For a few good men

Yesterday, the nation was numbed with a 13000 crores scam involving one of its largest government owned banks. The bank claimed that 2 lowly staff working on their own, over 4 or 5 years, helped out one big business family to siphon of money equivalent to a eighth of the mammoth banks net worth.

It was only last week that our beloved Prime Minister rolled out what would eventually become the world's largest health-care insurance programme for the poor. The annual allocation for this programme, hold your breath, is just about one tenth of the swindled amount!!

For generating 13000 crores in cash, one hundred crore Indians would have to work for two days. Two lowly accountants in a mammoth bank have given that away to two big diamond traders!!

I don't know what hurts more, the anger with the system that either did not identify or colluded for over many years to keep this shady dealings going or the fact that it seems so easy to vanish with the hard earned money of millions in this country! I don't know. Though I  have no answers to this one, I keep asking myself why we have such a huge dearth of a few good men. I know that this is the age of Kali. I am aware that mother nature stands on the last of her four legs. I also know that every waking day, that one last standing leg is being hit upon by rods of adharma and irreligion, but O Vasudev, this is so painful a time to live in. The soul is in perpetual mourning at what is being done to your favorite bharatvarsh.

I remember what was told to Parikshit Maharaj... That howsoever powerful the time of Kali is, it is perpetually powerless against every human being with a strong moral fibre. Each individual matters. Each one of us are individually more powerful than the entire might of the demoniac army of looters and cheaters. Each one of us is a bramhan, each of us a plenary portion of the Supreme.

Let's together rediscover the goodness enshrined in us again and work together to make this a truly great country. Aham Brahmasmi.

The Car Wars

The car had been there with me for about 4 years. It's a very white, very proper car. Looks good on the road. I keep it clean, and in turn, it makes me look good in it. There is an agreement. I keep you, you keep me.

In the past four years, the car has been bruised about 8 times. The wound is generally attended to in a day, with a lot of sensitivity and care. Akbar, my close friend, is one of the best denter painter in town. He talks to the car, and the car allows Akbar to heal it.

There are other cars on the road. Rogue cars. Cars that try to run down this car. Cars that jump signals and come crashing on this car's fenders. Cars that overtake on steep turns and force this car on to strange walls. The car has been assaulted eight times. The car protests each time. It protests with a strange silence that follows each assault. I think the car talks to Akbar of how it feels. With me, it is silent.

Victims of an inhuman race of rogue cars on indian roads, I think the car and I share the same indignity of being, by just being on the road. In each assault, I and the car is united in our agreement. You hurt, I hurt. We both go to Akbar.

Of the Fallen and the Forgotten

An old woman, poorly dressed, with no gold on her, was hit by a motorist while crossing the busy road near my office. The road is about 50 meters wide. There are no zebra Crosses anywhere near, no cop, no red light, no underpass, nothing. The chances of her crossing the road alive was always bleak. She just did not know it. She was not from the time when there were a million cars on the road and driving license were issued like guns in the US.

The car that hit her did not even get to see her. The driver was busy overtaking a transport bus from the wrong side. The bus had slowed down for her to cross, the car ended her mid road journey forever. Just another sacrifice to the altar of the great Indian Road God with a million heartless, insensitive, resource hungry, barely controlled, Talibans as followers. They jump lights, run motorists down, run over pedestrians, speak, text and brush their teeth while driving. They chase ambulances but never give way to one.

The Road God also finds followers in our governments, our courts, and our law. Roads are poorly lit, roads have encroached upon pavements, and roads have open manholes and temples and tombs and gandhiji doting the sides, and the center and wherever whoever wills.

The death and maiming by accidents in India is far more ghastly  than death by tobacco or cancer or any other epidemic. And the killers run amock, in service of the Road God.

Someone's grandma died on the road that day. As I watched her sacrificial blood run down the road, with tires running over it, passing it on to other tires and other roads, I knew that it will be some time before the 108 guys reach here. Two policemen lifted her body from the road and placed it next to a shop side. There was a moment for which the traffic slowed down, before it continued its march to claim its next victim.

Happy Driving India.

Ishwar Allah Aur Khana!

The soul of the poor have always been up for sale. Give me food and I will allow you to call me by any name. Show me a future far away from the sloth and drudgery of my living; then point me to whatever God is dear to you...he will then on be my God.

I can feed on a Bible full of pulses, I can grow old in a madrassa as long my children finds shelter and I can dance to Krishna as long as you don't get my little daughter raped by the landed goons.

Hey Ram!

For the India of my dreams

An auto driver earns about 350 to 400 Rupees each day he plies his auto. However, very few children of auto drivers complete schooling and reach college. By the time his children are in 8th grade, his earnings are no longer commensurate to his expense, and he is not qualified for credit.

A sweeper with the local municipality gets about 150 Rupees per day. Paid out on a monthly basis, to his bank account. Most children of municipal sweepers, beat constables, government drivers, postmen, mail guards etc., will go on to reach a notch higher in their lives than their parents. Unlike the auto drivers kids whose fortunes will swing like a yoyo between bursts of jackpots and stretches of hunger, the municipal sweepers kids will eat low nutrition rice and rasam, but they will have something to eat everyday of their young lives.

Poverty is a complex state of existence. I have seen it widely splattered across my country's diverse fabric. It stains the very soul of our motherland and is an immense strain on its conscience. As the law makers of my country hurry to change our so called archaic laws, I want them to pause and think before they strike out any age old provision.

I once worked as a plantation manager. Plantations are like small Towns of about 10 thousand people. Each one of their lives are connected intrinsically with a small safe in the managers' office. As long as there is money in there, there is food, there is credit, there is future. A labor strike would rarely live beyond seven days. The management run school, creche and dispensary or hospital will shut down on the first day. Water supply and power backup dries out by second day. From the seventh day onwards, the local traders would stop giving stuff on credit to workers family. On the eighth day, kids will come from school and ask the worker if they could afford next month's fee. On the ninth day, the wife will ask the worker....do you think I should sell the little gold we bought from last years' bonus? On the tenth day, workmen would assault either a trade union leader or a management representative. Everything is connected. If the money in the safe dries up, women turn to prostitution, and kids take to petty crimes to feed themselves.

If our auto driver meets with an accident or has indigestion or takes a slightly longer break... His story will be no different.

It is not the big salaries that help the poor climb out of poverty, it is the promise of sustainable income and the social security that the erstwhile laws mandated. Unlike modern day sez's that pay four times what the plantations paid, but provide no housing, no schooling, no hospital, no creche, no water supply; traditional Factories Act mandates that you set up a town where successive generations will ensure that the factories survive and so does the town and its people. SAIL, TATA STEEL, DRDO, NMDC, HINDALCO, BHILLAI STEEL PLANT, TATA COFFEE, HARRISONS MALAYALAM...the names of large institutions that gave India thousands of educated professionals is a long list. Children of steel workers, telecom workers, coal workers...going on to become directors and chairmen of the largest corporations in the world is long.

Modiji, before you change any law, study how it will impact the grandchildren who are yet to be born. Poverty takes at least three generations to eliminate. Don't try to feed one at the cost of those that are yet to come.

Murderers All!

Are we too big to manage? Are we too busy to care? Or is it a matter of competence? Are no rights vested into a new born? Is the state not responsible to ensure that the child born to every mother in this country is healthy and has a fair chance to come out alive? Is this right not vested in the unborn child and the mother who carried the child in her womb? Is not the State a custodian of both the Child and the mother? And when the mother is malnourished and the kid still-born, why is the state not accused of Infanticide? Each year, my government kills more mother and child than all of world’s terrorists put together!

When I drive on the road, am I not entitled to a road with signages and fences? A road that does not suddenly run into a ditch without warning, a road where cows, buffaloes and villagers do not squat right in the middle? The government that allows Pajeros to be sold also allows the highways to be devoid of signages, devoid of policing and devoid of maintenance. More deaths happen on Indian roads that in the bloody drug wars of Latin America. Should the government not be booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder?

When the weak and the vulnerable are exploited in every corner of this country, their pleadings are heard at our highest courts every day. And then its falls silent. The labyrinthine judiciary of India, through its heartless delays and sheer lack of accountability, has together with the legislature, ensured that the poor die poorly, unheard, unsung, uncelebrated, nameless, and often, even before being born. Ask me and I will tell you what will happen to the kids of Rickshaw Pullers, Rag Pickers and the Street Sex Workers. They will all die, just as they were born. I will never know who is actually accountable for the death of a jay walker who was crossing a 6 lane national highway and was stuck down by a SUV which was trying to avoid running into a truck, which itself was trying to avoid falling into a ditch for fear of breaking an axle. And then the truck and the Pajero, along with its inmates are set on fire by locals, as a crude justice to the death of a drunken jay walker.

Living in this country is Kafkaesque.

This Winter

For the past week I have been moving around Patna by rickshaws. The chill in the air has steadily increased. I always ask the rickshaw pullers how they manage to survive the winter. Earlier they used to speak about sleeping under the flyovers or near the ATMs. Lately, there is an awkward silence that follows my question. It is almost as if they are dredging their souls to come up with an honest answer.

Gareeb hain sahab..... they murmur pensively. The older ones clam shut. This might be that one winter where the frost will finally snuff out their little remaining life of strife and struggle.

I called the district magistrate on his landline. I then went on to speak to the most insensitive arse hole I have had an occasion to speak to. I told him that the homeless are going to drop dead any day now. I asked him to inform the magistrate that blankets need to be issued on priority and firewood supplied for bonfires. He asked me to write an application and submit. He said that blankets will be given once the National Disaster Management guys have supplied them.

Sir...the poor are about to die. Sir......

My fellow readers, please remember that your country is full of incredibly poor people and their plight rarely gets heard among us. We are busy talking about Khobragade and her cavity search. Try in your own little ways to change the conversation.

Blankets and firewood is cheaper than digging graves and paying pandits.

Of the Lordships and the lesser ones

Somewhere down the ages, it seems, someone planted this amazing thought into the minds of the laity, that like the priests in the parishes, the judges of courts in civil societies are somehow connected to divinity, dispense divine justice and hence, are beyond the mortal realm of normal beings. It almost seems that there are born of immaculate conception and have been preordained. They're are not one among us. They are from a breed not touched by the original sin and hence, they cannot be sinners!

Sad it is for a country which once had women powerful enough to curse Krishna himself with a curse powerful enough to ultimately lead to his demise, we have Lordships who cannot even be asked how they go about electing their own brethren. An ordinary washerman five thousand years ago could walk into the court of worlds most powerful emperor and slander on his face. Today, it is contempt.

I live in a nation that treats its citizen differently on the basis of caste, creed, religion, ethnicity and financial status. The vegetable vendors kids go on to become vegetable vendors, not doctors and engineers. In this milieu, the only saving grace I have is that I am born a man and not a woman. Their struggles are beyond my comprehension.

This Diwali Buy Diyas

Badri Kumhaar has struck a good deal with Tunna Pehalwaan. Badri will get six tractor loads of soil at 3000 rupees. In turn Badri plans to make three thousand diyas and hope that you and me will buy it this Diwali.

Buy handmade goods from small craftsmen and traders. The Walmarts of this world will survive, but for Badri's of this world it might mean one more season of food. Each Diya you buy from roadside actually adds to the joy of a poor household. Imagine a time when there will be no potters, just because you never bought diyas.

The money in your pocket is an amazing instrument of Social change. Spend it wisely.

Buy diyas this Diwali. Spread the joy.

Smelly Currency Notes

I love crisp brand new currency notes but I love the used ones more. My favorite are the small denominations that smell awfully bad. Every now and then I come across one that smells of fish and I hold it close to my nose to breathe-in the smell. And then, I hold it close to my heart in prayer before safely tucking it away into my wallet.

Smelly notes have a beautiful story to tell. Its the tale of some poor fisherman's family having earned enough to to have held this note for long enough before they exchanged it for some goods or service. A daily wage earner may have held this note in his sweaty grimy hands as wages against his hard days' labor. A waiter in a roadside coffee shop would have earned it as a tip or maybe, somebody would have paid that unkept beggar this money in charity.

May there be more currency notes that smell of fish. May the wheels of world economy spin at a rate that helps all of us win and especially the poor survive.

Am I not your Allah's child as well?

I was passing by a crowded street today afternoon. I have been out of my house for over 9 months now. Traveling across the country working on various projects and trying to keep the hearth burning. I have also been away from my little lamp and miss lighting it everyday morning. I miss the smell of incense sticks, and I miss the cleaning up.

When you travel a lot, you feel homeless, as if you have been abandoned in the high seas with no ore and no rudder. Even the sails, it seems, have failed me.

It is in this frame of mind that I saw a grand mosque by a Bangalore roadside. I had a strange pull from inside. I wanted to stop right there, walk in, and after washing my face hand and leg, offer Namaz in my own Hindu wallah fashion. I could feel that someone waits for me in there. It is the same force that I carry deep within, it is the one that waits for me at home and guides me through this homeless wandering phase of my life. I could hear HIM speaking to me. I have heard this voice before. Rumi sang about him, Bollywood sings about him. Allah the merciful is no stranger to me. For those who believe they know HIM personally, you can ask HIM about me. My name is not Khan but I am still HIS child. Just as he answers to you, he answers to me. In HIS abode, my name does not matter.

I did not enter the mosque. I am distrustful of my cousins, there is too much enmity and it had been there for too long. Each day I hear that they have killed some more of my family and some from my family have killed theirs. The river that flows between us two families have been bloodied for too long. This is the truth that we failed to read in the Mahabharata. Sons of same forefathers killing each other.

This one is for Lallan

It was not expected to rain that day. I had finished some meetings and wanted to desperately get back to our guesthouse when the rain caught me unaware. Getting down from an auto, I promptly darted to the nearest rickshaw. My bald head is not accustomed to summer rain, and since there was little support from above, I was slowly getting wet below.

How much for a quick drop to xyz? Saab, barish ho raha hai, aap baithiye, jo denge le lenge. (Sir, its raining. You sit and make yourself comfortable. Whatever you give, I will take). His response affected me at multiple levels that evening in Patna. I did not expect this kind of kindness from a rickshaw puller. Can the poor be kind too, asked my English education and blackberry life! So I got on a rickshaw on a rainy evening in Patna and the rickshaw puller started pedaling. He was getting wet while I was saved from the showers. Something clicked in me. I wanted to know more about such people, who lived very different lives than mine.

So how much do you earn in a day?
There are no guarantees sir. Some days nothing.
What do you mean nothing?
There are days when no one choses a rickshaw, they go by autos. And there are days when I am not healthy enough to pedal.
Where do you live? Is it some slum somewhere?
Sir, I sleep in the corridor of Canara Bank. We cannot afford shelter in cities.
How much do you save?
Very little. When you don't have a place to sleep, you learn to spend what you earn, else, someone will rob you when you are sleeping!

By this time, I had reached my destination. As I got down, the rain was still falling but it did not feel as if it were an issue. I gave a considerably big tip and wished him luck. As I was moving into our premises, he called me back and said something I still never forget.

He had that big note I gave in his hand and he said..."sir, once I had land and a happy life. And then my youngest son fell ill. After which, my wife fell ill. I sold my land and spent seven lac treating them. Both live and my sons will soon be doing ok. My ship is going through turbulent times, but I will reach the shores sir. One day, I will reclaim my life again. Thank you for your kindness."

This short encounter had changed something in me forever. I hope it helps you in some ways as well. The next time a rickshaw guy haggles for an additional 10 rupee, give it to him with love. It is the amount that might help him go through this unforgiving life for one more day. You never know.

Of Toilets and Streetlights

Add a million streetlights and you would have a thousand crime less a day. Make that pot bellied best constable actually do a beat and fire the SP who does not go out on night patrol, you will have another ten thousand or so of crime a day knocked off. Build a million toilets and another five hundred rapes of women answering natures call out there in the open will end. Install high end cameras across highways and arm the toll booths and most criminals will have no place to run.

Allow court sittings to be held on Skype and working days of his and her lords and ladyship should be just the same as any other government servants, publish quarterly report card of all advocates in ever bar... How many cases closed, how many won, how many lost and what is the average time taken for closure and then we will have no backlogs. Make railway stations work like airports and half of hawala deals will vanish.

Is all this possible in India? Yes, but a millennia later. Its not possible today because too many interconnected dots that make modern societies what they are is missing. If you do not have schools only coaching institutes, if you don't have teachers but a million lowly paid workers who landed the job because it was the only job they could get, if the most important interfaces of civil society, its police, its lawyer, its doctor, its health worker, its engineer and its priest does not inspire confidence and is looked down with contempt, we will have the kind of society that is India of today. Lawless, headless, clueless.

Add to that, you have a tame president who promptly signs any legislation that nullifies Supreme Court driven directives. A politician should not contest from jail says the court, not necessarily says the legislature. There was a time when we used to believe in a Messiah. We thought someone will come and stop this country from exploding from within. Today, not one citizen has such a stupid hope. Soon, this sheer anarchy will result in blatant lawlessness, the kind that made lord Krishna doom the yaduvamsam forever. When there is no politician doctor lawyer policeman or teacher to spit on, we will spit on each other.

Or someone can begin by lighting up the fu$*ing streets, one city at at time.

The Stupid Lady on a Nano

I recently read the Nanologues. A book by an amazingly enterprising phirang who traveled the length of this country on a Nano. It is an interesting read. She carefully dodges the acute unpleasantness that white women face in our country and leaves us readers with an amazing sense of relief. She was neither raped nor robbed, no one slashed her with a blade and she did not face an acid attack. She might have been disrobed by lecherous eyes, but she chose not to speak about it. She did her 10K ride, met Ratan Tata and wrote a book.
For me it was an amazing experience reading the short notes on her travel. Her initiative speaks so much of her courage and her ability to take risks that it is frankly beyond normal. She is insane. Probably the Lord Ganesha that she installed on her Nano dashboard saved her from the utter gutter that we have turned India into. The December 16th rape case is still in court. Justice for two hours of absolute misdeed takes over a year to deliver. Where is redemption? What will ever change, and how, and more importantly, who? Who will lead the change? Maybe it will start with one Indian soldier deciding that our enemies are no longer on our borders.

There is a ulta ginthi that has begun somewhere. Once this countdown is over, it will not be a Mahatma Gandhi who walks down the aisle of redemption. We are the sons and daughters of Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh as well. There is no telling how the future will unfold.

Truncated Memories

For the young Indian, hearing from our stupid politicians that Kashmir is an integral part of India may sound repetitive. If some one were to turn back and ask why? Why should Kashmir be a part of India? I am sure that a lot of us will get stumped. There is a reason for this surprise. The reason is pretty simple. For over three decades our pseudo intellectuals have been propagating a definition of secularism which is extremely narrow. It does not include what remains of an ancient culture. It does not include the very fabric that defines Indian-ness. It does not include the Hindus. Kashmir is the land of our Rishis. It is the land where our all powerful lord of the himalayas walks and lives.

In every cave and every shrine of Kashmir there is a story hidden behind layers of militant Islam. The story of indigenous people of Kashmir. Their culture and practices are different. Their ceremonies are different. The lineage of their saints are different. They are not children of foreign gods. They are children of Gods as old or older than the ones we know. Kashmir is the land where ancient scriptures mentioning the life and death of Jesus is kept, where the supreme Rishi is not Muhammad, but Shiva. Letting Kashmir go because it is infested by green flaggers is like throwing your baby along with the bath water.

India is an inclusive country. It is every mans home. India is home to numerous religions, cultures, languages, sects, ideologies, and thoughts. There are more incommunicado world leaders living in the streets of Delhi than anywhere else in the world. India welcomes those who are not welcome anywhere else. Indian consciousness, unlike any other consciousness of any nation in this world, has not grown by replacing another religion or thought. We are what we are not because of a millennium of  violence or evangelism, we are like this because this is they way we have been designed. We have been inclusive for over 5000 years. Our subcontinent is very big, and it can hold all of us. This is not a Hindu land, but it is also not a Muslim land or a sikh land or Christian land. This is Bharatvarsh, there is very little of it left to divide. Kashmir is an integral part of India. It was so 5000 years ago, and it will remain so for the next 5000 years. For those who are so intent on dividing this land further, we have already been divided into three in the recent past, leave the big piece behind and move on to Bangladesh or Pakistan. There are about half a million Kashmiris waiting for you to make space for them. These are those whom you have scared away from their homes fifteen years ago.

And then I have two more words to add. For some it may be sacrilege, but for me it is greater than Gayatri Mantr... Vande Matharam.

They Say... Five More are Gone!

Can I steal a bit of sunshine from your eyes,
Can I borrow the Spring from your laughter if I try?

I live in a Country that needs some cheer
For these are times when everything is dear.
And I have my men waiting to get back home
But each night brings me news forlorn
It seems today, another five won't make it on their own.

Can I steal some hope to replace my fears
Can I steal some solace to replace their ma's tears?

No, don't talk about love today
Lets do that another day.
I live in a Country where brothers have been at war for a millennium
I live in a Country where there was never a wrong time
For a good fight.
I just need a voice to let them know
We have never shied away from a good battle
Come Rain or Snow!

Can I steal a bit of sunshine from your eyes,
Can I borrow the Spring from your laughter if I try?
 

Five thousand crazy Indians, and a tricolor catching the wind!

Democracy is a fragile concept. If five thousand young Indians march to the parliament advocating change, unarmed, the nation will hit a short pause. Neither can they be butchered in a la Tianmen Square style nor arrested and bound into trucks. The problem you see is that in democracy, people power is actually quite powerful. Having said that, there are so damn few occasions when five thousands fellow Indians come together!

Nothing stops the honorable courts of India to order the immediate arrest of any hate mongering politician, unless, of course, it is Raj Thackeray, or order the arrest of a chief minister or the home minister for criminal contempt of court... But of course, Akhilesh Yadav cannot be arrested. An IAS officer has been suspended for taking steps detrimental to communal harmony. The IAS officer has gone on record stating that she was simply enforcing an already existing supreme court direction. The IAS association Charlies are making some muted noses akin to a fart. A small draft of wind will blow away these protests. Once you have sold your soul to satan, you cannot kneel before the lord.

All it needs is five thousand crazy Indians to begin a revolution. The courts of this country cannot take on our politicians. Our Justices are human beings, they have children and grand children living ordinary lives. Such risks as taking up a large broom and clearing most of the mess is simply beyond them. Our president is a man from the "system", nothing is expected from that big house. Our defense personnel fight their own internal wars, turf wars, caste wars, succession wars, commission wars, leak wars, honey trap wars, helicopter wars, wife swapping wars, tatra wars and the big ones yet to come, the typhoon wars and the retrofitting wars.

This country is exactly where our politicians wanted it to be. All institutions of governance have failed, the right to life of Indians is brutally assaulted from all fronts on all days, and the mighty ones living in big bungalows are silent. We kill our own children with pesticides, loot or own treasury with arson, allow the poor to die and them talk of Food Security. 4.1 billion dollars have gone out of our markets, our Rupayya will soon get a new denomination, the 1 Lac rupee note! Hey Bhagwan, how can there be such insanity?

Five thousand crazy Indians and one tricolor that catches the wind. And you will have a revolution.

An Indian Spring in Waiting

Thousands of years ago, there were a set of princely states, collectively called Bharatwarsha... the land of Bharatha. It included parts of Iraq, most of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and extended down south to Kerala. Predominantly, there were followers of the Book of Vedas. I am told that to this land was born many Gods of yore. I am told that to be born in this land was the ultimate bliss. To tread the soil of Bharathwarsh was considered to be a sure ticket to nirvana.

All this I learnt from my Grandma, when I was 5 year old. And then they sent me to school where they taught me that Bharatwarsh never existed, it all actually began after the East India Company took charge of these princely states. They taught me that India was a set of princely states, always at war with each other, until Sirdar Vallabhai Patel consolidated them into a Republic. They taught me that our nation had a Father who should capture bigger mind share in marketing parlance, than, lets say, Sri Ram or Sri Krishna, or Jesus Christ or Gautham Buddha. Slowly, my little mind forgot that I belonged to a land innately capable of greatness in face of adversity. I forgot that in this land of Karna, also lived and walked Veer Rana Sangha. I forgot that Goddess Durga, as Shakthi, is more powerful in my nation than all the acid throwing, gang raping, murdering, feudalistic, insensitive, insecure, badly brought up hooligans we call men.

I am nearing 40 and my Grandma is no more with me. Yesterday night I had a dream in which my Grandma came to me. With a hand on my balding head, she whispered a word into my ears. I share that word with all of you. Believe.

Believe that from the ashes of corruption and moral deprivation, a generation of courage and moral fibre will rise again. A generation that will imprison its current keepers of conscience into dungeons of oblivion. From the ashes of my generation, will rise the Phoenix of the next generation. As powerful as Duryodhana in battle, as strong as Karna in Principles, as determined as Arjuna in insight, and as rigid and far sighted as Yuddhishtar in upholding rule of law. The ancient lands where our Gods ones tread are already in boil, soon, that wave will sweep us as well.

We await an Indian spring. I believe... for my Grandma never lied.

Where the Land is without Fear!

According to data compiled after the last general election by National Election Watch and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 162 of the 543 members of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, had criminal cases against them – including serious charges such as rape, murder and kidnapping.

The recent Supreme Court verdict is a good start to bring this sheer mockery of Indian democracy to an end. However, as an ordinary Indian, I believe that this judgement will also meets its muted end soon. The end will come in shape of pseudo intellectuals debating on National TV on its demerits, politicians praising this in public but slowly colluding with each other to kill it through an ordinance or a larger bench or a Presidential reference or any of the numerous ways in which the system is known to take care of its ilk.

The Right To Education Act was a landmark act, and it now has left no mark on this land! The Right To Information (RTI) still remains a very powerful act, however, is now mostly used by mischief mongers to cause trouble to blackmail a susceptible government machinery. The "No Black Glass" judgement added to the revenue of Sunscreen companies in South India and parts of some metros and State Capitals in North India, however, left UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, MP etc., largely untouched!

What we have to understand is that there are large tracts of this country which are natively lawless. The concept of law as being civil to each other and having respect for human life is beyond comprehension of ordinary Indians in lots of places in this country. These are the places were women are raped and burnt and Kangaroo Panchayats stone people to death. In a lot of ways, a lot of places in this country is essentially like Mallala land. This part of the country, together, also populate most of the seats in our parliament.

In HR terms, we have a saying: Garbage in garbage out! Until the very fabric of the society in such places does not become civil and social, such changes as the one the honorable Supreme Court plans, cannot be implemented. Criminals will learn puppetry, and their puppet wives will sit in our parliament!

Perspectives

The afternoon sun rays draws a silhouette on the aisle. The city that lies below is famous for rapes and killing. It is also house to some of the worlds most powerful and corrupt people.

From this height, it is just like any other city. Stacks of termite hills stretching for kilometers. Busy termites gnawing away into the fabric of human ethos, spreading like cancer, unchecked. Slowly killing everything human. Once we are all dead, wonder what they will feed on next!