28 March 2009

Being Indian

I've been asked on several occasions why I tend to be so angry towards
everything in India. It really is like asking me why I hate carrying
an illness. It slows me down, reduces my efficiency, causes pain and
irritation, and I might very well pass on the unpleasantry to others.
That's why it is hard to be happy with an illness. But there are
medicines for the physical condition.

What can we give India to stop it from being so sick? What is the
price we need to pay to turn it into a clean, efficient, working,
just, equitable, and prosperous country? The smallest price we can
pay is for each of us to turn our quaint little individual lives into
tiny uncompromising fortresses. We will not hear so many horns if we
stop using the horn ourselves. We won't see so much garbage on the
streets if we throw out less garbage, but then, we need to go further.

We need to get out of our selfish slumbers, and demand better. Let's
do our little duties as citizens - informing our representatives of
things that are out of whack. If our elected representatives and
people who work in the government do not receive complaints, then we
present a picture to them that all is well.

Clearly all is not well. Not when there is anxiety on a daily basis
even while trying to lead normal, peaceful lives. We shouldn't have
to be anxious about anything as mundane as sending our children to
school. But we are, for the challenges are enormous, starting with
getting into a good school, getting the kid to "perform", getting the
kid safely to and from school on a daily basis, and making sure s/he
is healthy and happy. It's a lot, when you have to deal with an
inadequate public school system, it's even more when you have decided
to avoid the public schooling system, when you have to deal with the
thousands of distractions like homework, when in your heart you know
the kid is better off playing for an hour, and it's a lot when the van
driver picking your kid up from school drives like a lunatic, because
he never went through a driving test, just like you!

We swim in this anxiety, and have got so used to it, we think it is
normal. We find it funny when people who have lived abroad complain
about the simplest things here, because we find it easier to subscribe
to the lower standards we have accepted for ourselves, rather than set
a higher one. It is easy being an animal, so why even try to be a
human being?

We find it easier to pay off a policeman rather than ask for a ticket
we could fight in court, because just a moment ago, we found it easier
to break a traffic law instead of taking the legal U turn half a
kilometre ahead. We just don't care, because we are Indians! Let's
apply the same logic to the times we DO get angry - when doctors
amputate the wrong organ, when women are raped in police custody, and
when we lose lives in terrorist attacks. Don't we ask the questions
then, like - where is the government? Well, the government is busy
trying to survive, thanks to the lower standards we have set for them!

Now, if we don't mind bribing our surroundings to put up with our
indiscipline, we should be perfectly all right with our country
bribing us to stop complaining, right? So, what does it take for us
and our country to get along just fine? Simple! We put up with
anxiety, with a broken system, and keep swallowing the "India is
great" rhetoric whenever it is fed to us. When the system lets us
down, when we have an incident that cripples us for life, due to a
fault of the system we ourselves subscribed to, then let's think of
changing it, let's talk about it for a little while, and then remember
that we've already been bribed - we're allowed to set low standards
for ourselves, as long as we don't question! Hurray! What a fun
country this is!

Till the next disaster, let's celebrate the victories that make us
feel good, and forget about the failures that have come to define us.
Let's turn a blind eye to all that is wrong within us, and a deaf ear
to those who are making a hue and a cry about every indignation they
are putting up with as Indians. Let's do nothing to support them in
their causes, and let's think of them as freaks who are just being
fashionable when they take up a cause, and let's make fun of the few
of us who have the guts to actually invest themselves in expressing
their concern about our country and its affairs.

Let's just be INDIAN!

22 March 2009

No IPL in India, what the heck?

I never thought this country would stoop to such lows!

It was insulting enough to have terrorists released from our prisons
by hijackers sitting in Afghanistan, it is humiliating enough that we
haven't unleashed mayhem on terrorist camps inside Pakistan after the
Mumbai incidents, and now, we have our governments telling the Cricket
Board that security cannot be provided to the Indian Premier League on
account of elections? Could fear have anything to do with this, or is
this just plain old rank incompetence? Which could be worse?

Without swearing any support to the BCCI and that clown Lalit Modi,
with no attempt to glorify the inflexible scheduling shenanigans that
are needed to fit the IPL into everybody's calendar, and without
expressing any love for the event whatsoever - the IPL should not be
moved for the silly reason that the government cannot provide
security.

Taking a look at this step by step, and how much of a demand the IPL
could actually make on the nation's security infrastructure - Eight
venues of one square kilometre each at the most, including approaches
and parking. Eight square kilometres total. And then the hotels
where the players are staying - eight venues more, that are guarded
anyway, but let's add another two square kilometres to the project.
Transportation security - already on by default. Security needs to be
provided for about forty days of IPL. We do not have elections
lasting that long. Never mind. Total ten miserable square
kilometres.

The message that I am clearly hearing is that the elections take away
all of our security infrastructure and we cannot protect ten square
kilometres of well laid out, humanly constructed and controlled
territory, not the seabed or unknown jungle, during this period. So,
what about the other areas of our vast country that are going to be
ignored because our cowardly leaders need to be elected by us?

We have 7000 kilometres of coastline, over a hundred airports,
thousands of railway stations, a handful of sea ports, oil rigs,
schools, hospitals, movie theatres, colleges, universities, defence
establishments, industries, power stations, and a myriad other assets,
not to mention tourist spots and monuments. Are all of these going to
be ignored during the elections as well?

Can there be a juicier invitation to terrorists waiting to attack our
country? Golly ho! Imagine having such a ball on such a large
target, with absolutely no resistance anywhere around to protect our
country, because our inept leaders are all going to be too busy
getting "elected" that they don't really care if the rest of us die!
Who needs security during elections anyway? People standing in long
lines to vote? Polling booths manned by goondas trying to capture
votes? Leaders themselves not willing to follow the code of the
Election Commission? Why can't all the parties come up with a plan to
refrain from asking for so much security and draining the country's
resources and rendering her totally vulnerable? How impressed are we
likely to be in any case, with this added security provided to these
useless rascals and the process that sustains them as a burden to our
country?

This should tell us how unimaginative, inept, and weak we are as a
nation. If we have to move a prestigious sporting event to another
country just because of our governments' inability to provide
security, that is a shame, no less. I dare suggest the elections
should be postponed to accommodate the IPL. The IPL has reasons to be
held at this exact time, even though those pressures are monetary
rather than anything else. But as a country, aren't we supposed to be
capable of having elections and sporting events in the normal course
of life? Why the hell must one be compromised for the other? This is
basically like saying we cannot have electricity and water being
supplied at the same time!

The elections, ha! Who the heck cares WHEN they are held?! Right
now, who the heck cares IF they are held!? We're going to vote for
more incompetent, unable, weak, uncharismatic, boring, idiotic leaders
of unimaginably stupid political parties. I would rather watch an IPL
match, even if it is between the Bangalore Boozards and the Hyderabad
Humdrums.

Does any political party have a clue how to rescue us from the
economic slowdown we are facing? We're close to getting into
deflation, but is that on the news? Is anybody offering us anything
fresh and new? Do we have anybody worth trusting our nation with?
Definitely NOT. Not a single leader capable of leading us to anything
but the incessant anxiety of being Indian. Oh, well, that is a whole
other story.

Purely from a national pride standpoint, we should not be chasing away
one of our own sporting events in the name of something as silly as
providing security. Is this the country that refused foreign aid
after being hit by a tsunami? Is this the country that goes to the
aid of other countries in times of crisis? Is this our beloved India?
Who the heck are these morons trying to make her look so badly out of
kelter? Chidambaram, you idiot, you scumbag, you overrated
nincompoop, gather your marbles and get your act together, you fool.
You aren't the home minister to make a mockery of what we can achieve.