Things I Hate About India: Part II

Let me admit and repeat this at the outset- Hate is a strong word but I can't help it much.

Naming Conventions
In India the way our politicians want to leave their mark after their departure sucks. It sucks because they don’t want to leave it by their good work but the Indian way. There you go, name a city, street, a bloody chowk, a designated red light area or for that matter anything – you become immortal. Never bother if you yourself couldn’t accomplish it, as out of nowhere you crashed head-on with a speeding train at your ripe age and made your way to hell, heaven or wherever. Just make sure you leave behind a handful amount of Chamchas to do it for you. If not anything they can at least manage to get a Sulabh Sauchalaya named after you.

From here go straight and take a left turn at Mahatma Gandhi Chowk. Then you will be on the Jawahar road. Go straight and take a right at the Indira Gandhi circle and keep moving till you cross the Rajiv Gandhi Bridge. Just after the bridge take right and go for a kilometer or so on Firoz Gandhi road and then at the Sanjaya Gandhi Chowk ask the auto drivers – ‘Yahan Lucky Singh ka desi daru ka adda kahanpe hai’. Come on, I am not supposed to remember the names of the last seven generations of a family to get my Desi daru bottle. I better quit drinking in that case.

These naming conventions also have a fundamental problem. Out of fear of the Chamchas and the subsequent bandh, dharna and morcha, the authorities keep on changing the name as it suits the current demand. Now you are not sure (which you were 15 minutes earlier) what is the bloody name of your neighborhood Chowk anymore. Much like the way these terrorists’ organizations are. Today they are one Lashkar-E-Taiba and tomorrow they are a certain Harqat-UL-Mujahideen and then even their mothers don’t know what they are anymore on the third day. So don’t be too disturbed if at times you fail to furnish a static home address to your friends, giving them the impression of you being a refugee.

Indian Marriage
Marriages are made in heaven but turned torturous in India. It is not only torturous for the couple getting married but for a whole lot of people involved in the mega event. Most of the times, it is even torturous for half of the city population. Its time our police throw their 3rd degree methods out of the window and threaten the anti-socials to get them married instead.

The torture starts as soon as the prospective mother-in-law announces – ‘Hum Ladki dekhne jaa rahe hain’. This Ladki dekhna phase is horrible, with a million getting involved in it and a trillion others having an opinion or two on the last Ladki that been seen. Forget all those Laddu, SarbatSamosha served during that Ladki Dekhna act. Now when finally the marriage date arrives, half of the city is taken hostage starting with your local neighborhood. All within a 500 meter radius of the event location are forced to stay indoors – thanks to that huge, out of the world size SamianaMamaji. No bloody living being can move-out.

The marriage procession is one hell of a thing. The mad dance, as if it is the last day they have left to live and half of the city’s grog consumed in one hour. Let’s not discuss the noisy Patakhas that goes off. Let the street dogs tell this part of the story. Now best is the way these Barats bring the traffic to a dead halt. Thanks to our narrow roads – no one can overtake the Barat nor can anyone cross them from the front either. Result - a huge tail of vehicles following the Barat at snail’s pace. Think about a person like me and thousand others, who are just out of their offices after a day’s slog and in a hurry to reach home to see men in blue bat before they get bundled out below 147. But thanks to someone committing suicide, we are held hostage and by the time we reach home, all that we have in the match is- Harsha Bhogle looking sorrier and Ravi Shastri lashing out at our pathetic batting display and as usual our team booted out unceremoniously from the championship. You are getting married, congratulations, Mubaraq Ho – go ahead kill yourself with pleasure but can we lesser mortals be spared? Please don’t make us feel like a bunch of un-invited guests in your party. Sukriya.

Red Tapes
No, I am not referring to the Lal-Salaami. I am talking about our Sarkari machinery (All Babus and the peons) and their strong affinity to protocols, the moment you ask them to do their duty. Getting your work done through them is tougher than expecting one of the CWG stadia roofs not to crash on our heads on the inauguration day itself. But there is an easier way though – Just bribe them and those protocols would very well go for a walk. That’s a different debate and we are not going there. On a second thought there isn’t much difference between the Lal-Salaami and our Sarkari

Trust me, these bunch of non-descriptive creatures are more pathetic than those Call center guys, when it comes to parroting out a stanza. The other day I had gone to complain at the local municipality office for a clogged up drainage system in my toilet. Before I could finish, the retaliatory questions started. When I failed to answer the chap on the details (like how it happened, when it happened. Did I figure out after my potty or before? Is it me or my wife who noticed it and hell lot of other details) of this clogging he perhaps did which I was least expecting he would do. Sample laa shakte hain kya? Dekhiya bhia, yeh to hamara process hai. Sample? Of what? The floating shit on the potty? Or I would take a picture of the catastrophe in my cell phone and show it to him. Does that guy look like having a brain from his acts? More than him I want to hound out the guy who led-out these wretched process.

Nobody knows better than Viswanathan Anand, how big a pain in the butt our red tapes and protocols are. Poor chap is so frightened that he is even carrying his passport while visiting the loo.

Indian Sarkari Forms
Think of any Indian Sarkari form, you will plan to pack your bags and move to Himalaya to pursue your Yaogasana. If you are reading this piece then you haven’t yet filled any Sarkari form as I am sure there are no internet connections at the far corners of the Himalayan range. I could be one exception to go through the nightmare (filling the Sarkari forms) numerous occasions and still be alive and available to write about it.

Any damn form you pick, you would find it asking you a hell lot of details which are no way related to the service that you are asking for. It still baffles me (as I yet to get a reason) that what my Grandfather’s home address has got to do with the latest BSNL sim I am applying for? Could we for once leave the dead at ease and don’t disturb them for anything and everything. Just than disturbing my Grandfather the form asked a lot of details about the stuffs that I have in my house. To my surprise, they stopped just short of asking me about the colour and brand of the innerwear I was putting at that moment. Not that they didn’t wanted to but because it could be a little embarrassing for female applicants, I guess. Men like me can still furnish those details, if it is a necessity for our Sarkar to know but females won’t be that patriotic.

The different clauses (must be a billion of them in any form) are most irritating. More than the number the inter-relationship between these clauses shows the misconception that our Sarkar is carrying - All applicants are Rocket scientists. If clause A of sub-para -‘Local Contact’ is filled then details of clause C-1 of para-2, page 5 subsection ’III’ must also be furnished. I better go and do research to prove Einstein’s theory of relativity wrong. and erected in your locality on the stubborn guidance of your loving machinery.