Thursday, July 06, 2006

Mumbai, Delhi, Democracy and Dr Venugopal

Rains wreak havoc in Mumbai! Is that news? Well, definitely not! That's an annual event, much like the Summer Festival; just that this doesn't have much to do with anything Summer. One would be surprised if work doesn't grind to a halt once or more than once a year in India's commercial capital. And what can the administration and authorities do when Rain Gods work overtime? You don't expect the Government to sack the Rain Gods, do you?

Talk of 'Sacking'! If one were to believe media reports, that's something out government seems to be good at - along with ransacking. What would you do when you want to be constantly in the news and you run out of ideas? You sack someone of the stature of Dr Venugopal a day before his Birth Day and insist that he got what he deserved for not having performed his task.

Sack a Chief, will you? Nah, I did not mean a Chef at your home - a Chief. You conceive a meeting for a couple of hours, lodge your complaints, read them out, be your own justice and spell the verdict out - well, that's no Democratic stuff. So, there’s no way it could have happened in the biggest democracy; definitely not when Mumbai is let to go into hibernation every year as if it's nobody's business to do something about the infrastructure at all. Our governing authorities never budge even in the worst hours of crisis - they just let the system take its course. Don't tell me the AIIMS Director was sacked by some hooligans - not in India!