and i cried yet again

Today I casually switched on the television set when having lunch and there was this “feel good” movie on in which the weak oppressed good guy manages somehow to beat the system and put the bad guys behind bars as he delivers this homily about truth triumphing in the end anddddd I burst out crying.

All of last night I have been looking at this sight of huge waves sweeping through Japan taking with them debris of houses, cars, ships, aeroplanes and people in equal measure. All of this day I have all been hearing about the nuclear plant catching fire and seeing images of an entire city engulfed in flames and wondering awestruck about what would happen if there was a radiation leakage. YET, though these images did in my mind create horror and did make the brain want to reach out and touch the lives of all those people out there neither of them made me cry but the good guy beating up the bad guys in the end of that movie made me howl as if I had just lost a near and dear one.

I was so embarrassed I had to switch off the set and run away to the loo so that both my wife and daughter present around did not catch me at it and wonder whether I was stable. I cried for all those in the world that ever ever thought they could hold on to ideals, who expected truth to triumph and who were stupid enough to believe everything their mothers told them when they were kids. They are the ones who cheer when their country wins at cricket and football and think the bookies have no way of deciding the outcome, who get peace by being blessed by holy men who later get caught raping children and who once every five or six years dress up in their Sunday bests and go wild cheering in a new messiah who know they for sure will ensure that all just all their problems would now be solved. I cried for the ones whose mothers never told them about the great big bazaar where every single person has been brought out.

A deep despondency fills me today as I watch television, or read the papers, or even discuss current affairs with people around me. l normally try to avoid television and when the topics around me turn to what’s going on in the world I turn away or start talking of something else but just cannot get over reading the papers every morning and they are filled with news of who sold out to whom and how the ones who buy out others and use them for their ends are the ones that win regardless of who played. The news papers relentlessly scream out the triumph of the buyers and every morning I cringe at the feeling of being the perennial loser.

When cricketers go out to play, I cheer from the sidelines and stay up nights watching matches thinking it is my heroes that are performing for love and honour of our country, whereas it is the bookie who decides not only who will score how many runs but even who will bowl what kind of ball and when and despite the small fry being caught everyday this will never cease since the gang that runs the rackets from Dubai was created and nurtured by one of our own top leaders and is now beyond even his control.

When the commonwealth games were organised in India last year it was the politicians who got pride of place and bought toilet paper for $20 to $200 a roll and hired for a hundred thousand rupees machines that cost a fraction of that to buy. Sportsmen who actually had to run or fight with their hearts in their mouth had to be content with training facilities which would have cost as much as a roll of this toilet paper. As we cheered for God and country our respected leaders cheered for the Swiss banking system and the Duchy of Lichtenstein as the sports facilities so proudly built began their gradual decay.

Recently when a minister was dismissed after a prolonged hue and cry for causing a loss to the exchequer of almost Rs 2000000000000/- (which too after the intervention of the supreme court) his loss was admitted by the prime minister as having been the cost he paid for heading a coalition government!!!! In simple English he said “I knew he was robbing the country but I let him do it because otherwise I would not have been prime minister!”. And we hold him as an example of an honest politician. “After all he is personally honest”. we say, and neutrally move on with life.

And now when the trail has led to big fish who have the potential to dislodge the government, a deal has been struck whereby the party in power was granted more seats in the local election by the party supporting them ( a party with good local strength whose support is critical to the central government’s survival) and the heat has been turned off the politicians to whom there is a clear trail of dirty money because they are after all allies !!!! Just another scandal to be brushed under the carpet and just another nail in the coffin of the bought outs so that the buyers may sleep in peace. Let those without drinking water or schools or hospitals be dammed since they can be bribed with a bottle of liquor anyways before elections. Why provide schools and hospitals when this will do? 3G internet connectivity is after all more important and something from which more money can be made.

Yesterday the biggest tax offender in the country’s history, who owes taxes equal to the country’s entire health budget, was let off my some subordinate courts because the proof against him was not authentic. It was after all presented by an agency which till the other day had not arrested him though the fact about him was known for years. The arrest incidentally was when the Supreme Court ordered it and asked whether it was a tea party to which they were inviting him for which they had to wait for his approval. The opposition which was campaigning against the minister mentioned above was in power till a few years ago and speaks nothing about this case because they could then be asked if all these zillions he has stacked away were stacked only in the last few years and whether they had not been so stacked when they the opposition ruled. He couldn’t have sent money thrice the countries health budget abroad without the government’s knowledge!!! If he has, with their knowledge they deserve to be hanged and if he has ,without their coming to know they deserve to be shot dead for their naiveté. Yet, nothing will ever happen to them that buy as they run the system for the sake of the buyers.Hence the school less will remain illiterate, the hospital less shall continue to die on the streets and the water less shall die of thirst so that the few may ski on the slopes of the alps.

And this is what made me cry- the thought that the tsunami affected will ultimately salvage their lives , those that have lost houses will rebuild them, those that have lost friends children and spouses will learn to live without them or get new ones but this will go on forever - and there is no end in sight for those that do not even know that the market has bought them out and that the world exists purely for the pleasure of those that can pay and therefore, in remembrance of all the good guys in the world whose mothers fed them bloody lies as kids I shall continue to cry every time I see a film that shows the small man winning.