There was something else I wanted to write about, but the subject just slipped out of my mind. Well, it would have struck had it been that important, so let us as well move on to more gripping things. Probably, in the process a bell may ring somewhere and I may even remember that very trivial thing which I forgot so easily.
Presently, the prime concern of the entire nation and all its political bigwigs is on how to dump or salvage the Laloo-Devi couple, depending on if they are communal or secular, respectively. Indeed, the Rabri Prasad episode has offered much fodder for our thoughts and has inspired enlightened debates about our wonderful democracy.
And to know how wonderful it is it would gladden our hearts to know that for all practical, really practical at that, purposes, Rabri may be reinstalled as the CM of theState. With Babu Naidu dithering and the Congress completing its Hamletian exercise and eventually deciding to bale out the Fodder King,(Queen) & Co, the victory for secularism has been achieved, with such other sundry benefits as saving democracy, advancing the Dalit cause etc,etc also accruing.Special mention needs to be made of the BJP government which has once again lived upto its image of a consistent goofer.
My memory still fails. So let us move on. What is next on agenda? Ah, yes, the bankers strike. They now want at least 18% having graciously offered a hefty discount by climbing down from a well-deserved 50%. The IBA, of course, does not agree and is game for a paltry 10%. They may go upto 11%, if the bankers withdraw the strike, which is now into the second day.
Stalemate, really. And very stale too as the bankers have been striking with alarming regularity and precision, qualities that are normally absent when they are at work. But that is different. Whoever said that pay is related to work or efficiency? Nonsense! Where then would you put away all that 13 lakh and above humanity, if that was the case? The bankmen should never become sick, even if the banks get sick and eventually go bust. The people, no doubt, are already sick.
No point, I have still not got it. How careless of me. Till then, over to Pakistan. Pakistan border, rather. The PM surely pulled off a diplomatic coup by his sensational drive across the great divide. We never thought a simple bus journey could achieve so much. Sure, the guns continue to boom in troubled J&K, but then a road for peace too has been laid. Only that poor Vajpayee has not been allowed to bask in the glory for long, for bus-loads of trouble awaited him back home. Perhaps, it is time the PM tried the bus diplomacy at home too by venturing off to meet his tormentors, inside and outside the government, in a cool, plush bus.
Still elusive. Well, let us forget it. There is no point in being harsh on one’s own brain. Or is it hard? No, harsh it is. Some other guy had a similar confusion about something recently. That same fellow who predicted that things would be hunky-dory from last September itself, but has since been silent.
Yeah, Yashwant Sinha, and of course, I got it at last. Eureka! The budget. That is it. How foolish of me to have forgotten it. But then, the entire nation has also given it a total burial. Can’t blame anyone, though, as there were much more important things than the dull, dour debates on deficits, inflation and so on.
There is also this stupid thing called economy, which they say, is sinking. Then why bother about it, we ask. Let it sink. Why a budget, when they say there is no money? Politicians are thriving with politics at its comic best, those employed in the demanding heights had never had it so good, zealots of all hue have a free run and and the country’s glory is at a peak with Kumble’s Ten. Only spoil-sports will talk of budgets.Little wonder that I, along with the entire nation, forgot about the trivial exercise.
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