Redeeming the system

I must begin with a disaclaimer. Searing honsety and absolute fealty to truth under all circuamstances are not my forte. I go by the axiom that rules must be followed unless you see others breaking them blantantly, and truth must be ahhered to unless it seriously impedes a positive and desirable outcome, individually as well as collectively. That is why I find myself somewhat uncomfortable with the moral position, far too often taken in public debates, that you cannot criticize anyone if you yourself have once committed anologous mistakes. I think this is a hideously arrogant ploy on the part of opinion leaders to maintain their monopoly, and deny new, more robust voices an adequate platform. Therefore, I begin with thanking the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who once famously said that every saint has a past and every sinner a future. The following is a story of an encounter between me and a couple of other men I met yesterday at New Delhi Railway station. I begin with a description of the circumstances under which we met and then proceed to raise some questions and conclude with a reaffirmation of my faith in the system. I believe that if the system has not worked to our satisfaction, it his because we have failed to make it work. Correspondingly, if it is to work successfully, it is us who must come forward and contribute our bit, faithfully and regularly.

I had to drop a friend to the New Delhi station in time for him to board the Howrah Rajdhani express which leaves at five in the evening. We left campus at three thrity and by regular standrads would have reached the station by fifteen past four. I know these calculations well because I have myself boarded this particular train several times in the recent past.

Yesterday, however, turned out to be an irregular day. It was the birthday of Indira Gandhi, one of our former Prime Ministers, and since the party to which she belonged is in power now, many of her devotees who also happen to be important minsiters, fanned out in all directions to garland her statues and sing her praises in public all over the city. These leaders must not be faulted, for the constutitution of almost all political parties in India is such that if they don't do this, they stand to lose their power and authority. Now since these eminences cannot travel alone as their lives as ministers are deemed more valuable than yours or mine. They are therefore protected round the clock by a mighty entourage of vehicles and armed personnel of various levels of competence. A solitary entourage of this sort is good enough to block the traffic of all the roads it travels through for several minutes and yesterday we have had several of them on the road, all along the day, non stop. Together, they nearly brought the city to halt, and kept it that way.

If that was not bad enough, some other political leaders, ones who belong to other parties, had chosen to organize their own party. They had felt that the present government has not been doing much to improve the lot of peasants, especially the sugarcane farmers. They called upon the sugarcane farmers from various corners of the country to descend upon the streets of the capital and shout slogans, in order possibly to make their resentments pierce the eardrums of the deaf government. It is appropriate, these opposition leaders worked out, that such a grand show of their strength is staged on the birth anniversary of the second tallest leader ever of the ruling party.

There we ordinary mortals were then, sandwitched between the devil and the deep sea. Mercifully, we had hired the services of a most spirited youthful autorickshaw driver. He said he had been driving autos for the past twelve years, ever since he wrote his school final examinations at fifteen, and swore that he would somehow take us to the station by five. He moved in and out of several alleys and bylanes, braved at least eight roadblocks, and somehow made it to the station with exactly five minutes to spare.

Now Howrah Rajdhani departs from platform number eleven and the heroic autorickshaw driver had dropped us at the entrance of the Ajmeri Gate side of the station. Those familiar with the architecture of the station would know that we still had at least three to four minutes of full fledged running ahead of us, apart from the climb up the stairs. This was, in short, an emergency, and between three of us, we had to carry four reasonably heavy suitcases and travelbags.

We did make it to the right compartment, with only about twenty odd seconds left for the train to whistle off. It is on our way back that we, that is, a junior and I, were intercepted by these two gentlemen. More on the meeting will follow.