"Grass is always greener on the other side"
Last week while walking on the road with one of my colleagues I, said to myself that why not enjoy some of the roadside food stuff of Delhi, which of course is one of the best in the country. We moved towards a roadside juice stall discussing how much money these guys must be making since they didn’t have to pay any rent nor were they paying any taxes for the money they make. Apart from this they also charge exorbitantly high prices depending on their wish. However that day I witnessed something that made me realize how wrong I was in framing my opinion without knowing the intricacies of their little business.
While the guy was preparing juice we suddenly noticed a sudden frenzy all around us. People started running. For once I thought, Is this another “Mumbai Chapter” happening in Delhi? The fear in eyes of the people around us certainly was nothing less than the one I saw in people’s eyes during the terrorist attacks. We turned around to ask the juice guy what has happened suddenly. But to our amazement the guy had started running already towards the other corner of the road.
Observing closely we found that only the roadside stall crowd was running with their stuff. I moved on to ask an auto driver about the incident and I was truly enlightened. He told me that the “Hafta Vasooli”(Extortion) people have come to collect charges.
Living in northeast we frequently discuss the inefficiency of government to stop parallel governments. But in my view, what I saw that day was nothing less that a parallel government. The extortion guys can charge anywhere between 1000-5000 rupees depending on their wish and they are self appointed rulers for a certain territory of the city. The amount is certainly much higher than the taxes we pay for our income relatively. It seems pretty amazing that in a democratic country, roads also belong to certain group of people. As for the local police they have their own share of pie in the whole business so the matter never gets escalated to higher authorities. And when it does get, just the pie is distributed among larger number of members. To maintain the amount of pie everyone is getting, there is a tantamount increase in the amount of money being extorted. All this leads to a cycle in which poor just becomes poorer if he tries to raise his voice.
It was sad to see the state of affairs at the very heart of a thriving “Democratic” nation.
I don’t know whether I can do anything for those guys but certainly can make some more people aware of it and think ten times before abusing a poor man for charging exorbitantly high prices.
The human mind is one of the most complex things that exist in the present age. It has got billions of neurons hinged together working at a tremendous pace. However, its up to us to make proper use of it. We can use it like a ‘battering ram’ and keep banging incessantly against our obstacles until it breaks it down. On the other hand we can use it to emulate a ‘river’ that carefully avoids the impediments in its way and continues flowing finding the easiest way out.
The latter is what is being put into practice nowadays. This is the stark reality of our generation. None of us is ready to bite the bullet. This is where the origin of most of our modern society problems lies.
To quote as an example lets use the most common line that we hear from our generation people “Politicians are the most corrupt, irresponsible and selfish people”. However,a top-down analysis of this grievance will show that we ourselves are the ones to blame.Remember the recent terror attacks, what was the first reaction of all the major politicians of our country??
As soon as the news broke out that bombs have exploded, you can switch on your television sets and watch the representatives of our society blaming it on each other.The two major parties will issue a statement like “We condemn the blasts that have happened” or something on these lines and then ruling party blames opposition and vice-versa.We all know what follows.
Then blame game trickles down another level.Our leaders will recognise that nothing will happen blaming each other as they all have deficiencies which can be pointed out thanks to media revolution ,so they transfer the saddle to the Intelligence Agencies,Police and other such agencies.
However,it doesnt get finished here these prestigious agencies start blaming the general crowd that they should be more responsible while renting out places and all such petty excuses.
And why will the common people be left behind.After all you just have to wag your tongue and you are not accountable.We keep crimming out our problems daily.The politicians are corrupt,they are criminals and the bucket of blames never gets empty.
But aren’t we ourselves to blame.How many of us do even care when the general elections happen.Lets not dig very deep into it but a very superficial question : How many of the younger people have even got their voter card , leave apart voting??We have to realise that it is democracy and not a monarchy.Nobody is usurping the power here.They all are the elected people and we are the ones who elect them.Rather I should say that we are the persons who are supposed to elect them.
Its very easy to say that politicians are very powerful but infact we are the persons who bestow that power upon them.Its people from amongst us who get selected to IPS and IAS and other services but atleast fifty percent of the selected , succomb to the corruption and other such practices.In daily lingua franca I should say everyone starts liking ‘2 number ki kamai’.
As I said earlier this blame game is an abyss.It never ends.Our mind again generates an easy excuse for us vis-à-vis “We didn’t succomb to attraction of money but were overpowered by the negative entities of our society’.
I know and totally agree that it does happen so why shouldn we start with the top level.Lets exercise one of our Fundamental Right to Vote and do what is in our hands.The other pillars of the society ( like media ) are doing their best.Let us put in our share for the society.
Because “There is never an end until there is a start”.
Blame Games
The human mind is one of the most complex things that exist in the present age. It has got billions of neurons hinged together working at a tremendous pace. However, its up to us to make proper use of it. We can use it like a ‘battering ram’ and keep banging incessantly against our obstacles until it breaks it down. On the other hand we can use it to emulate a ‘river’ that carefully avoids the impediments in its way and continues flowing finding the easiest way out.
The latter is what is being put into practice nowadays. This is the stark reality of our generation. None of us is ready to bite the bullet. This is where the origin of most of our modern society problems lies.
To quote as an example lets use the most common line that we hear from our generation people “Politicians are the most corrupt, irresponsible and selfish people”. However,a top-down analysis of this grievance will show that we ourselves are the ones to blame.Remember the recent terror attacks, what was the first reaction of all the major politicians of our country??
As soon as the news broke out that bombs have exploded, you can switch on your television sets and watch the representatives of our society blaming it on each other.The two major parties will issue a statement like “We condemn the blasts that have happened” or something on these lines and then ruling party blames opposition and vice-versa.We all know what follows.
Then blame game trickles down another level.Our leaders will recognise that nothing will happen blaming each other as they all have deficiencies which can be pointed out thanks to media revolution ,so they transfer the saddle to the Intelligence Agencies,Police and other such agencies.
However,it doesnt get finished here these prestigious agencies start blaming the general crowd that they should be more responsible while renting out places and all such petty excuses.
And why will the common people be left behind.After all you just have to wag your tongue and you are not accountable.We keep crimming out our problems daily.The politicians are corrupt,they are criminals and the bucket of blames never gets empty.
But aren’t we ourselves to blame.How many of us do even care when the general elections happen.Lets not dig very deep into it but a very superficial question : How many of the younger people have even got their voter card , leave apart voting??We have to realise that it is democracy and not a monarchy.Nobody is usurping the power here.They all are the elected people and we are the ones who elect them.Rather I should say that we are the persons who are supposed to elect them.
Its very easy to say that politicians are very powerful but infact we are the persons who bestow that power upon them.Its people from amongst us who get selected to IPS and IAS and other services but atleast fifty percent of the selected , succomb to the corruption and other such practices.In daily lingua franca I should say everyone starts liking ‘2 number ki kamai’.
As I said earlier this blame game is an abyss.It never ends.Our mind again generates an easy excuse for us vis-à-vis “We didn’t succomb to attraction of money but were overpowered by the negative entities of our society’.
I know and totally agree that it does happen so why shouldn we start with the top level.Lets exercise one of our Fundamental Right to Vote and do what is in our hands.The other pillars of the society ( like media ) are doing their best.Let us put in our share for the society.
Because “There is never an end until there is a start”.