Thoughts - medley

I spend most of the time traveling and during this time, usually I listen to music or keep pondering over some issues. Most of these thoughts are good enough to become blog posts. But by the time you think it out structurally how to put it in your blog page, there would be some distraction from outside like a honking motorist, loud ad on radio, etc.

I have decided to post a collection of these small tidbits as a single post so that you can think about it further and get back to me with comments about what you feel about it. Here is a medley of ironical thoughts that I have been having lately:

Thought 1:
While coming back from work the other day, there was this huge traffic jam that held up traffic for hours together. It was in the middle of the week on a Wednesday and I could not make out why – Mondays and Fridays usually have unpredictable traffic because there will be too many people moving in and out of the city. The heat in the cab was unbearable and there were kilometers of vehicles that were just stuck there. It was after a while that I realized that one of our “true” national leaders, the greatest epitome of sacrifice and Indian culture, had come to that area begging for votes. Isn’t it ironic that the very leader who gave up the post of the prime-minister because she was willing to sacrifice everything for the well-being of this country comes back every time there is an election asking for a mandate in her favor, blocking life for hours? She is not alone though. There are many such great people in our country who always do everything for the good of the country! Particularly, I feel amused at the great “son-of the soil” who dis-owned his son (ie, grandson of the soil) and resigned from active politics just because he joined hands with “communal forces” to form a government against his wishes and then made the whole state inactive by his remote-controlling skills.

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Thought 2:
The company gives us this “food coupons” so that we can save tax. This is really a nice idea and is catching up among many restaurants and departmental stores. They accept these coupons in place of money on all their products and to an extent it is helping people like us to segregate their expenses based on food and non-food items. Also it is an advantage because you can walk to up to any departmental store and buy all the essential items at once with these coupons. However, I came to know from a friend of mine that at a particular store, only food items could be bought with coupons and you had to pay for rest of the products with cash. Isn’t it ironic that a store which calls itself “Food World” and keeps all other essential items other than food in its store, but does not allow you pay coupons for non-food items?

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Thought 3:
A cab-mate had her “last day” at office and distributed sweets to everyone. She was such a nice human being and we had many nice and interesting conversations together. The sweets that she distributed were too good and I loved eating them. Isn’t it ironical that when we spent “nice” moments together, we never thought of giving sweets to each other but it was only during separation that we get “nice” sweets? Why is there only one last day for everyone :)

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Thought 4:
There was one other reason for the traffic jam on Wednesday. A sudden holiday had been declared on Thursday for many offices and the general elections were to be held on Saturday. As you know, election days are generally holidays. So there was a huge rush of people wanting to go out of the city for a long, extended holiday. And it is needless of me to say these were all highly educated people who knew what democracy meant. As a result the city witnessed the least voter turn-out yesterday among all the districts in the state. The reasoning that these people give for their absence from voting would be that all politicians are corrupt and it did not matter who won because everyone would ultimately come to power and loot the nation.

I strongly disagree with them. As an example I would want to take example of two states of our country very near to each other, but with striking differences in development just because of the administration. Karnataka, with its string of coalition governments, unholy alliances, betrayals, allegations, etc has seen very little development in the past 4 years. Bangalore, which was once the preferred destination for every major technological or consultation company has been struggling with its crumbling infrastructure. The charm that the old city had is long gone. Today, every major company thinks twice before investing in Bangalore. The international airport is yet to see a flight landing inside it. The woes of students writing CET have not ended at all - all these because we don’t have able administration in place which can take fast decisions. Both parties in the coalition have their own views and ultimately development suffers. On the other hand, its neighbor Andhra Pradesh has been enjoying stable government for the past ten years and the development it has seen is very heartening. Although it has not made tremendous progress, the relative development compared to Karnataka is significant. Even though, the politicians are ultimately corrupt, the level to which it comes into play is not high when a single party is in power. Isn’t it?

Aren’t free and fair elections one of the pre-requisites of a strong nation? Should we all not participate in the polls to ensure that the best candidate among the lot wins? Having a say in who leads us is one of the fundamental right in our country. Isn’t it ironic that the learned men choose to boycott this fundamental duty time and again and ultimately we are at the mercy of unworthy men controlling us?

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Thought 5:
Isn’t it ironical that Thought 4 which has been posted as a thought is a very big thought that it could have been a post by itself? :)

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Notes:
1. The references to the politicians in thought 1 are obvious.
2. The food coupons that we get are to just to save tax and not evade tax. Nobody should evade tax as responsible citizens of this country.
3. The elections held on 11 th may was for the Karnataka state assembly. Out of a total of 224 constituencies, elections were held for 89 of them on saturday. The remaining constituencies go to polls in 2 parts - on 16th and 22nd may 2008.