How many Annas make a rupee? When I saw this question in an old book my curiosity was aroused. Indeed it would be interesting to know how many Annas it took to make a rupee! Sixteen the book said. Well it came as no surprise! With Anna Hazare dead against making a rupee what else could one expect! In fact it is a miracle that even sixteen Annas make a rupee. Now if Anna has his way it will be pretty difficult for anyone to make a rupee!
Just imagine what a hard, bleak thing life will become if things do turn out the way Anna Hazare would like them to be! Forget about global warming, the world will suddenly become a cold and unfriendly place. Honestly (oops! What a wrong choice of a word!) without corruption there is bound to be complete chaos. Civil servants will become uncivil overnight. Without the motivation that ‘extra income’ provides they will insist on following rules in letter and spirit and  life will get all knotted up in red tape. And who can blame them for it!
Every government employee worth his salt knows that he is paid a salary to attend his office. What happens when some higher official or minister makes a sudden inspection of a government department or a school or hospital? He checks the attendance, what else! Once you mark your attendance you have done your job.  Let anyone contend that! Work as every one of us knows is optional and is directly proportional to commission, percentage, chai or other such perks (OK! OK! Call it bribery if you will but then as Shakespeare would say ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’!). I say why not? Aren’t there better things for an employee to do? Isn’t it unjust to expect that without any ‘incentive’ an employee would tear himself away from an animated debate on religion or politics or again from delicious gossip like say who is carrying on with whom. For female employees it would be an equally difficult task to withdraw from a discussion about in-laws, children, current trends in fashion etc. In this hectic world where nagging wives or boring husbands gang up with demanding kids to make domestic life a big hassle and traffic jams and blaring horns wear you out on the roads, where else would a person relax if not the office?! And then as a senior bureaucrat once told me, “What is wrong if somebody speeds up your file against some…er…monetary consideration? Don't you pay extra for speedpost, for express delivery!”
Honestly (the darned word again!) who would take the risk of becoming a politician if at the end of the day there is nothing in it for him! Why would anyone pore over History and Geography and what not and sweat it out in civil service exams! Means we would be left without leaders (unless you forcibly draft people into politics like they do for the military in times of war!) and bureaucracy as well! Whatever workforce survives this holocaust will be a dispirited one. Files will rot away while officers and clerks dejectedly pick their noses or scoop out wax from their ears. Palatial houses, designer villas and similar marvels of architecture will no longer come up. Why we may get relegated to living in caves, become cave men once again. It is not a mere coincidence that both ‘corruption’ and ‘civilization’ share the same initial letter. I say this Anna chap is anti-progress!
Anna’s campaign even goes right against 'national integration’ as well! Take this recent leak by that international telltale Wikileaks (international mukhbir, to be politically correct!) in which it revealed that corruption is common to both separatists as well as mainstream politicians in Kashmir. Now it is a well known fact that corruption is at its peak in the centre as well and Pakistan is no stranger to corruption either. So here at last we have that elusive ‘common ground’ that we have been searching for so long. This could be the starting point and perhaps even hold the key to the knotty Kashmir problem!
I wonder how this Anna Hazare (shouldn't it be 'hazard-e'!) chap is allowed to roam free. He is a walking nuclear accident! I appeal to the authorities as well as the saner elements of the civil society not to let Anna's fast weaken them...or indeed we will all end up fasting and starving!  The question posed at the beginning of this write-up really needs to be pondered upon! How many Annas make a rupee? The fact that it takes sixteen of him to do so makes it pretty understandable why the poor guy is fasting all the time! Food doesn’t come cheap you know.

(Truth is mostly unpalatable…but truth cannot be ignored! Here we serve the truth, seasoned with salt and pepper and a dash of sauce (iness!). You can record your burps, belches and indigestion, if any, at snp_ajazbaba@yahoo.com) 

Lastupdate on : Sat, 24 Sep 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 24 Sep 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:00:00 IST