water water everywhere

Recently I met an IIT gold medalist, back-from-the-U.S., middle aged maverick, passionately extolling about how he was going to seed rain clouds in the Indian hemisphere and how it would save our largely agrarian economy from the vagaries of the weather gods.

I spontaneously asked if he would also know how to stop the rains? He looked at me with disdain, as if a clumsy clod had trod upon his toe and he thought it to be his privilege, his duty, to slap some sense in to the clod.

Today, with half the country going under water, I wonder, if I was so off the mark With my self-esteem restored, I begin to wonder, what is it that I should bring to your notice today sir…

The dichotomy of farmers with too much and too little water just hours apart from one another makes me think, why is it that we cannot seem to ever get our act together? And, I am not talking about the overflowing gutters and drains, clogged roads, traffic congestion, motorists stuck under bridges and people falling to their death in uncovered manholes but in a country so dependent on the land, what stops us from doing effective water management?

No one can control where or when the rains come, of course, but surely we have the power to alleviate our water woes. Sumita Dasgupta of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment says, "India has a lot of water, …Even in drought years, we get enough. We just don't manage it." P. Chengala Reddy of the Indian Farmers and Industry Alliance lobby group goes further: "There is absolutely nil long-term planning."

Why sir? What are we waiting for? You must be knowing that women in Cherrapunji, the wettest inhabited place on earth, for six months of the year lift empty oilcans on their backs and trek a kilometer to a stream to fetch water, and then, some may not get enough!

As long ago as 1995, the then World Bank vice president Ismael Serageldin predicted: "If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water."

Nevertheless, I am sure you have more pressing issues at hand. Especially when the 40 crore helium balloon built for the games might be washed away by the rains and leakages in the stadia, or shall I say our system, may have thousands of crore flowing down the drain.

So for now, lets take a rain check and put the water issue, shall we say in a typical government style, 'under consideration'.

Take a break...

Dear Sir,

I am sure you too need a break and that's exactly what I had in mind as well.

So, may I recommend you spend your Sunday putting your feet up and catch a film or two.

I have been tracking Jacque Fresco, a living legend - perhaps the most outstanding thinker of our times...see if you could get your hands on a film on him called 'Future by Design' or you could even check out the zeitgeist movement.

Chances are that you might already be knowing of him and his philosophy, however, if you don't, then watch him. Oh, and don't forget to order a regular supply of popcorn, power (electricity)and pin drop silence.

Enjoy!

My house is on fire!

Dear Sir,

As I was sitting down to write to you, my servant Ramdayal came in with a painful expression carrying a small bundle of garlic bulbs (approx 250 gms) which cost him Rs 50 and had cost him Rs 35 just ten days back.

I looked at him and wondered aloud that it was fine for me, I could afford it, but how is the poor man going to survive this inflation. He broke into a grin and said Congress says that by 2020 ‘garibi hata denge’ (will remove poverty) and before I could burst into a cynical tirade of the improbability of this he continued jovially, haan sach hai, jab sab garib hi mar jayenge bhook se to garibi to hat hi jayegi na (it is true, if all the poor die of starvation there will be no poverty left, right?). He left the room grinning from ear to ear and I was left stunned, experiencing his pain at such close quarters.

And, this was not the first time. He has been harassing me over the last few months to eat less, to make only one veggie, to not make exotic veggies etc, and all because the market prices have gone crazy. We have had many a slanging match over him not preparing something I like and his incapacity to bear buying it at that cost, even though I am paying for it.

Sir, this one really hits home, not that the other issues are not eventually going to strike where it hurts, but this one is happening inside my house.

Sir, will you please do something about this at least or are you comfortable staying with the next Congress slogan of ‘Garib Hatao’?

Take a hike!

Dear Sir,

Today is Rajiv Gandhi's birthday and what a gift you have given to all the MPs!

A 300 per cent rise in their pay packets! Wow! I guess, this is what he must have meant when he said, "to build a new, fuller life for our people".

With 77 per cent of our populace living with a salary of under Rs 20 a day, a lot of people are going to be unhappy about this birthday gift sir.

Vivek Velankar, the president of the Pune-based Sajag Nagrik Manch, a citizens’ rights group, says, “It is like Nero playing the fiddle when Rome was burning.”

“Our MPs clearly don’t deserve a salary hike,” The Times of India screams in a recent editorial.

Any pay rise, the newspaper said, must be linked to performance. “The MPs – well known for shouting slogans and creating mayhem in parliament – have neglected one of their basic duties of crafting and debating legislation,” it said.

I don't agree with them. As long as there is a rise in their accountability towards their mandate, it's okay for them to get a decent wage.

India's social infrastructure challenges are well understood. The biggest ones include accessible, affordable and acceptable (quality) solution for education, health care, drinking water, energy for lighting and cooking, and sanitation.

So, will it be possible now, to include overcoming these challenges in their KRA's and that too by the end of this financial year?

Or, will you be able to provide us with a clear, more plausible time-line for finishing these tasks, year on year basis?

The salary hike will be more than justified if this happens, even incentives and bonuses could be offered...but, for some reason, if you are not sure of the deliverables, then I recommend, that you not only cancel the hike but also strip them of the perks and mansions costing our exchequer billions of rupees, or better still, throw them out of the job as most of us do to the non-performing employees.

Sir, let's celebrate. Now that we have clean governance, a wish that Rajiv Gandhi held very dear to his heart, let's celebrate a new India, a happy India, a safe India.

Are you there?

Let's fly a kite!

Dear Sir,

Yesterday I vented on all that's wanting with the poorer, under-privileged section of our country. Today, I feel that it is easy for me to sit in a comfortable chair, in front of my sleek desktop and fast connectivity and spew all that's wrong with the country.

So, here I am, part of the vast middle class, buying into the 'shining India' story, reveling in the fast paced change taking place in our cities, small towns and even the villages.

I revel in the fact, that you sir, top Newsweek magazine’s list of 10 world leaders who have won respect and described as 'leaders other leaders love'. But, then, why do we figure at 78th place in the list of 100 best countries in the same report? Oh, there I go again, today, I will only think positive.

Congratulations sir. What's more, Newsweek also described India as the ‘Best Place to Fly a Kite’. Now, that surely is a good way to see which way the wind is blowing.

So, when the commonwealth committee comes checking, why don't we ask them to 'go fly a kite' we are best at this, aren't we? We will win surely!

I also think, I am at my most positive when I sleep, that's when I escape reality.

Well, goodnight sir.

Are you sleeping as well?

Let's not blow it!

“On the 26th January, 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long should we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment, or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has laboriously built up.”
Dr B.R. Ambedkar
The architect of the Indian Constitution

Dear Sir,

His warning that economically and socially deprived people might one day blow up the structure of political democracy is proving prophetic. In about 20 States of the Indian Republic right from the border of Nepal to the periphery of Kerala, the chronically deprived people have picked up guns to defend their rights. You, sir have characterised this phenomenon as the most potent internal threat to the security of India.

On the one hand we have the largest number of dollar billionaires in Asia. The other side, at the base of the social pyramid are the toiling millions who find it difficult to survive.

The Government of India appointed a Commission on Unorganised Enterprises under the chairmanship of Dr Arjun Sen Gupta. The unorganised sector, including agriculture and other sundry occupations providing livelihood to a large segment of Indian population, covers, according to official figures, 94 per cent of our work force. The report of this Commission states that 77 per cent of the Indian population live on less than twenty rupees per capita per day.

The National Crimes Records Bureau estimates that about two lakh farmers committed suicide between 1997-2008. It is the largest single wave of suicides recorded in history. Agriculture has become a losing concern. A farmer does not get the price of his produce in proportion to the rise in the cost of inputs like fertilisers, pesticides etc. The peasant indebtedness is on the increase all over the country. The 2001 Census reveals that eight million cultivators quit agriculture between 1991 and 2001.

India’s record is the worst in the world in the matter of hunger and malnutrition. As per the National Family Health Survey (2006), child malnutrition is 46 per cent in India. In the Global Huger Index, ranks 66th among 88 countries surveyed—below Sudan, Nigeria and Cameron and slightly above Bangladesh.A UNICEF report states that 1.95 million children below the age of five die annually mainly form preventable causes that are directly or indirectly attributable to mal-nutrition.

But, why am I telling you all this, these are facts that have been stated by many over and over again, so, I will just end with a quote from Swami Vivekanand -

“We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”

Let's re-write history!

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.
Rabindranath Tagore
Gitanjali

Dear Sir, 

This one is easy to re-phrase, after all, we are supposed to re-write history. 

Here is how I would do it...

Where the mind is full of fear and the head is ducked low;

Where knowledge is to a few;

Where the world is shackled in borders and terrorism a reality;

Where words are mere tools of hypocrisy;

Where tireless striving stretches its arm towards corruption;

Where each policy has lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where if we have to be led forward, it will be another time, another day;

God alone knows when, for the moment, my father, let my country sleep.

Sir, would you write it any differently?