Everyone suckles on this mango called ‘Aam aadmi’

As I stop my car at the red light, this traffic policeman drops in a pamphlet which ‘educates’ people on the Supreme court’s judgment that all tints and films should be removed from car windows and failing which, the police will penalize with heavy fines.

Why are the police so over active about implementing this particular order by the Court? Because this is easy to implement, as it only targets the aam aadmi. The VIPs and the politicians, who in the current times are the habitual and worst law breakers, are privileged to blue beacons and dark tints and what not. The law abiding, tax-paying, aam aadmi can be easily forced/frightened by authorities unlike the politically connected who don’t care for the law and who can get the officers transferred.

The police would not show any interest in the orders of Supreme Court which are tough to implement because it demands true courage, real interest in peoples welfare, and more than anything else, calls for facing political consequences. An example can be the Supreme Court’s order which bans the use of funnel type speakers for religious prayers and prayer calls from Temples and Mosques. Do these police authorities overwrought over tinted cars, care a bit about such orders? Not even the toughest cop would dare take action on such issues. They do not because any action about it can raise political hackles and put them in a spot, get them transferred.

There are ministers who flout all rules and yet the police remains a silent party. Before such powerful people, the police behaves more like a postman than a policeman. The case of ministers who owe lakhs in electricity bills is well known and yet no authority dares touch them. When a poor aam aadmi cannot afford the heavy power bills, the power line is promptly disconnected, as happened in Delhi recently.

The aam aadmi of this country is easy prey for everyone and everything. From a pick pocket to the police and politician, from corruption to inflation, from potholed roads to traffic jams, the aam aadi bears it all. Yet, there is no major violence or revolution.

Isn’t the Indian Mango man more deserving of the Nobel Peace prize than the European Union?

Burfi - a strong mind and a clean heart

It is people like Shruti, who not only make their own lives but also others’ life miserable. These are the ones who cause pain to people around them. How irresponsible, how infidelic, fickle; people, especially some women can be. Being engaged to someone, Shruti did not have any compunctions playing around with a clean hearted Barfi. Are girls impaired when it comes to deciding what they want? Even after they decide on and settle things like engagement, marriage, are they un-trustable?

If Shruti did not have the courage, the standing up to the consequences quality in her, why should she even stoke hopes in Barfi. If someone does not have an independent mind of his/her own, if one can not control ones own life, one should not pretend to be so. They should not go around in society like educated, independent, individuals who are in control of their lives. People like her should not have to right to play around with their own lives, let alone others’.

Be that as it may, what this lady does after her marriage to Ranjit is recklessness of the highest order. The way she walks away when Ranjit tries to stop her, only goes to show how unsettled her mind was even after 6 yrs of marriage, and how spectacularly wrong decisions, women can make.

Shouldn’t there be a limit to impulsiveness; despite the chaos created in mind by the usually blamed fault of hormones.

What can one say of 6 yrs of marriage when Shruti’s mother herself had an infidelic mind even after decades of marriage? How shameless was the mother in going secretly to see the woodcutter even years and years after marriage. Seems like age has no bearing on a woman’s fickle mindedness. This can not be justified under the rubric of womanly, expressive, tender, understanding, matters of heart etc etc.Yes, matters of fidelity in a relationship are to be black or white. There should be no place for grey.

Crossing the lines of wrong decision making and bounds of morality, and even outdoing her mother, Shruti attempts to get back, or rather get in between Barfi and Jhilmil when the two souls were bonding up. Even a differently abled mind like Jhilmil could sense this and she decides to leave immediately. 

Shruti could neither belong to her husband, not to Barfi, not even be true to herself. Beings like these do not have to courage to talk to themselves, question their decisions, their morality, or face their own soul. They live half lives, inflicting suffering unto themselves and to those connected to them.

People like Barfi would still have no ill will for the likes of Shruti, but I have my sympathies for Barfi, Ranjit (Shruti’s husband), the woodcutter (Shruti’s mother’s barfi), and Shruti’s father.

Jhilmil did not have a normal mind, but she had a clean heart. Shruti had a normal mind but an unclean heart.