On public etiquette and sycophancy

Breakneck traffic on hardly busy suburban roads, Honda Civics brushing past caravans of pedal-rickshaws, traffic quasi-police trying in vain to control the flow of automobiles and an off-duty policeman without a helmet trying to cross the road even while the mainstream traffic cruised along... these are what I observed in the first ten minutes in the land of chikan and 'pehle aap - tehzeeb' (etiquette of 'you first').

But the most striking thing was that the city was aglow with blue colored lighting, blue colored cloth hoardings, large posters bearing photographs and symbols of the governing party politicians. Whizzing past statue after statue of the chief minister and mentors of the political party, I could not but wonder how much money was being spent on this mega-celebration. Then we drove past the planned venue for the gala anniversary event where more than a hundred thousand people were expected to assemble in a couple of days. But it appeared as if all the police jeeps in the city had already found parking around the locale.

My driver explained in a careful tone how the administration is spending 'araboan rupayeh' (unimaginably high amount of money) for an anniversary. While farmers and students outside the city make do with just a few hours of power everyday, the city casts a blue stamp in the sky for the passing satellite.

There was one conspicuous stretch of road though that bore absolutely no lighting. Nothing else changed- smooth as glass tarmac, neatly painted traffic-lanes, manicured divider and dedicated, separated pedestrian and bicycle tracks. The stretch was dark with no street lights of any type. The ensuing explanation of the anomaly told me about how politicians' egos function in complete isolation from public safety norms. The particular stretch of road was apparently the dream project the former chief minister. The project having been a success and the current administration being at constant loggerheads with the former, the latter chose to downplay the success of the road by knocking out all lights. Who would dare cross the road here?

Three days hence, we now know that fifty million dollars were spent and a garland made of currency notes worth a million dollars was presented to the chief of the party. Where the money came from is altogether a different question and for the CAG of India to worry. In a state where the number of people living below poverty line is one of the highest in the country, this amount of money given to them, in kind -food and shelter even- would have had a colossal impact on thousands of lives. If caste politics is the name of the game, fine, the party could have still distributed the money to their own voters if no one else. Even that, biased it may have been, would have still served a social cause.

Do the people from the, historically, economically disadvantaged factions, whose cause the party claims to champion and who voted this party to power, wonder why their chosen one did not make better use of the money? Or did they admire the pink garland of grands, thinking all the while that it looked so big and so pretty it befitted a white elephant?

A million dollar currency garland and a fifty million dollar gala is bad public tehzeeb for any leader in any land.