3 Reasons Why We Can’t Have An Egypt Here

Can we Indians do an Egypt? Perhaps not or rather won’t. Now one wonders – why not? We have seen enough corruption, discrimination, appeasement and apathy for decade’s altogether. We have seen uncountable number of Rajas, Kalmadis in every street, every city and every government offices. 45% of our country still goes to bed with empty stomach. 65% doesn’t know how to read or write their own names. 40% of Tax payer’s money is wasted in scams and promptly stashed in various Swiss Banks every year. Aren’t these good enough reasons for us to stand up and say – enough is enough? If you are thinking something like this now then let me clear this upfront - If you think the reasons were alone enough to bring Cairo to a boiling point then let me assure you, Delhi would have melted long back, looking at the number of reasons us Indians have to go for a nationwide revolt. More than corruption, price rise, apathy and unemployment; it needs a great deal of courage and a stubborn mindset to architect a phenomenon of Cairo. Even though we might have more reasons than what Egyptians have, we just can’t stand up and force ourselves to be heard because we seriously lack attitude, courage and self-belief. Our national easy-go attitude is not helping the cause either.

Having said that; before prematurely closing this option as CBI dose with every second case it handles; let’s give it a shot and do our homework on it a bit. Let’s see if we can really pull up an Egypt act if the situation demands, more so when we are unearthing lakhs of crores of scams on daily basis.

First and foremost we need as big a square as Tharir Square somewhere in India (although in Delhi would be best) to have this revolt. At least the square should be decent enough size to accommodate half a million individuals if not more. Now anyone having some serious knowledge about city squares of India can always forward their nominations which they think is good enough as Tharir Square, if not better. Till we get any concrete suggestions from the experts, lets select Caunaught Place in Delhi as our prospective revolt point as an ad-hock arrangement. But hang on – Haven’t our good for nothing DDA has already excavated it to pre-historic era and there is no Caunaught Place left in Delhi to begin with? Somebody who claims to be deeply in love with the city informed with a pair of moist eyes – nowadays Caunaught Place looks more like the ruins of Nalanda University than the once most happening place of Delhi. I feel pity on that Ray-Ban selling business man of the Caunaught Place inner circle, who starts with a price tag of Rs 1500/- but ends up selling it for Rs 120/-. Poor chap; who dedicated his entire life for charity through his business so that lesser mortals like me have their eyes safeguarded from scotching sun and Delhi dust is forced out of his noble work. Now what to be done? Does anyone have any idea for a substitute? Because the last thing we want in our endeavor for a revolt is to see the revolutionaries toppling over the debris and falling over each other and end up killing themselves in stamped. So the 1^st Reason we can’t make an Egypt here – Lack of a big square like Tharir Square.

Just having a big square doesn’t going to help our revolt. We actually need real people rushing in to the square from all corners with placards and heavy vocal cords. And we are not talking about one or two but half a million of them so that the chaps at Shastri Bhawan and elsewhere would wet their Dhotis by just looking at the sheer number itself. Now this is where India would face the biggest problem than any other country in the world. When I say any other country, I exclude Pakistan from it. Let’s take a pause here and try to recall the situation of any street of any city during office hours. All are in the hurriedness of their life and want to be the first one to zoom ahead with vigor. Doesn’t matter if in the process they have to literally drive over that filthy looking Premier Padmini ahead or the lazing bull on the right. Now get out of our pause and try to imagine half million people rushing into the Caunaught Place with a lot of vengeance and energy. Try imagining a situation when all roads in Delhi would be leading towards Caunaught Place. I won’t be surprised if at the end there could be very few or none, who would actually manage to make it till Caunaught Place and of course a handful amount of causality as well. For the rest – they would curse each other with that subtle nuance of typical North-Indian slang factory for being the reason for the traffic jam and sooner or later they would prefer a U-turn and head back to the comfort of their drawing rooms. Thanks to our driving sense coupled with the pathetic state of our roads, our brave hearts won’t be able to come to the square even if they want to. So the 2^nd Reason we can’t make an Egypt here – The traffic jam would become a bigger nuisance than the person whom against the proposed revolt would be.

As they say – it is all about timing. Things have got bigger impact if done at the right time and at the right place. When we are talking about a nationwide revolt, the first thing that we should take into account is the timing of it. I am sorry to say – currently the timing seems to be going a little haywire. World-cup is barely a week away and you are talking about some revolt or any of that nonsense? Don’t you guys want us to win this edition and give a resounding gift to Sachin? What Mahi and team would think of us if we are busy doing placard march in some stupid square than cheering our team? Our able politicians are looting us for last 60 odd years. So let them loot for another couple of months; what’s the big deal. Once we are done with the World-cup we will catch hold of all the Rajas, Kalmadis, Chavans of the world and make them pay for their deeds. Hang-on; on a second thought - can’t we wait till the end of IPL instead, which would immediately follow the World-cup? After all it is a matter of one more extra month only. I admit in one month we can send couple of more dossiers to Pakistan on 26/11, we can have bigger scams popping up to limelight and bigger rascals unearthed, Rahul Baba will vouch for the Aam Admi at least 10 times at different places of India but don’t tell me in one month things would be worse than what they are now. Please spare us till the cricket season is over and then we can talk about any rubbish revolt. Thank you so very much. So the 3^rd Reason we can’t make an Egypt here – The upcoming cricket World-cup won’t allow 70% of our populace to behave patriotic.

The reasons I mentioned might seem little sarcastic and cynical, but on a closer look it is more palpable than fiction. I would be least surprised if any such effort to recreate Egypt in India falls flat on its face due to any or all of the reasons I mentioned. Our ‘the whole world is there; why me?’ attitude has made us a colony of slaves where we act like puppets in the hands of few power hungry mongrels. Nobody realizes that to pull the skunk out of its habitat one has to get into the mud himself. We all want the pigs to be out of our democracy but none wants to make himself muddy. When the opportunity arrives to act we rather conveniently search for excuses and always in the lookout for opportunities to show our back to the situation and run away from it. As an one-liner - Forget about Egypt; We seriously lack in intent to even question the tout outside the Collector’s office for his nefarious dealings.