Chalta Hai is the perennial Indian excuse for mediocrity. Its an excuse everyone uses for not doing a job well. Combine this with a callous bureacracy and an indifferent public, and you have a recipe for the sorry excuse for a civilized nation that India has become. Police vehicles breaking traffic rules, a govt official asking for bribe without any compuction, the daily exposes on news channels of callous, indeed criminal indifference and negligence , point to the deep roots these cancerous habits have set in our society.
The worst of all this is the ordinary citizen looks at this helplessly , but just decides to shrug his shoulders with a sorry 'Chalta Hai' . Excuse me , but such behaviour is not just inexcusable its intolerable. The other day there was a news report about several people getting AIDS at a premier medical institute in New Delhi, because the staff there reused syringes , so they could sell the unused ones in the outside market. Instances such as these should not be treated as a simple case of theft. If you callously play with someone's life , you should pay for it with your own.
I read a short story sometime back of how a man diagonised with terminal illness decides to spend his remaining few days , ridding his city of bad manners. His idea is simple. He kills people displaying bad manners , with a note on why they are being killed. Three killings later , a wave of politeness is sweeping the city. Perhaps , aa we need is a true 'Indian' ala Kamal Hasan. Who knows, if I am diagonised with an incurable disease , I just might take up the role. Till then I will try and be content with ranting on this blog.
April 4, 2007
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