A Happy Solution

Anna Hazare has come out with a simple solution to correct corrupt brains. It is a simple slap, claims Hazare, which leads the brain back to the correct path. How revealing, why did we not think of it earlier? Obviously, Hazare considers consumption of alcohol as a greater offence than being corrupt, having prescribed tying to electric power transmission poles and beating as the remedy for those indulging in drinking.

How do we decide whether one is corrupt or not? Through gut feeling; because if one is patient enough for legal proceedings, one would also honour the ruling of the court. Unfortunately, most of human emotions run on mob sympathy. In the last five years the citizens of India have worshipped a common letterbox thinking it had divine power; drunk gutter water assuming it was from a miraculous spring; and have praised and condemned Mahendra Singh Dhoni in equal measure for winning the limited over World Cup and losing the test series to England and Australia. By a conservative margin, about 0.1% of India’s population may consider Kiran Bedi, a lieutenant of Anna Hazare, as corrupt. Will Ms Bedi be able to withstand being slapped 1200000 times?

Perhaps Anna Hazare’s solution is directed only at those who are not close to him. Perhaps there is a separate moral standard of praise and punishment for the Anna brigade.

But, isn’t corruption a result of separate moral standards? Is Anna indulging in corruption by making such statements?

A Big Sorry!

I looked at this page and was shell shocked. No entry after July 18, 2011? I did not feel like communicating on anything for six long months? I did not get time? Nothing happened? How can any of these reasons be accepted when so much is happening everyday in the world? Politicians are being slapped, crusaders for clean society are being roughed up, shoes are being hurled, petrol prices are being changed at the drop of a hat – and I did not feel like communicating about anything? A-n-y thing? How can I be so rhino skinned to absorb all the developments in the world without the slightest of a murmur?

That I did not get time is an excuse, and a lame one at that! Look at Shobha De, Chetan Bhagat, Pritish Nandy? Do I mean that I am busier than they are, when no one even knows my name except for the moron reading this piece now. No, no no, that would not do, Mr Varma! Pull up your socks. You are just being lazy.

Well, I have chastened myself, but the fact remains that I really found little to communicate these six months. Travelling, meeting production and invoicing deadlines, organising events and bringing out the next issue of a magazine did not leave me with enough will to pen my thoughts.

So, a big sorry! I hope I will write more frequently in future!