Small Inconveniences, Larger Impacts...

I was jus wondering what is so great about my country that I wanna here. Actually speaking, there are a very few things that are even worth mentioning. My home, a few of my cherished friends, and a great history. In fact today, out of 116 countries in the world, India was in 97th position a couple of years ago and now, it could be rated 116 for the amount of corruption and inconsistent policies about the Maoists. Say all this to the public and ask them one question, are you proud to be an Indian, Most of them will come out with one thing," Mera Bharath Mahan" No one even realizes, the impact of corruption on the common man.

If an MP seat costs about 2 crores today, to buy 100 seats would cost 200 crores. As of today thousands of crores of Rupees is being spent on buying the seats and where to politicians go for reimbursement of the money? Tax payers. The price of petrol and other consumables are increased to sky high prices. Who is affected by it, us, the common men. to be able to cope up with the prices, we put in some more efforts and make the extra bucks for the petrol. Remember, the available time per day is limited, only 24 hours. How long will we keep walking the extra mile. Dont we need any rest? We succumb to the inconvenience the government causes. When countries like America and UK are paying Rs 30 for petrol, why should we pay Rs 55? More than one and half times.

Next, the infrastructure, the country's infrastructure is so inferior, that if you have a plan to travel for an hour, you can predict a couple of hours of delay, which means if you have to spend one litre of petrol, you tend to shell out 3 litrs. How much of an economic waste is that. The traffic lights dont work. Even if it does, we dont follow. We occupy the entire road, not allowing the opposite traffic to flow. The inconvenience is never taken seriously. We wait and wait and wait for the police to come and clear the traffic in fact some times, it takes a few hours to get out of a jam. The economic waste is not realized. Irony is, it takes people one hour to fly from Chennai to Hyderabad, but it takes more than a couple of hours to reach their destination in Hyderabad.

Coming to the Common Wealth Games. For a country that is struggling to feed half their population with healthy and one whole meal a day, is a sports event, costing 70000 crore Rupees required? out of which we spend 2 Rs for every rupee quoted. Mr. Suresh Kalmadi, the Chairman of the CWG and his team, has made his country men so proud, that a country that was in 97th rank in terms of corruption could be rated 116 now. What a shame? Rs 1 lakh tred mill, was bought at Rs 10 lakhs on hire basis. Apart from all this swindling, we will have to pay for the tickets also? tax for the infrastructure they have developed for CWG.

Are we to blame the Government alone for all this? No. When we say, India is the largest Democratic nation in the world, we dont realize, we can practice the terms by the book. When the country is being ruled, by rotten, old, blood sucking politicians, whos only motto is to swindle our money, we sit and watch the news over a cup of coffee and some bondas. No one revolts. Forget about revolting. How many of us are responsible? Right from littering in the public, to spitting red pan on the roads, to jumping signals, common men are to be blamed. When we hear an ambulance siren, we dont even make an effort to give way for it. Life means nothing to us. The buses are over loaded. Why cant we wait for the next bus to come or why cant we start 30 mins early to catch a bus that is empty enough? Every morning, the front page of the local news paper, shows, how many ppl die in an accident.

How many of us, respect a pregnant woman and give her a seat in the bus. How many of us respect an old man or a lady. Physically challenged people find it a night mare to walk in the streets. My blood is boiling and unless, we decide to take a step to keep our surroundings clean, help people around us, our country will never develop.

Jai Hind
Happy Independence day