How many pages will you be able to fill if I give you ten days, money and facilities to scoop up as many 'minister' or 'politician' jokes as you can? How many people will be prepared to write on a subject (if it was ever created here on MS) saying ''Parody on Indian Government'' or ''10 best Indian Government Jokes''?
Hundreds!
Nothing, nothing should make us angrier, more dissappointed and distressed than this attitude of ours. Nothing should make us feel more ashamed than our policy of 'practical living' of staying aloof and minding our own business and leaving the rest to the world. Nothing should make us feel less of humans and more of eunuchs than this 'practical' approach. We deserve to all be collectively emasculated and thrown on the roadside to die of blood loss if we can stand up to joke and jest and humor about the way this country has been running, about the people who rule us, about the people who run the government of the country. The government of our country is potentially the single most influential agent in changing the way people live. And the government of India is an office where the concept of 'responsibility' must be interpreted and implemented to the superlative. But what is the true situation?
Think about this.
The 'minister' is supposed to be a very high-ranking servant of the country. The job of the minister is to primarily work hard to eradicate the problems of the people who made him minister. Here the minister, if he has some sensibility, will realize that becoming the minister is absolutely no proof of his superiority over the masses. He, as a minister, exists because the masses voted for him. It is like saying that the human being is superior to oxygen. If we assume that oxygen had an ego, then saying that oxygen is inferior would be suffocating oneself willingly!
Yet, we find all politicians in the air of being rulers or superior beings.
How many ministers and MLAs occupy their seats to do good work? How many of them are there to serve the people? How many of them wake up every morning, wash their face, look into the mirror and remind themselves that the coming day has been given to them by God to work in the office given to them by the People to serve the poor, the needy, the hungry, the ill and the deprived?
None!
Election has become a competition which they win. it's all about getting to that office. Mind you, the election is no competition that you're supposed to win. It's the process of delegating the responsibility of governance to the most able. Or to that guy who's going to muck it up the least... Do our politicians remember that?
I hardly think so...
The parliament has become a circus of egoes. It has become a gamble of issues. The one who slams in the bid of the most complicated issues gets to pamper his ego (and consume public money) the most. The idea of an 'opposition' party has got distorted. Either the opposition party is sunk, dead and gone like the BJP is today, or it is like the Congress was during the NDA rule-- a spanner in the engine party. The job of the opposition is to caution the center of the drawbacks of its decisions and proposals-- not oppose them in anything. But Sonia would stand up with plugs in her hand the moment Vajpayee decided to inhale. What sort of politics is this?
Chautala has 1400Cr. worth of illegal assets it seems. Laloo Yadav was chargesheeted. Natwar Singh is caught in some problem. During the NDA rule, their ministers and officials had their fare share of allegations proven/unproven. How in the world is our country going to go anywhere if we have THIS CRAP ruling us?
Look at them, just look at them! It is alarming. And I feel ashamed of myself, terribly ashamed. How can we treat the sorry and sad state of affairs of the Government of our country as a matter of joke and jest? It is a question of a billion people, three quarters of whom are poor, uneducated, ill, hungry, uncared for and dying by the dozens. It is a question of lacs and lacs of women who have no access to the pen and paper, no access to proper health care and food. It is about lacs and lacs of people in our country who haven't even got their feet on even the first wrung of the development ladder.
I regret, today, having joked about the way things are going on. It is not a question of joking. The statistics we spell out are dark and depressing every year. Things aren't getting as much better as we want them to get. They're getting marginally better, at best, sometimes not going anywhere and in a lot of cases, getting worse. It's not a matter of joke.
It's not that I can do anything about it today. I don't know if I can do anything about it tomorrow. But as a sensible and sensitive individual, I can at least observe austerity and solemnity about these issues. I may become a joke in soceity for being naive and foolishly idealistic, but I can at least try to be!
You know what? We middle-class people fuk our country and throw it naked on the street with our 'practical' approach to life. The days when the 'practical' approach was needed are gone. We need crazy people who're ready to do crazy stuff to help others. We need mad men. We need romantic and idealistic idiots who're ready to let their families go into ruin for the sake of helping people. We need impractical, inapplicable and completely insane generosity. We need crazy people. We need to go mad about the problem.
Because if we don't, then we're going to have to go mad about a lot of other reasons in the future. And, guess what? Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to feel happy when that happens.
Oh lord...
It's so cool typing this sermon down and getting a review done out of it. It's likely that some of you will feel some sort of respect for my sentiment. But what was the result? Am I going to inspire anyone here to go crazy about helping the poor? I hardly think so. Is this a sort of a vow on my part to go crazy about helping the poor? is this how I declared my life's missions? I hardly think so. Such e-mails, forwards and sermons remain what they are... momentary surges of sentiment, which have no value in real terms.
Well, if this is how we are going to be, if this is how I am going to be, if this is how Laxman Phansalkar, and a million Laxman Phansalkars out there, is going to be, then there is no reason for anyone to feel surprised that murders and rapists become ministers and exploiters and goons get to represent their people in the houses of parliament. There is absolutely nothing to be surprised about it.
It's something like this... We all know too much sex is immoral. But we keep fuking anyway... It's something like that. We know our country is going into the ruins because EVERY GODDAMED PERSON in the country--you, me, me, and me, everyone-- is responsible in a very DIRECT way to the state of affairs. All we do is sigh and shrug it off.
Ah...
But of course, is their any denying that our country is greater than any other country in the world?
If we call life an irony, let's now try bothering about who created life. And let's try bothering who created the idiotic ironies.
Let me also give you a hint about it.
You and I did.
Fuk!
Sincerely,
Laxman
