Why can we not simplify life that is connected to anything controlled by the government in India?! The idiocity of the round-about game associated with ANYTHING that is government-run makes you realise that the efficiency of our country is automatically self sabotaged. My BSNL modum was giving me trouble for over a month ,and so yesterday I finally decided to put all else aside and deal with it.
My saga started at 3 in the blistering heat of the afternoon. With a skin problem where I get terrible sunburns in irregular patches I went about dodging the sun like an under-trial keeping the paparazzi at bay! Anyway the end result in procuring a resolution to my internet problem was like a treasure hunt that mapped almost the entire geography of Baroda by the time any real action was taken.
As I heaved and sweated, panted and puffed, snorted and grimaced; the telephone officials picked their noses and teeth, scratched their crotches and chewed pan, and spoke endlessly to each other over cups of tea and glasses of water as the sent me from one counter to another and one location to the next!
I am always asked if I am "foreign"!!!!! I hate this ridiculous assumption that since I am not draped in a pink nylon sari with a juda and anklets on my feet, that I am some kind of alien from another planet. Anyway I am digressing. I swallowed my irritation over all these side shows and switched into "saccharine sweet mode I-am-idiot-please-help-me" mode. I also informed them (which was true) that I needed to rush ff to a hospital to be with a patient.
Tragic stories are usually a passport to getting things done in India, and so Mr. Pan stained teethwala decides after a three hour marathon of here-now-there-next jaunt around the city, to finally release a new modum (which I was paying for, let me add), and I then believed my luck had turned!
Oh do get real, the story could not be this simple! Then commenced the configuring of the damn thingamajig! I will let you off the agony of the entire story and just say that this procedure went on for another two hours!
When Surendran came home at night I very quietly informed him "If I say it's winter right now, just agree with me today!" I think he got the message that I was feeling like a plucked chicken in a snowstorm with a one way ticket to nowhereville!
When will we clean up the obvious mess of our country. Each citizen knows this to be of imperative urgency if we are to realize the full benefit of progress. Why do we not raise our voices and demand that systems change where it matters. That we gloss over these fundamental flaws with excuses to validate and explain them away, only allows that we continue to dig our own graves by letting the governments we elect off the hook of accountability to us. Spot checks by people who can implement change, and top officials getting involved at grass root levels must now become a method at government offices to instill efficiency. India cannot afford to be this corrupted at the basic levels of management and impede the efficiency of it's citizens lives so callously. We know the power of the voice of the people. Why are we so silent?
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