illegal immigrants during polls
5. Taming of hoodlums

I listened to them and thought, it would definitely make a good movie script – another Chak De .We can then, maybe, expect conscientious people to take the streets urging others to come out… shouting Chak De voters…

What Nautanki..

I am trying hard to recall the civics lessons from my school days, so correct me if I am wrong- isn’t it said that ours is a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic (all spelled in bold).

Millions of rupees are spent on campaigning by our “netas” who dole out eloquent promises, sweeter than my favorite rossogolla, and then, conveniently relapse into amnesia. Their deafening cry “ Hum Saab Ek Hai……..blah…blah…”reverberates through the 1000 watt speakers, strategically placed, flouting all the laws of Pollution, startling the new born babies from their reveries,disturbing the concentration of the students and rattling the nerves of the aged.

And then, from their air conditioned, cushy office, they devise strategy to create more fissure among the masses by deliberately segregating humanity into schedule caste and schedule tribe, upper caste, lower caste, etc, etc... (Did I miss out any… oh yeah…OBC!)

God Almighty… that’s what they think they are. (Or am I the cynical one)