Sunday, August 13, 2006

Filing my returns

And since the fifteenth approaches, with a week of holidays, I think I will file my returns for July.

And July was quiet. All of Mumbai was bleeding. And Mahim was bleeding. And Khar was bleeding. And the road was bleeding, and the traffic was bleeding. And the railway tracks were bleeding. And everyone was sympathetic. And everyone was jingoistic. Everyone that is, outside Mumbai. And Mumbai's spirit was saluted. With 7 bombs and about 200 dead bodies.

And the cleansing came before the wounds. And Mumbai bobbed its head above the polluted rain water that clogged its drains, and that snaked into the ground floor houses. And the BMC asked us to wait another 3 years for the water to recede from our terror-striken brains. Mr Jonny Joseph is an honourable man.

And Mr Bharadwaj has done what no man has done before. He has made the Censor Board understand what an "A" rating is. Unapologetically. Without begging with politicians. And cabinet secretaries. And media houses. And pressure groups. And producers. And he has got the film he wanted to be shown the way he wanted.

And Mr Natwar Singh is singing like a canary. But to the wrong people about the wrong things. Like a deer in the cross lights of an approaching SUV, he looks stranded.

Like Maybe Sonia Gandhi should join the Samajwadi Party. Then none of the gangsters will have anything to fear. And the common man will be sent to jail for paying his taxes on time.

Like maybe Karan Johar should now delve deeper into the grays of the human pysche and try making a movie on split personalities.

Maybe road travel in Mumbai will soon resemble a stampede in the Serengeti. The deterioration of an entire people from a manageable, coherent, alert, non interfering, caring law abiding group to a lawless unethical, selfish, derogatory rabble of careless humanity.

And I saw it begin right in front of me. With an utter disdain for traffic law. Flouted in the face of a feeble-minded traffice pandu. Instigated by those out-of-towners.

utekkare,

pranay