mp junkets

To the kind attention of our MPs, MLAs, City Corporators, Mayors, Bureaucracy Big Bosses, and other such Seekers of Substance and Knowledge at the exchequer’s expense.

Actually, I need to digress for a bit. That kind attention business (pro forma, I’m given to understand, in all Official communications) is getting on my nerves. It sounds too much like a supplication; more in line with an Animal Farm, some-are-more-equal-than-others, type of democracy. Power is not doing me any favors when it pays attention to my concerns. It’s your job, you  Khas Admi *&^%(^. There is no kindness necessary. We the taxpayers, the Aam Admi, have the right to your full-time attention without having to wait till you have a moment in which to cast a kindly thought our way. We pay you salaries (handsome) which include allowances (Official and otherwise) for which we expect your attention, kind or otherwise.

There, feeling much better now, thank you for asking.

Attention: MPs, MLAs, City Corporators, Mayors, Bureaucracy Big Bosses, and other such Seekers of Substance and Knowledge at the exchequer’s expense. Here’s an idea. Instead of you folks wandering, at 5-Star expense, to far way, and quite incidentally, (I’m sure), salubrious locales, in search of solutions to India’s infrastructural needs, why not bring the managers of those salubrious locales here, to India. I mean, if San Francisco, is managing its waste disposal in a manner that has caught your attention and you think that your constituents can benefit from that expertise, why not invite the manager of that waste disposal system to come to India for a couple of weeks. That way he/she can assess the circumstances live and in color (and, it must be said, odor). That way he/she could see if the methods used to deal with trash in SF, a city with access to vast empty spaces and good roads on which to get to them, could be re-jiggered to accommodate India’s rather more cramped conditions. Surely that would be more efficient than relying on you half hour breakfast meeting with the aide to the mayor if San Francisco. You could, pay an honorarium, to the visiting bureaucrat [n.b. lower case), put her/him in a decent, oh hell, luxurious, paying guest accommodation, provide a driver and an amanuensis, let him/her mingle with us mango folk, learn what can be learned real-time and at the end of his/her sojourn, get a report that you can then submit to your colleagues. I’m sure your colleagues will appreciate the coherence and relevance of that submission, as opposed to the google-search, copy and paste reports you’d be submitting when you return from your, no doubt too exhausting for c&r, junkets. Read the report, or, at least, have it read to you what with you being khas and all and you may actually be able to fulfill your duty to your constituents.

I’m betting that would cost the exchequer far, far less than the cost of hauling your butts and betas around the world.

Kind attention, indeed.

I think about how much the BJP-RSS folks  remind me of the way that the Cheney-Rove-Fundamentalist  Posse worked their mojo, to such self serving, not to mention profitable, results, during the reign of George the Dubya, and I despair.  Then I remember that the CRF Crew didn't get it right the first time. Ronnie, and to a lesser degree George the First, played footsie with the religious right, but never really let them get to second base. A little tonsil hockey from time to time, sure, but nothing beyond that. That brings a modicum of hope. Here's hoping that Mr. Modi continues to walk the talk. Actually I hope he flies the talk  and at a pace that reminds the wings, left and right, that it is the brain that controls the whole staying aloft thing  

Not the only national language

The Union Home Ministry’s directive to give priority to Hindi in social media and official communications has mala fide intentions. The eighth schedule to the Constitution recognises 22 languages. Giving priority to Hindi is tantamount to undermining the regional languages, including the four rich southern classical languages. In 1965, when the Lal Bahadur Shastri government declared Hindi as the official language, it led to massive anti-Hindi agitations and riots in Tamil Nadu and the eastern states, forcing the centre to accept Hindi and English as official languages for purpose of communication.  The three-language formula adopted in the 1950s was not honoured, resulting in most of the states opting for regional languages as the medium of instruction in schools and colleges, neglecting Hindi and English. This has done irreparable damage to the vernacular medium students in the employment market. Now the Hindi-speaking people want to impose Hindi on the rest of India, because they do not want to learn English. This is strange, considering the fact that English is lingua franca at the international level and the social networking media. The realisation of the importance of English has made the French and the Chinese governments to promote English in a big way.  And we in India want to reduce its importance. In the name of national language, the centre is dividing the people into pro-Hindi and anti-Hindi groups – the north vs south. What is the rationale in having Hindi as the official language, when we are a multi-linguistic country with so many languages and hundreds of dialects? Let the Modi government concentrate on economic growth and development, as promised during the elections, instead.

G Ramachandram

I found this in the letters section of the freepressjournal.in.

well said, G. Ramachandran.Egos and emotions are getting in the way of an efficient tool which facilitates communication. Communication brings about consensus and with it the greater good.

It seems to me that a language that is enforced is no longer serving its function of communicating, except within the boundaries of its closed society. India is an integral part of a network of societies and cultures that are increasingly using english to communicate with each other. BJP and BigMo, you ought not to worry. You have folks who can make english dance to the tune they are calling. Presumably You, BigMo, and you, BJP, are  the ones writing the music, in whichever language you choose. But, if need the rest of us to understand you, english seems like the low-impact choice

just sayin'

There
is an internet accessible video clip of an enraged bull leaping the fence of his
enclosure and landing among those gathered to watch that bull being taunted and
eventually killed by a costumed bull fighter.

An
understandable, but not a fully thought out reaction, that.

One
can sympathize with a life force that decides that it is not going to take it
anymore; that it was time that he, the bull, did something to rid himself of
the circumstances that had him in the middle of a ring being poked, prodded and
other wise annoyed by folks in elaborate costumes. Aside from the physical
discomfort, all that poking was distracting him, the bull, from his task of
teaching some manners to the foppishly dressed young person waving a cape and
taunting him. Stopping to catch his breath, he, the bull, probably noticed that
his armed antagonist, the fop, was being encouraged by whole bunches of
two-legs gathered behind the safety of a barrier. Insult upon injury. Direct
action must have seemed like a good idea, at the time. He, the bull, with a
prodigious effort, cleared the barrier and landed, all two tons of enraged bull
flesh, on the risers where bull fighting aficionados had gathered and were now
departing, as rapidly as they could; which was rapid indeed, two-legs negotiating
the stepped amphitheatre with efficiency and ease.

Not
so much for the bull.

He,
poor frustrated fellow, found the height and width of the risers ill-suited for
four-legs, no matter how enraged, leaving him, flanks heaving, a stationary
threat.

The
crowd, having retreated to a safe perimeter, watched his frustration with
arrogant mockery.

I
don’t know how it all ended, ‘cuz I stopped watching. I’m hoping he was
humanely captured and then retired to stud.

Maybe
it is my purple-hazed perceptions, but, the whole thing reminded me of Mr.
Kejriwal’s foray into politics and governance. 

I’m not going to presume to tell Mr. Modi how to do his job, especially given the alacrity and efficiency with which he seems to have woken the upper echelons of bureaucracy from their sinecure siestas.

But...

I’m sort of wondering why Big Mo hasn’t had a word with the Appropriate Authorities about the egregious use, by leaders – read, demagogues – of organizations that voice their opinions violently. If hurting the sentiments of those groups can be grounds for authority abetted censorship, then surely those same hurt sentiments can be prosecuted for exhibiting their anguish by murder most foul.

Why, I’m wondering, is Mr. Modi remaining so deafeningly silent on the current spate of Religious Arrogance initiated crimes?

And I just read a report on the fear in Pune’s minority community. Surely, it is worthy of Prime Ministerial mention when a section of his constituency are afraid to wear the symbols of their faith. Maybe he will get the message if we, the majority religion, follow the lead of the Danes in WW2, when the entire population, of whatever faith, wore the Nazi mandated yellow star that marked those of the Jewish faith. It may be instructive to not that the King of Denmark started the movement. Oh, wait, I’m forgetting Mr. Modi’s aversion to skull caps.

Never mind. 

 

It gets unnerving, sometimes being a returned son of the soil, rss, lower case. All that native blood (nb) and genetic coding(gc) having to contend with elsewhere grown, age-ed, flesh, sensibility, and muscle memory. Quite exhausting.

Take this business  Of Rajya Sabha and its composition. 

Okay, I can, if I use slightly skewed tools, draw parallels between the RS and the US Senate but India's way of getting bums on lordly seats seems silly, to my admittedly small understanding. I mean, moving superannuated luminaries to party strong holds at party convenience, hmmm. Now I'm not saying that US senate is not Ruling Party heavy but the best a senate aspirant can hope for is Party-in-power BigButt - PBB  (hey-we're talking about the US here - #1 on the World's Fattest Nation list, ok? Although it might be instructive to note that India is #3 on that list, just behind - heh-heh - China. - just sayin') anyway, back to BigButts, all the aspirant can expect is for PBB to show up at election time and say nice things To represent a district the aspirant has to be actually known to the local political structure and money, it must be said. Not just be awed into acquiescence by the Prime Minster and his/her myrmidons. Anent which, that title itself, Prime Minister to which Higher Power? Smacks of Royalism, and ministerial obsequies, to my 'We, the People Sensibility'.

Phew, that feels much better.

Thanks for letting me vent.