The proverbial last straw

As we grieve with the parents of Amanat and fellow countrymen, a few thoughts come to my mind that I would like to share with you.  This most unfortunate incident has been the proverbial last straw and released an avalanche of pent up feelings.

We have a saying in Bhojpuri which roughly translates to this - "I was feeling like crying and (fortuitously) something poked my eyes (and gave me an excuse to cry.)"  The unfortunate and brutal tragedy that "Amanat" suffered is this poke that has precipitated the tears that a growing number of population has been finding hard to hold back for some time now.  This is the section of the population that is more concerned about the real issues affecting them.  These are the economic issues, the law and order issues, issues concerning opportunities for growth, issues of creating a more egalitarian society, issues of accountability for highly paid bureaucracy and politicians, issues of corruption eating into the vitals of the system.  They are unlike their mothers, fathers and elder brothers - those victims of the earlier feudal system who were happy with condescending politicians and babus who occasionally threw crumbs to them and pandered to their base instincts for competitive identity management. This new breed of people is not willing to put up with an apathetic and manipulative system and they are crying out for change.  A change that will mean a clean break with the way we have been running this country for six decades now.  To me this restless desire for change looks like the harbinger of a new era and a ray of hope.

What truly beats me is that the present system is not able to see this deep craving for change at all.  The politicians remain apathetic, the police oppressive and manipulative, and the bureaucracy unconcerned.  Probably the politicians feel that while they have divided the populace along umpteen lines of religion, caste and creed, they remain highly united in their skilled manipulations and that the dust will settle down as always.  And the police and bureaucracy partake of their complacence.  Hopefully this dust will not settle down, not this time.

And this is why Modi and Kejariwal are emerging as new icons of hope.  While Kejariwal stands for bringing about systemic changes that can put a stop to the current rot, Modi symbolizes robust performance and a no-nonsense approach.  And this is what this new generation of Indians desires above everything else.

Let us hope a new dawn is about to break and that this sad loss and this angry uprising will not go waste.

GFGS

The current rage on the streets of Delhi over the recent gang rape case is essentially similar to that that was on display when the issue of corruption was taken up by luminaries like Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejariwal et al.  It has its genesis in the same thirst for GFGS (Governance, For God's Sake) that led to what Hindi newspapers termed नमो, नमो, नमो (Three times NaMo) phenomenon in Gujarat.  The thirst is so deep that it remains unquenched even after two NaMos.  Elsewhere the public is simply sick and tired to the core of a defunct system that doesn't care much for its citizens, their life, livelihood and prosperity.

We must not mistake it as merely an outburst against wretched humanoids who perpetrated the beastly crime against the victim girl.  I am sure that all societies, howsoever evolved, do have a certain percentage of such beastly creatures.  Similarly all societies and their constituents have within them the primal urges that need to be controlled and sublimated through moral persuasions.  It is our leaders in the government who have been given formal powers by the society for governing it.  It is their job to ensure that the beasts in the society are either reformed or subjected to strict controls or, if all fails, eliminated.  They are also supposed to epitomize all the values that the society collectively cherishes and aspires to embrace.  They cannot be otherwise and provide the kind of governance and leadership that the society desires and deserves.  Do we see this happening?

It is strange that no leaders from the government have come out to address the restless crowds.  This job has been left to the opposition and the informal leaders.  The government has instead deployed the police:  The police whose job it is to protect the public at large:  The police which repeatedly fails to check and control the beasts amongst us:  The police which sometimes itself is found perpetrating similar beastly acts.  A foreigner may be forgiven for thinking that the police forces in the country exist merely to protect our elected leaders and they hardly have men or resources left to protect the public.  And when they do mobilize the men and resources it is always for repressing the public rather than protecting them.  Has any of our leaders shown the courage to let go of their A-Z kind of security and ask them to perform their first and foremost task of protecting the public? Why are we perpetually deferring the police reforms?

What indeed frightens the daylights out of me is the utter and sheer disregard for law and order that is displayed by our political figures and then imbibed by their followers and finally percolates down to the beastly elements that we have been talking about.  The political leaders must be allowed not to pay toll tax that have to be paid even by a bus carrying a busload of BPL people.  A political leader considers it okay to publicly threaten another public figure who insists on exercising his right of freely moving through the length and breadth of the country.  It is okay for leaders to remain absent from their job, to defy all codes of decent conduct in the highest bodies of the country, to call each other names, to throw missives on each other, to amass DA (disproportionate assets), to entice and kill young girls, to father children out of wedlock.  Once the leaders have thus established their absolute superiority over ordinary mortals and law of the land, it is the turn of their supplicants.  So they go out brandishing legal and illegal arms, rape women and beat up cops.  The message finally percolates to the humanoids who shed all fear of authority and indulge themselves.  Finally the public is bound to get fed up to its nose and come out openly against the deep shit in which it finds itself.

My dear leaders, please listen to this desperate cry for GFGS.

Laments of a mosquito

I am shocked, literally.  And I am lucky.  Many of my fellow mosquitoes have succumbed to the fatal shock delivered with a scary crackling sound.  The humans having failed to eliminate us through chemical and mechanical means, have stooped to using electricity for the purpose.  What is even more inmosquitus (inhuman in their language) is that they have turned it into a game!  The instrument they use for the purpose closely resembles what they call a racket  and used for playing various games.  Come evening, and they start electrically zapping us with great mirth and enthusiasm.  Oh, how we all shiver just at the thought of it.

These ungrateful humans simply overlook the decencies that we display towards them.  For example, most of us mosquitoes keep our distance from them during daytime with a view to not disturbing them at work.  A few that do, are the Frankensteins that are the handiwork of humans themselves.  Humans who want everything to be clean and shiny including the water that they use. Again, when we do come out in the evening, we present the best of our song and dance with a view to amuse them.  As our size keeps us from producing music that is loud enough, we risk getting close to their ears so they can hear us better.  And what do we get in return?  A scornful swat!

Some humans have gone to extremes of absurdity to declare that we serve no evolutionary purpose.  They forget that by saying so they are contradicting their own cherished theories.  They don't ask themselves how could a useless creature survive the relentless evolutionary pressures over eons.

The time has come to make you humans see the truth.  Our job is to help you evolve.  We try and weed out those amongst you who don't have strong enough immune systems.  We are the living injection machines that deliver the test load into your systems.  And we do it not merely as a duty.  We do it with love.  For in return we get our nourishment from you.  And it is nothing more than a tiny drop of your blood.  You waste a lot more for funny tests, sometimes several times a day.  You resent us that tiny drop even as you shout from your rooftops that blood donation is good.

And where has all your creativity gone?  Instead of mindlessly zapping the life out of us you could have used our services to deliver medicines to large populations instead of having to deploy an army of paramedics for the purpose.  Some truly great ones amongst you had probably had a glimpse of this possibility.  It was them who said, "Mosquitoes will remain but we will banish Malaria."  These great people used to work in the health department in a country called India.

But there is little point in talking to you trying to make you see reason.  I am ready for the ultimate zap and so are my brethren.  We all look forward to the day when we will be close to extinction and you would go out to big swamps just to catch sight of some great survivors amongst us.  As you patiently wait for the magnificent sight of a flying mosquito with the accompanying divine music, some of you would prick yourselves with your fancy gadgets and offer that drop to entice it to come close.

Until then, adieu as I fly into that vicious weave on your electrical racket.

Clean Chit Funds (CCFs)

Lesson 1:

First you amass huge funds by whatever means, and then get as many people as possible to give you a clean chit each.  Now the fortune you have made becomes a Clean Chit Fund.

The rating given to such a fund is CCF followed by as many plus signs as the number of chits obtained. If there are no clean chits but only fingers pointed at it, the CCF rating is followed by as many minuses as the fingers.  If there are both, each plus cancels out one minus and vice versa.

If the CCF holder is from an illustrious family, the initial of family name may be prefixed to the CCF rating.

Lesson 2:

Sometimes smaller funds amassed in ways similar to those stated in lesson 1 can be termed CCF even if they are not able to procure clean chits.  The ceiling amount for such small CC fund is stated to be 71 crores by highly placed sources.  Other requirements for such funds to be classified as CCF include the head of such a fund being supported by a highly placed and respectable dignitary.

Lesson 3:

It can be shown as a corollary of the profound Zero Loss Theory that CCFs, by their very nature, carry very little risk and do not require skills for managing them that are too complex.  This has been exploited for the very laudable purpose of upskilling people in lowly professions.  Drivers, gardeners and orderlies now have an opportunity to acquire directorial skills in such Funds.

Lesson 4:.

Interestingly, both sources and uses of CCFs are, more often than not, the same, namely, natural resources.  But some CCFs do choose to deploy funds in accounts abroad with a view to diversification.  In this case the customercentricity displayed by a particular bank has been commented upon by none other than the highly credible head of a recently launched political party.  The bank is said to have gone out of its way in helping CCFs in opening and funding accounts abroad.  They have made doing so easier than opening a no-frill account in a Public Sector Bank for receiving cash transfers from the Government.  This has led to much customer delight.