Why do I want to continue writing??!!

Well, very small mundane facts define me. I continue writing with the intention of adding a bit bigger facts to define me. I write not with the intention to outwit others’ claim to similar bit more bigger facts. Self justification is one of the easiest things coming to our nature. We justify even the worst of our deeds. I write to justify the inherent tendency in me to survive as a professional writer. Not that I cannot do something else to earn my bread and butter. I definitely can! And I am doing in fact! But you know there is a piously whispering cooing of the real self that eggs me on to still keep on trying to give my writing a platform.

Coming from that part of the north Indian countryside, where literature will be the last thing on anybody’s mind, where agriculture is culture itself, I am the black sheep that is trying to get out of the herd to make this most unlikely career for anybody coming from Jat land or synonymously buffalo land. Well on the down slope of youth, more than once I have abandoned the dream of full time writing. Many a time I have realized my limitations as a writer. Still many more times I have felt myself a victim of the forces beyond my control. Today when I get up again to try again to get a slippery foothold I can very well hear the anticipating whispering of the inherent voice again.

I fought for the most prestigious civil services positions in India. Fought decently well as well, given my own limitations and more importantly the literary limitations of the socio-cultural unit I come from. The more I worked harder, the more distant became the goals. I saw the worst of politico-bureaucratic-judicial game. When I finally fell my inner voice told me, it is more on account of the system’s failure than my own. So I have my sips of justice in the form of the inner thumbs-up by my soul.

Every time I fell, deeper were the analytical impressions on the neurons of my brain; graver were the bruises on heart. If nothing more, it gave me the mood and inclination to write. Still I am fighting for my take away. My reward! I do not want it at the cost of somebody more deserving. I am not into comparison. We can compare just simple tangibles. How can we compare life’s thousand catapults that all of us get uniquely, single handedly!

I am not taking writing in life as a competition, but as a fate’s lottery pot, wherein somebody will walk out with a smile. Having full faith in the fates’ evaluation, if I build a platform to support my writing, I would also prefer to walk away with a broad smile!

Wishing myself and others best of luck!

Why most of the AAP MLAs can be easily farmed for fraudulent charges!?

NCR saw unprecedented real estate boom for two decades. It created a niche class of property dealers who used muscles, politico-bureaucratic links and a tendency to look over the small hedge of legalities, to become really rich. In the same chain of development, there were contractors or thekedars who climbed the ladder of prosperity very smoothly by stage-managing things at many levels. At the state level, the moment a property dealer or contractor gets to a level wherein he can afford to loiter around after political guns in the area in his SUV with a bunch of ideal thugs, he jumps into the political bandwagon. These new political hatchlings mostly join the regional outfits because the latter have very strong identity based politics for the local population.

Over the last two decades Delhi got its rich share of crorepatis. They had achieved all. Every rich Indian inherits a political tendency. So these newly rich politically ambitious group of people either sneaked into the BJP or the Congress. Political representation but has severe limitations in comparison to the huge number of newly-rich persons eyeing legislative assemblies. Arvind Kejriwal smartly smelt the political hunger in this big section of newly-rich contractors and property dealers. To help him in raising his political party these left-out political aspirants were in a position to donate crores for his cause. From personal experience I can recall very decent sized queues of crorepatis seeking ticket for contesting assembly elections. They donated like anything. Arvind Kejriwal had his huge box of money full to run his newly-formed party in a corporate manner. Inside the room he was filling his coffers with money from these newly wealthy cherubs; at the public platform he was always ensnaring the poorest of the poor through his politics of symbolism in the form of same jersey, same old car, same muffler, and what not. Tsunami type victory, carried by this hollow symbolism and less of substance, propelled all and sundry, raw, immature crorepatis and even social activists to legislative seats. But very rarely can the paths from contractorship, property dealing and even social activism (mostly as a profession) avoid illegalities. Its proofs we can see as one after another AAP MLA is found guilty of provable indiscretion. With proper case studies into the history of these MLA hatchlings, many more can be easily put in the dock!!

Hope BJP and Congress are listening! Or BJP will allow AAP to grow to some manageable size, because AAP’s growth is only at the cost of the Congress. Both AAP and Congress are into the politics of symbolism that pacifies and pampers the bruises of those deprived socially, politically and economically. Congress ruled for six decades with hollow symbolism that was ultimately recognized as the poorest of the poor remained the same and its Ministers broke all records of corruption. As a new born baby that is yet to get its skin tainted with sunburns, AAP is trying to shift Congress loss to its favour. One school of theoreticians even says that the BJP will not totally wipe away Kejriwal. Despite best political brand management, the traditional BJP vote bank has remained the same. So now the effort seems to divide the non-BJP votes!!    

A small sip of inspiration!!

He is in his early eighties now. Robust old man! Definitely a sort of
achiever at the property front! More so against the fact that when he
and his family escaped from the blooded Pakistani soil at the
partition time, after losing loved ones and all property, they were
even poorer than beggars. He started earning for the family at the
tender age of 8 only. Then graduated onto become a truck driver and
ultimately a transporter. His struggles took him to all corners of the
country in all types of circumstances. I asked him about the guiding
philosophies in his life. There was a light in his old, dim eyes:
'This fellow trucker of ours was really poor. All his worth was
invested in this old truck. We were going in a convey in north east.
His vehicle was carrying jaggery. The thing got toppled into a hole.
It was damaged and jaggery all over the place. Fortunately he and his
helper boy came out with bruised on skin. But I knew he was carrying
bigger scars in his heart because that truck was all he had in the
name of property. We were just afraid how he will react to it. In fact
we were almost speechless so far as paying lip service is concerned.

He just sat at a stone and cast a sad look at the damaged truck. In a

very normal tone he called his helper, "Oye yaar jo hona tha ho gaya.
Ab rone ka kya fayada. Bhookh lagi hai puttar. Bring me some lumps of
jaggery and water. Bad ki bad me sochenge. Pahle bhojan to kar le."
Saying this he invited all of us into the feast as well.'
This is what is all about life buddy. It is no use crying over spilt
milk. We have to ensure the show continues. Whatever is left after a
storm is truly what belongs to us. We have to proceed with the journey
with the depleted resources. Well, a journey is after all a journey
fella! It is not justified that we expect all the pomp, show and
regalia to accompany us till the end. As Pan Singh Tomar said: 'One
has to complete the race! Winning and losing does not mater. All we
can do is just try to reach the finish line!'

Rabbit can beat Cobra!

Rabbit can beat Cobra!
Yes, it is possible! Provided the rabbit gives only that much against
Cobra as it would in a deadly fight against a fellow rabbit for the
girl rabbit. The crux of the matter is: All routined results and
consequences are born of the meek acceptance of certain facts, i.e., a
rabbit has to die or run away while faced with a snake. Even the snake
attacks a rabbit under the instinctive presupposition that the rabbit
has to get scared and get defeated. The rabbit on its part is most of
the times driven to the extent of heart failure at the sight of a
snake.
 
I saw a documentary in which these roles were turned topsy-turvey by
the characters. A snake attacked a rabbit in a field. At the first
strike the rabbit jumped back. Conventionally the snake should have
been running after the scared creature, but the latter struck back. It
was sufficient to break the snake's surety about the weaker status of
rabbit. It went on backfoot. After this it was a sheer comedy. The big
snake was running for life, while the brave rabbit was jumping at its
tail all the way. Moral of the story is: If despite being bothered
about what lies in our face, we just give as much as in the face of
some equal opponent, we can turn the tables on mightily weightier
people, animals, situations and problems. The condition is just this:
We have to give our best shot irrespective of the status of what
confronts us.
 
Following the same principle a brave girl was seen heartfully slapping
a fierce looking rascal. Believe me I have never seen such plain, hard
slapping in real life! The rascal just did some mischief under the
presumption that this rosy creature will not be in a fighting position
against his rowdy appearance and he will go scot free even after
infringing on her modesty. Unfortunately, this is what normally
happens in real life. So the idiot was driven into misadventure by
this blind presupposition. But man what repercussions! The brave lady
just gave her best as she would have given against a fellow girl in a
catfight. Amazing! He just stood spellbound under the shower of her
slaps. It was just like watching a stony man being slapped
effortlessly. Man, he was not even raising his hands to save his
imperiled cheeks. Almost hypnotized! It was a great fun though!

Modi Sir, Congress is yet to be defeated!

We are lucky to have an un-politician type Prime Minister of India. Narendra Modi’s administration in Gujarat fetches him enough credit points to be taken as an administrator first and a politician second. The new educated generation has high hopes from him. Right from the evening of May 16 when election results were declared Modi has been busy like a true son of mother India and has started drawing the roadmap for a better India for majority of the Indians. We don’t have any reason to be skeptics regarding his capability to take India ahead on the path of multi-dimensional progress.

But there is a roadblock that might face Modi when he again fights for another innings in 2019. It is born of a certain Congress legacy. All of us do agree on taking Congress and Corruption as synonymous. And rightly so! But decades of Congress-type mis-governance ensured that the very roots of the tree got corrupted to the core. 

Corruption is not just about 2G Spectrum, Commonwealth Games and Coal Block distribution; it is also about common Indians’ belief that without shortcuts nothing can be done. It generates a mentality that does not consider the shortcuts or the typical Indian jugadbaji as the means and mechanism of corruption, but the simple convenient facilitators. People have come to accept the extra costs as additional service charges; officials in various departments have come to consider it as their well deserved unofficial bonus. These officials have set up their budgetary benchmarks to keep their families. Unofficial bonus plays a major part in satisfying this excessive-consumer-lorn mentality. Any cut in this part, which clean governance surely will result into, will find them recalling good old days with nostalgia.

Ask anybody what does government service mean. They will say it is about having safe money, almost no work, and unofficial bonus for the small amount of work that one is supposed to perform officially. For this great facility people pay lump sum amounts to get a government job. Since they start their journey after paying the unofficial bonus to somebody, they also get it back when they get the governmental  chair. But Modi-style governance will mean full work and no bonus. That will find millions of government vallahas shaking their head in disapproval. Some of my friends are government teachers in Delhi. Their academic enthusiasm found them supporting Kejriwal vigorously. Straightaway Kejriwal talked of more effort by the idling government teachers. They were asked to stay in school for couple of extra hours daily to cover up the massive loopholes in public education system. Immediately their faces got shrunk. They started abusing Kejriwal and accepted their blunder in supporting him. So millions of public sector workers and their dependents will always prefer Congress-type work culture and governance. It will be very difficult to convince these guys in 2019 that the work they are being asked to perform without the unofficial bonus is a contribution to nation building.

Congress and its constituents abused power. But they were really kind in allowing it to be abused by anybody to the lowest rung. India is a free country in every sense. One can defecate by roadside, one can spit anywhere, one can cross red lights, one can call the prime minister a clown, one can molest women, etc., etc. Good governance will find things falling in place and people feeling cheated and that their wings have been clipped. Manmohan government had a bad reputation and they allowed anybody to throw jibes in media in whatever form one wanted. The top office in the country has lost its dignity. Modi will definitely try to get it back. But then people will start calling him a dictator. Even poor Manmohan will earn few credit points for being very lenient and allowing even beggars in Delhi to throw obscenities in his name.

Sum and summary is Congress leaves a ghost. Congress might be out of the seat, but it still survives in spirit in millions of Indians who are in a comfort zone based on the old mindset and its profits. Rectifying things in full vigor might see Indian infrastructure improving, but Modi losing votes as well. How long Modi can inspire people to come ahead for building the nation. It is bloody massively populated country. For one chapati there are ten claimants. At this level people cannot see the world beyond their home and hearth. So Modi’s nationalistic agenda might see India progressing in infrastructure, but at the cost of massive indents in his popularity since Congress is ruling India in terms of work culture, narrow mentality and unofficial bonus!!   

Getting 335 seats in Parliament is no guarantee that whole of India has given go ahead to the green signal of nation building. It is very easy to shout as a part of crowd baying for revolution. But it is far more difficult to come out of the self-centered zone and contribute extra for the nation in lieu of the same rewards. It is very easy to excite voters into a frenzy; but far more difficult to turn these frenzied zealots into responsible and self-governing citizens. Ask people to take extra responsibilities and their faces will shrink. I think already we have millions of shrunk faces because public sector will now be open for six days a week. I have already heard many babus lamenting why did they voted for a particular party. Mother of all political evils, the Congress, may still have something to smile about!!