Author's note: This is my debut column for The Viewspaper – an online newspaper and India's largest youth paper.
Money wearing Black! Slack! Without bees or wasps - 'Corruption' - is the buzzword. Right you heard. What is - 'corruption'? Never out of fashion. Can we define it? No treat. Aakhir 'corruption' kis chidiya ka naam hai? What say?
Anna and Baba vow to eliminate it from society. Oh goody! Once and for all! That's tall. Is it doable? Double trouble. Will money leave the classic black and opt for the pristine white? Fight or flight.
Corruption = evasion of taxes. Culprits = the usual suspects. Netalog-policewallahs-businessmen! Ten on ten! Just like Baa, Bahoo aur Baby. But then all that fails to glitter can also be gold. Blow hot and cold.
"Maun-vrat' when injustice happens. 'Coz "silence is golden".
Violence, injustice @ homes, offices, marketplace, malls, public transports, roads. Already bored?
Teachers playing truant during exams! Have an egg with some jam. Better than traffic jam!
Transporters making their presence felt. Svelte!
Shenanigans of our men-in-black and of those who wield the microphone! Gone deaf stone?
Neglect and pull down achievers - as a society. Demo-crazy. It's the beauty of crab mentality!
"Chai-pani" to a peon, clerk, nurse, ward boy, waiter or coolie? Hilly Billy.
Paying hefty donations to 'book' a seat inengineering/medical/management institutes? Puss in Boots!
No tickets issued yet money changes hands. Sheer magic - sleight of hand!
Of dowry and bride burning. No whining. India is shining.
Of rape and molestation - even by close relatives? Theory of relativity, silly! It's all in the jeans you see!
So, even babies, toddlers, the middle aged and the elderly also "asked for it"? You bet, they did!
Swayamvar ahoy! Cast(e) away.
I could go on and on and on.
If honey is kept on someone's tongue is it possible that s/he will not taste it? After all, why 'waste' it?
Chanakya – the Yugpurush (the timeless man) of Kaliyug - the age in which we live - warned against collecting taxes in large proportions. Governments should collect taxes like a honeybee - said he - which sucks just the right amount of honey from the flower so that both can survive.
There's much to learn from the birds, the bees and the flowers, G!
"One must know the nature of beast before trying to tame it," said the wise Mullah Nasruddin. To gain from his wisdom we should be keen.
Periodic brouhaha, TV debates = noise pollution. People with 'funds' should be induced to do something good for society. No hoity toity. No one-time grant. No rant.
Partner with remote villages and hamlets - build and maintain clean toilets for the residents and schools.
Build hospitals/health centers and sponsor the equipments, remuneration and medicines.
Provide fruits, milk and a boiled egg - daily - for the schoolchildren and nourishment for pregnant women.
"They" can do all this and more in their name or that of their forefathers'. The "costs" aren’t great but the benefits are. I swear!
Photograph: Participants at an 'anti-corruption rally' in India. Pic. courtesy link.
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'Chanakya – the Yugpurush (the timeless man) of Kaliyug - the age in which we live - warned against collecting taxes in large proportions. Governments should collect taxes like a honeybee - said he - which sucks just the right amount of honey from the flower so that both can survive.' Very nice example, but not for us, Roshmi!
ReplyDeleteYou are a dreamer, Roshmi! I liked 'Shulabh' toilets when I visited Pune 4 years back. They were very well maintained. If some corporate companies follow that throughout India, it will be nice!
Our Ammma says she is going to do it, let us see!
@ Sandhyaji: I am not a dreamer Sandhyaji but a practical dreamer perhaps :)
ReplyDeleteWhat I have tried to say is that some bill or a few protest marches and sloganeering will not erase or even bring down corruption levels.
We must heed Mullah Naswuddin’s advice, "One must know the nature of beast before trying to tame it."
We must first understand the meaning of 'corruption' and how it happens... the chain reaction, that is.
Dowry, bride burning, torture and domestic violence, harassment, female infanticide and foeticide, gender determination, discrimination on the basis of gender, class, caste, region, community and skin colour, rape and molestation, littering public places, being uncouth, traffic mess, using abusive language, back biting, the mindless rush for medical, engineering or Management seats/education... and a lot more are in our hands. Not that of the big bad netalog, policewallahs or business folks. What?
If we were to change or set right what is in our hands, things will take a turn for the better... and corruption will come down drastically. Make no mistake, 'corruption' can never be eliminated totally, but can surely be decreased. This is something we all must understand.
Liberty we have got but our attitude has not changed a bit, we are still slaves mentally. There is an enemy to be conquered and that enemy is WE. We have to change; we cannot afford to stand frozen on the escalator of mayhem and corruption in revulsion and apprehension.
ReplyDeleteThe problems of the society cannot be solved by just having number of laws all we need are citizen who have respect for law, all we need are young people who have respect for their fellow citizens, all we need are teachers and parents who will consider making good and moral citizen rather than making a brigade of uneducated degree holders.
This poem of Gurudev Ravindra Nath Thakur truly reflects the vision of a great nation
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee to ever-widening thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake....
@ Sunil: True. Though I wonder when that will happen ... and if at all it will ever happen.
ReplyDeleteYet it will not and should not deter us from doing whatever we can for our families, society and motherland :)