Two tears for the Republic

For starters, as a writer, I8217;m not, as the saying goes, even the dust on the great master8217;s feet. And second, my subject is not even remotely as funny as his.

The only similarity is that this plot and these dramatis personae have been written about before, in as similar fashion as to make no difference. Because today happens to be Republic Day, you see.

Yet another milestone to be marked in the life and painful times of this old and young nation, with usual noises off and grumbling compliance by those who could not avoid coming in the line of fire of duty today, and three cheers for the long weekend by most of the rest.

Us hacks shouldn8217;t complain. If it weren8217;t for a Republic or an Independence Day, we wouldn8217;t be getting a chance to grab the commanding heights of moral righteousness, while simultaneously trying our level best to ruin everybody else8217;s holiday mood with prophesies of gloom and doom.

Why do we do it? Well, as a tribe, hacks tend to be party poopers, what with having to work weird hours and while everybody else is making whoopee tending to sour the disposition more than somewhat. Besides, as the man said, it may not be much, but it8217;s a job.

The done thing on such occasions is to draw up some kind of balance sheet 8211; 8220;to our credit, we have this, while to our debit there8217;s this8221; sort of thing. It8217;s tough enough to do it for a company 8211; as any auditor will affirm 8211; to do it for a country, one has to be either one of those anonymous minions who actually write the answers to written questions in parliament, who appear to know everything about everything, or a leader writer, who has to appear as if he knows everything about something.

Since I have written a few of the latter, I think I8217;ll have a go. Before we look into what we have got over the 48 years after we dubbed ourselves a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic8217;, let8217;s take a look at what we have lost just this past year.

Three prime ministers and two governments, of course, the cause of much sound and thunder right now. Never mind that.

The government is in the process of being replaced. The 25,000 hectares of forest cover which vanished is not. And our infant and maternal mortality rates are still one of the highest in the world.

Another mother died too 8211; Mother Teresa. The world of arts lost many towering talents 8211; Sambu Mitra from theatre, Sanjukta Panigrahi from dance, V Doraiswami Iyengar in music8230;

And some bloody deaths in business 8211; trade union leader Datta Samant, T-Series supremo Gulshan Kumar, hoteliers, builders8230;

If that sounds depressing, the economy8217;s worse. Chidambaram8217;s dream budget has gone sour, the rupee8217;s lost its shine, exports are struggling, imports are soaring, FIIs are fleeing, Suzuki is sulking and the Sensex is sagging. Of the world8217;s top 10 brands, only one Marlboro is yet to invade India. Other fields? PSLV plunges, INSAT wanders, Vishwanathan Anand misses and our cricket team loses the Independence cup on the other side of the border. To credit 8211; another international beauty queen, the Booker prize for Arundhati Roy, and finally, finally, clobbering Pakistan in cricket. Depressing, isn8217;t it?