Sunday, April 24, 2011

A few Good Corrupt Frustrated Indifferent Greedy People.

In democracy there are Good leaders, Corrupt Politicians, few frustrated people, the indifferent and the greedy people.

Good Leaders: want a better country, better system and a good society to live in. But the problem is these people are few and less influential than the rest of the leaders. As most times they lack support of the bureaucratic community. The bureaucrats do not support such leaders for their own narcissistic reasons and secondly for fear of all the corrupt leaders for whom they are a rubber stamp to wealth. Bureaucrats have a choice help the corrupt get rich while becoming rich in the process or get stuck is an endless rut of transfers or less influential, low profile jobs. Most chose the obvious.

Corrupt Politicians: They are everywhere. The good part is most leaders are into politics either for it’s a medium to make money fast and already rich leaders are in for more and the power. They naturally do not care about the country or the people they care about the money. While in the process of making money some good they do for the country, that much credit I do give them. Lets face the truth, countries that have grown rapidly to development are mostly were mostly ruled by another nation examples: Germany and Japan after WW2, South Korea, Hong Kong (though not a country), etc. As I had written in my pervious blog how democracy is a perfect model for corruption.

Few Frustrated People: These are a few educated people who are frustrated at the whole system. Few good meaning industrialists, who face tough times getting approvals. Very, very few Middle class and upper middle class people who are just frustrated at paying tax which eventually end up making politicians rich. And the fact that not much is getting done in terms of progress. Yes there are fewer in the few who do care and fight against corruption with rallies and campaigns. Which at time topple government and lead to resignation of leaders who eventually get re-elected to another position in the next government. These few revolutionaries are future aspirants to the throne of politics (whose faith is eventually that of the good leaders) or victims of corrupt leaders.

The indifferent: Ya! most of us fall in this group. We just want to carry on with our lives. We know the system is dirty, we know things don’t get done easily out here. All we want is to go home and carry on with our life. We want the system to change and we occasionally raise a brow here and there but we do not want the hassle. We pay our bribe and get the our work done; who has the time and patience to follow-up and fight; pay up, be free and go home early for that cup of tea. We know our vote makes a different but we just don’t care. Our lives have enough worries as it is.

The greedy: They vote the corrupt and they have a reason to vote. 500 bugs, bottle of rum some free worthless goodies, a job promise or something where they benefit personally. Sometimes yes they get a parks made with huge statues or names of cities and airports changed, that help the society develop. And overall more reservation for deprived communities depriving the hardworking deserved. But the good part is they don’t fail to vote.

So what can we do? A lot!! like take out solidarity candle light campaigns but not vote; send sms to TV channels saying we do not support corruption but not report occurrences you see in front of your eyes. Watch a shame-less girls dance to vulgar lyrics and “cool” dudes insult contestants telling them why their life is worthless, than watch rambling political discussion. Be patriotic on world cup matches, 26th Jan and 15 August and then tell everyone around you how worthless this country is and how you want to settle abroad. We are the people who would rather pay 50 bugs bribe for a traffic offence than pay the fine money. Sometimes I wonder of those thousands who supported lok-pal bill how many did actually know what it is?

In the end everyone has a lot more to worry about in their lives than a country of more than a billion.

Cheers,

Ninad Dighe.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Fear of the Truth!

We all are gifted; we are born with the ability to learn new things. But just being born with ability does not make us worthy of knowledge and respect. Respect is to be earned and knowledge is to be learned; the willingness to learn is a choice. It is this choice that makes one different than others. For some choose to accept their fate and others choose to create theirs. So do we create the truth around us or are we just the followers of lies passed to us from generations?

To know the truth you need to find it yourself. For others will tell you only what they think you should know. And the truth seems different when you hear both sides of it … from the wrong side and right side. But in the end it is up to you to choose which side of the truth you want to be? Mass perception creates an illusion of reality, but then it is just an illusion; reality never changes, it remains the same. Reality is only revealed to those who search for the truth. Not often do we realise that we are on the wrong sides of the truth, we have accepted our situation and modified our life accordingly. May be we have lost our curiosity in the truth or just accepted our faith and blame our destiny. Overall I believe it is more to do with fear of not wanting to know the right side or sheer laziness. Fear that the truth is the darkest horror we dreamt about, so like the cat close your eyes and make belief. Or the laziness that finding the truth and changing my current situation is a lot of work and this hardship is out of my comfort zone and astray from my ritualistic life that I have myself comfortable in.

So what is this truth that we seek? Philosophers in the form of religion have tried to answer this, but for me they have left me confused and wanting to know more. And yes I am scared and lazy as I fear the truth and do not want to go through the hardship of searching for it.


Cheers,

Ninad Dighe