MANGO PEOPLE IN BANANA DEMOCRACY:

Note for the readers:

The characters and situations used are imaginative. It is not intended to harm or provoke anyone. Reading this article is at reader’s risk. Neither the so called ‘writer’ nor Microsoft shall be responsible for any dire consequences.

The content is not copyrighted. You can reproduce this in any form in whatever media but do not use any name.

Cigarette smoking is injurious to others health. Be responsible and do not create nuisance. Your democracy ends at other’s nose. 

Thanks to: Anu, Ishara, my friends, YOU, Microsoft and Indian democracy

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PROLOGUE:

Finally, after fighting out few missiles when I was about to breath sign of relief, 2 cops ran towards my car from one corner of the road asking me to stop. The last time I saw cops running like this, was during 26/11 attack, when the terrorists took the car post their attack on Mumbai CST. I salute such heroic act but….why did they do that to me?   L...........

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It was already late to office. I never anticipated that the government would suddenly wake up one day to dig the entire street for the storm water drainage which was approved 2 years back. Negotiating all those 90 degrees curves, greeted by the cows & dogs on the road, honked by the fellow ‘frustrates’ (I mean my companion on the road that day) it took good 15 minutes to reach the main road which was indeed frustrating. It was’ nt easy after that either. A well known God’s spokesperson visited the neighborhood and people from nearby hamlets thronged to see him. The venue chosen was a roadside temple so that the spillover crowd could use the tarmac highway to wash their sins. May be due to recession and consequent retrenchment, the government citing shortage of police, deployed only two constables who were spinning their ‘lathi’ in the air as if it was a magical wand that can help them to manage the crowd in the peak hour traffic. There was car- people conflict with some people keeping their tongue out, looking at the car drivers so ferociously. Little do they realize that the ‘sacred’ place they chose for their ritual was meant for some other purpose! Driving the car we buy with our hard earned money (many times borrowed money) is like running on the battle field. The missiles can come in any form. Sometimes it takes the form of a motorist who wish to perform all his daredevil acts on public road; Sometimes as jay walkers who jump over the median and walk on the middle of the road like buffaloes gazing on the field; Sometimes as radio cabs who come closer to you and threaten to dash you if you don’t give sides.

Finally, after fighting out few missiles when I was about to breath sign of relief, 2 cops ran towards my car from one corner of the road asking me to stop. The last time I saw cops running like this, was during 26/11 attack, when the terrorists took the car post their attack on Mumbai CST. I salute such heroic act but….why did they do that to me? That too, when the vehicles were making beeline before signal and every driver turned environmentalists murmuring ‘Go Green’!

‘Hey it’s tinted glasses. It’s contempt of court. (Cauvery verdict and hanging Afsal Guru are minor cases of contempt, I suppose) Pay Rs. 300 or you will be produced in the court’. The angry traffic cop pronounced. ‘It was not complete tinted glass. It has 60% visibility. You can check that’. The traffic cop became furious and started arguing. After some 5 minutes of argument, we reached for the ‘out of court’ settlement and I got 50% discount on the penalty without receipt. The cops were also happy and must be thanking the judiciary. When it comes to strict implementation of laws on small time offenders, our cops stand next to none.  

When I was going in the multi level park ramps, my mind was thinking about the misplaced priorities of the government. A procession was granted without adequate protection that too on peak hours. Cops were asked to manage the ever increasing traffic without any long sighted vision from the government and planners to improve public transportation. All that the cop can do is to increase the ‘waiting time’ in the signal and create new ‘one ways’.  Road accidents take more life than terror attacks in India. The working middle class who are responsible for the huge upswing of India’s economy spends significant, precious amount of time on roads, but finding the solution for the urban chaos is never the government’s priority. This is not as big as border issue, water dispute and Telegana which cannot be solved.

On the other hand, the citizens of India, has misplaced tolerance limits. They tolerate everything and anything that affects their daily life like grass root corruption in public services, poor physical infrastructure, bad civic amenities but never tolerate even a slightest provocation on their religious/communal quotients, even if it is well within the definition of ‘freedom of expression’. The British Raj introduced ‘divide and rule’ and we are still divided and ruled. Atleast those days, the rulers were intelligent, educated and little sensible. It’s this, misplaced tolerance of the ‘common’ man aka middle class, the politicians use for their advantage. They swindle the money meant for development and come to our streets to distribute ‘biryanis’; They call the country as ‘secular’ but never ever allow the country to become truly liberal and secular sans religion. India with its division, caste based reservation system, reserved constituencies is what they want. That’s the definition of ‘secularism’.

I reached my work station and the headlines evoked my curiosity. It read, “Suggestion to decongest choked cities; introduce congestion tax”. The biggest copycats are our babus and netas who simply copy laws from the west without bothering to do any ground work. Take for instance, London. (From where this concept of congestion tax is copied, I guess). The first metro network in London was commissioned in 1863. 100 years later London government proposed congestion tax to decongest ‘central London’ the CBD area of Greater London. Post several debates and protests, it was finally introduced only in early 2000. This means, after putting in place an efficient public transportation system like metro and improving the ‘last mile connectivity’ the Britain government introduced the congestion tax to dissuade private vehicles from roads. As against this, the first metro in India was introduced in Delhi only in 2002 and still there are many black spots in the city which was not covered by metro. Cities like Chennai are yet to see metro and some confused bureaucrats still keep arguing which public transportation (Metro or Mono) is best suitable for Indian cities. Whether it was the old dynasty rule by our kings or the present ‘modern’ (?)  dynasty rule in the name of democracy, Indians always pioneer in discovering new form of taxes and go on with the tradition of ‘minting spree’, the hard earned money of the common man. Anyways, we have income tax, service tax, wealth tax, education tax, health tax, road tax, property tax, excise duty, customs duty, state level sales tax, central level sales tax and other whole list of holistic hidden taxes. These congestion taxes are never going to deter our enthusiasm for holding candles and protesting near India gate, the only thing which we could do for holding the Indian passport!!!! Happy republic day guys!!!

- Hari