In these enigmatic times, asking questions is a bit like speaking into a deep well. All you come up with are more questions. In fact, the answers to most queries now are often just more questions. Like Russian babushka dolls, they endlessly replicate themselves floating around like riddles wrapped inside mysteries clothed in enigmas, and that sort of thing. I don’t particularly mind this state of affairs because it means that finding an answer to a question can then be indefinitely postponed, until the next question presents itself and the process begins all over again.
These are just a few questions that have puzzled me over the past few days. Now don’t come running to me for the answers because all I can give you in reply are more questions.
Like, I cannot understand why the Berlin-based Transparency International decided to diddle this country of its rightful position as one of the world’s most corrupt nations and pass the honour to insignificant little blotches on the map like Cameroon andNigeria?
Like, isn’t it a rank insult to our collective intelligence to be regarded only as the 66th most corrupt nation in the world, when we know that we have it in ourselves to come up with a better performance?
Like, did the tabulators and analysts in this organisation take into consideration our inherent creativity when it comes to matters of corruption, how urea can be made to grow currency, how suitcases can be packed, how stock-markets can be manipulated, how guns can boom dollars and how poultry can be made to eat crores of rupees of chicken feed?
Like, while CVC chief N. Vittal’s suggestion that every government office must prominently display a “rogue’s gallery” of corrupt people is an excellent one, wouldn’t we run out of wall space if we were to accommodate all those worthy of the honour of figuring in this list?
Like, if we were to follow up on Vittal’s suggestion, then where would we place the mandatory portraits of Gandhi, Ambedkar and Nehru, since office wallswill then be covered from floor to ceiling with portraits of our present netas?
Like, if as Prime Minister Vajpayee says the world understands us better after his recent peregrinations abroad, why is it that the US President decided to cancel his visit to this region and postpone the lifting of sanctions the moment the PM left New York?
Like, considering the grand successes of his foreign tours, shouldn’t Vajpayee take a leaf out of I.K. Gujral’s book and find ways to keep himself perpetually air-borne rather than come down to earth and have to deal with the likes of Jayalalitha, the Akalis, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Ram Jethmalani and the VHP?
Like, why doesn’t Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha instead of perpetually promising that the economy will recover next month, do something productive like staging recipe contests for dishes that don’t require onions?
Like, why doesn’t BJP general secretary M. Venkaiah Naidu put his money where his mouth is and get his government to recommenddismissal of the UP Government for having the largest number of criminals in its Cabinet and the highest tally of encounter deaths on its streets? Then perhaps his party would gain the necessary moral stature to tackle Laloo Prasad Yadav and company in Bihar.
Like, isn’t it strange how Raj Bhavan politics have made the safari-wearing, golf-playing Romesh Bhandari and the kurta-dhoti donning vegetarian known as S.S. Bhandari brothers of a kind?
Like, isn’t it curious that a man who sports `Prem’ as part of his name should spew such hatred against minorities in this country and shouldn’t B.L. Sharma `Prem’ excise the last four letters from his name?
Like, isn’t it curious how B.L. Sharma `Prem’, a former BJP MP and now dedicated VHP activist, can regard something as heinous as the rape of nuns a “patriotic” activity?
Like, isn’t it curious how apathetic we have become that such statements arouse no real public anger?
Like, at this rate, shouldn’t rapists be entitled tofreedom fighters’ tamrapatras, public felicitations, pensions and plots of land at subsidised rates?
Like, I wonder how Mahatma Gandhi would have responded if he were to be told that Ram Rajya has no place in it for minorities, that swadeshi has been hijacked by the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and that swaraj only happens to be the surname of a voluble minister?
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