Everyday around 30-40 per cent of people go to market for window shopping. Earlier they used to harass the shopkeeper by asking about the price of goods displayed on the showcase or windows. The sellers became wise; they now display the price as well with the product.
There are doctors shopping, hospital shopping, tutorial, school and bride shopping customers in our society but the latest trend of political shopping is a dangerous one. The political shopping people want results overnight like a T20 match.
They have no patience to wait for the Rs 50, Rs 200 and Rs 1,000 notes to be printed but start criticizing the PM and Finance Minister as lairs! Suppose a system has been introduced by a new Government, we have no patience to wait and watch. Those who are writing long articles criticizing the present Government are restless to see their old master of 70 years back to power. Some newspapers have one- point programme-critise for each and every thing the present Government with PC from opposition parties! The people know the positive and negative sides of any Government from TV channels and newspapers. People have no time to read half a dozen of papers or watch ten channels to know the actual facts.
Most of us have one track mind we do not try to analyze. We speak which suits us most in the name of common man. Some people have patience to wait for ‘seventeen weeks’ for their patient to improve, whereas the same relatives of that patient start criticizing the doctors and hospital staffs if their patient of head injury does not improve after ‘seventeen hours’— double standards in simple terms.
We are a democratic country does not mean we criticize every step of an elected GovernmentIJ The tenure is five years; it’s not like talak; so that the Government is rejected overnight. We have plenty of retired Government servants who get pension from Rs 30,000 to Rs 80,000 per month and some in five digit amounts. Some of them confessed to me that, now their living standard is much better than their working days in office with PC.
These people criticize the system and the Government the maximum.
Their sons and daughters are all abroad and earning in crores after passing out of Indian Universities with public and Government financial help. They travel with concession in first class air conditioned coupe as senior citizen even though they earn in crores but criticize Government about sufferings of common manIJ
People are getting Rs 80,000 for doing nothing (pension) but criticize the Government for increasing salary of MlAs and MPs! let’s talk less and do our own work. Positive and negative aspects are generally an individual conception and may not be applied in general. Many aspects that may appear negative today may have served a good purpose earlier.
All aspects have to be judged in reference to time, place and environment. In Indian mindset truth is extolled, but all kinds of falsehood are practiced, honesty is valued, but dishonesty is rampant, kindness is virtue but we laugh at others’ physical deformity or discomfiture in real life and in Hindi films. We pretend to be spiritual and God fearing but our greed for money and materialistic things is insatiable. We bribe Gods with golden ornaments but put a 50 paisa coin in beggars tin. Mediocre people will have a mediocre ruler that’s the rule of the game. Unless and until we the educated Indians change, the politicians will continue to exploit our mind and the country.
If someone is feeling hopeless with the present elected Government, then he or she should get admitted in a mental asylum or become a MP or migrate to another country of his choice!
(The writer, an ex-employee of SAIl, is a doctor by profession)