The way we are! (Sab Chalta Hai)

The other day I was going on an evening stroll when suddenly a man came running to me.

‘Sir, I was just waiting for you to come this way’ beaming with excitement he said ‘look Sir, do you see this pothole on the road? Why don’t you write something about it? So many people have tripped here, autos and cars bumped in to it, a lady’s backbone got dislocated and still no body bothers to take up the matter with civic authority!’

I noticed that the pothole was right in front of his newly built house. In addition, there was also a wide road cutting across the road for taking the water connection. The newly laid road was dug up to erect a ‘pandal’ on the occasion of the ‘house warming ceremony’! When I coolly blamed him for this, he got a shock of his life. After spending lacs & lacs of rupees on construction, who bothers to cover up the dug up portion and road cuttings with debris if not concrete costing a few rupees only? People’s responsibility ends up with the deposit for the road cutting charges with the civic authority; rest is none of any body’s job.

It is quite normal to observe the office ‘Babus’ discussing office matters and higher ups corrupt practices  sipping a cup of tea in canteen or tea shops but some of them never fail to bring home office stationery like white papers, pen, pencils, carbon papers and erasers for their children. Claiming reimbursement of expenses for conveyance, cleaning materials, doctor’s fee or even LTC on fake receipts is common in Government offices and PSUs.

Good number of people talking about discipline never fails to jump the queue at the bus stops, railway/bus ticket counters or even at temples to get priority ‘darshan’. Youngsters talking about traffic & lane discipline at various forums take short cuts through one way, jump the traffic signal or move their two wheelers on to the footpath in order to go ahead of all waiting traffic.

Talking about the ethics of journalists and TV reporters who keep exposing scandals after scandals too can be found to fall prey to malpractices by politicians, film people and page -3 personalities who entertain them with fat envelopes and 5 star parties. The ills of dowry harassment continues and now cases of ‘harassed husbands’ are coming to light. There are so many issues, issues for thoughts and to write about but the million dollars question is who is listening and who is acting upon?