I am an educated individual. I belong to the 63 % who can write their name on a piece of paper before another educated person who can read what I have written during a national literacy survey. I fear imparting knowledge the most. I fear letting the 63 % becoming 73% as that is equivalent to10% more competition. With all these quotas and more quotas 10 % is a good amount to keep at bay. The only means that I have devised to bring my plan into action is to deny economic prosperity. I will support any political party that stands morally strong against development. The people who I deny growth have growth. Their farmlands have extensive crops…although it is a different issue that often their income is included in the “below poverty” line statistics. But that is exactly what I want. If the parents cannot feed their children how are they going to educate them. Let them reproduce at 10 % rate to facilitate more hands for farm work…(chuckle) their farm isn’t getting any bigger, but my 10% illiteracy buffer is here to stay.

If you cannot hear the oppressed crying, then they aren’t crying. If you cannot see them being raped, then they aren’t being raped. What happens when the camera is not looking on is a different issue yet again. The nation does not need to know what it already knows but chooses to overlook. This is how the machinery has been running for 30 years. This is how the machinery will be run by a different driver. I am happy to stand by the driver’s seat as his stagecoach of the economically and educationally hoodwinked guns gloriously towards the Ganges, which is now a drain in my part of town.

Today is a glorious day for my kind. The farmers have got their lands back. The majority opposition has got its glory back along with them. Now both of them can walk down the aisle hand in hand and sing our standard anthem, “Amar shonar bangla…” I am happy that my people still desire “gold” in the form of grain, although it wouldn’t matter because they are mostly clueless about the clever numbers I pull on my mathematically wise calculator. It is simple to shortchange them. I am glad their land is back, so I may continue shortchanging them. Think of the horror of industrialization. It would have brought in schools and hospitals, and other tertiary industries with a demand for education in our locality? We have been spared of that horror. I do and will remain a faithful member of the 63 % educated class of Bengali people. May Orwell live for a thousand years- it is much too sweet to belong to the “more than” equal class of equals.

A trivia for those who are my fellow brethren:

Question.

How often do you call a woman motherly, when all she does is strangle your growth?

Answer.

All the time, thanks to our very own evergreen Mamata.

Neo Religion Jiyo

Most religions have a ladder of ascension:

The Hindu has the concept of rebirth until one becomes part of the paramatma.

The Muslim has the stages of going from non believer to finding a place by God's side at judgment day. The Christian has a similar schema.

The remaining religions, I am sure have something similar.

Let me propose a new religion. Wait, first let's name it. Naming is an integral part of setting up religions. The name has to be logical. Let us call this new religion Pissenpush. Why such a strange name, you may ask. See, this new religion is based on pissing and pushing away maximum number of people belonging to other religions. So, the better you are getting someone's temples hot, or greater your skill of pushing peoples' patience over the hill, the higher you get to the God, similarly named, Pissenpushamma.

Takers anybody? Anybody? Come one... don't be shy, come forward, sign up for a pie of bliss. Speaking of pie, this religion does not have a heaven, it has the concept of pies. Higher one gets in its echelon, bigger the pie. Pissenpushamma has an entire pie to itself. The God is asexual, therefore the use of the word, "it". Let's go for the show of hands once more people. Tick tick one tick tick two tick tick three...and we have the first member of our religion!!! Let me see...ah...Mr. Rushdie welcome to our sanctified brother/sister hood. Hello!!! Another member! Mr. Hussain... ah... your pie is much bigger than Mr. Rushdie's. Btw...don't you think "Rushdie" is an intriguing name....he's got the speedway to the entire pie spelt out in his name. A third? Not a single another one... any sisters out there ready to kick up a point? Yes yes...raise your hands a little higher... no no... you are not scratching your head with, you are raising it. There is no shame...Ms. Taslima... there we go... the first trio. Now we have three brand ambassadors .... this is where we employ them in our worldwide recruitment policy. The way it works it the quickest and most powerful method used by any religion as of yet--- yes, we throw them at your face via the television.


See how simple it is to set up a religion. Now coming to the purpose...Errm... to piss you off?

Taking Sides

Karan Thapar spoke. The conversation broke. And Narendra Modi went up in smoke. It was a Houdini act. The leftist folks joked about how Thapar had tingled Modi's chords. And the right wing scoffed at Thapar's puppy dog "please don't screw my interview" expression. I belong to the junta on the left. I am not for marveling present development and forgetting past crimes. And I am not for promoting one sect that is a minority just to boast about our secularism. Lives were lost. Lives that belonged to both Musalman and Hindu faiths. Statistically many more Muslims were killed. But can one look at loss of life statistically? Ask the relatives and friends of those who died (both Hindu and Muslim) does it matter if 1000 or 50 were butchered or burnt? For them that one dead body made all the difference.

It is sad that in times of man made and natural calamity we look towards statistics. Thing is, not everything is cricket. Not everything is entertainment on the television set. And surely not everything is forgettable and material for the census books.

I am not sure what it takes to live with blood on your hands. Shakespeareans would quote Macbeth here, but I'll disagree. Macbeth was weak. Modi and his band are not. Even if they regret they do not show it. Hopefully they will truly feel sorry someday for all the lives that were lost. And hopefully someday we will understand that it does not matter if 50 or 1000 died, but that even one person was killed in the name of God.

Throwing in a bit of sentimentality...What would Bapu, the father of our nation, have to say? Would he too shrug, and scratch his bald head as we do?