Freedom,at last

We have celebrated the Independence Day for the nth time and have invoked Gandhi ( I mean the Mahatma for once ) as is the ritual. Yet another lacklustre monologue from the President and an equal performance from the Prime Minister ( for once the country came to know who was the Prime Minister ) - a puppet by design and a puppet by default respectively. So what does this independence day signify, if it signifies anything at all ? Well, I would think it means much to many people. Let us see one by one. The Terrorist from Kashmir ( No, not the Abdullah clan, the poor ones that pelt stones ) : Instead of hurling bombs, they can hurl stones so that we have a stone pelting industry in place. No body can belittle J&K of being backward in industry, you see. Sashi Tharoor : The freedom to openly flirt with a socialite and enter into a marriage arrangement. Purpose of relinquishig the UN Under Secretary General position has been achieved other than popularizing Twitter to the Indian masses. Long live Independence. A.Raja : The freedom to remain in office (by being in Gopalapuram on a daily basis ) despite all the brouhaha about the different spectrums. The freedom to be seen in the spectrum of the Saint Poetess from Chennai is all the more important than any other activity needing to be performed in Delhi. Alagiri : The freedom not to attend Parliament despite being the member of the same as well as the freedom of not answering questions in the Parliament. Not that it would make any difference even if he starts talking in the Parliament. CBI : The freedom to file cases against BJP State Ministers as per directions of Sonia and the freedom to stop pursuing the earlier cases on Quattrochchi once orders to that effect come from 10, Janpath. Such freedom is nowhere to be seen. Suresh Kalmadi : The freedom to forge e-mails from Indian High Commissions and award contracts to one-man companies in the name of sports.

Lord Balaji of Tirupathi : The freedom to hold assets of Rs 28,000 Crores only despite throusands of years of wealth accumulation while allowing the CWG ( Read : Congress Wealth Games ) to be conducted at 35,000 Crores.

Vaiko : The freedom to run a political party in the state of TN when all but himself have moved over to the DMK.

The BJP : The freedom to walk out of the parliament everytime somebody stands up to speak something. Additionally to treat all party members as party leaders. Incidentally to search for a person who is not known to anybody in the country except his own spouse and make him the President of the party ( Any resemblance to Nitin Gadkari is purely coincidental ).

M.Karunanidhi : The freedom to conduct a government by writing un-palatable dialogues and screenplays for un-seeable films. The freedom to ride a wheel chair all the way to Delhi when his family is in trouble. The eternal freedom to participate in valedictory functions organized by anybody from the society including but not restricted to kindergarten children.

Jayalalitha : The constant freedom to reside in a bungalow in a hill station and at the same time fight for the people of the state by releasing paid advertisements in news papers. Of late, staging demonstrations demanding chocolates for kindergarten children to be supplied free of cost.

The Congress Party in TN : The eternal freedom to run the Congress party from the DMK chief's house. The freedom to recite "Kamaraj Rule" mantra in as many occasions as possible. The freedom to control their laughter while talking about inner party democracy. The freedom to fight amongst one another to cut cakes during Sonia's birthday.

The People of Tamil Nadu : The freedom to demand a larger compensation from each political party during the time of elections. The freedom not to depend on electricity for their daily chores. The freedom to stand for many hours in front of Ration Shops ( euphemism for hells on earth ) to be told that the stock for the particular item that they want is not available. Additionally they have the right to live alongside mosquitoes in buildings that have the freedom to fall down at any moment ( the Housing Board Flats ) and enjoy their freedom not to complain about any thing on earth in the Dravidian Republic of Karunanidhi. The People of Gujarat : The freedom from not being protected by strict anti-terror laws like the Maharashtrians are being protected. While the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act is active in the state of Maharashtra, a carbon copy of the same law with the term 'Maharashtra' being replaced by 'Gujarat' is not acceptable to the Hon'ble President of India and hence the people of Gujarat are free not to be subject to the said law. How fortunate are the Gujaratis ? What a freedom they have !

Afzal Guru : Come December and there would be another anniversary of the attack on parliament and Afzal Guru enjoys his freedom to spend his on-going vacation in an indian jail sure of the fact that he is never going to be hung till death. He is actually making preparations to welcome Ajmal Kasab into his suite in Tihar so that the duo could jointly enjoy Indian hospitality at the ordinary tax-payers' cost, probably getting ready for the Ramadan feast at the end of the fasting season.

The Naxals: They have their freedom to choose the train that they want to sabotage. Even now there are no restrictions on them. They have all the human rights watch dogs to help them in the smooth conduct of their day to day affairs like train blasts, CRPF butchering etc.

The DMK : They have their freedom to do anything in TN. Let me not belittle their capabilities by writing about some of them. But conducting physical assaults on aged writers of the opposition front is not new to them and therefore they have outsourced those acts to local hoodlum groups. Delegation of tasks for better project management, you see !

The Lawyers from Tamil Nadu : The most privileged lot in the entire country whose voice even the judges of courts are afraid of. They have the freedom to speak only to the media. That is because they cannot enter the courts to place their arguments as they are boycotting the courts and thereby extending moral support to the people of Myanmar who are fighting for their rights. Did anybody mention about the rights of the people of TN whose voice is not heard in the courts of the land ? The Communists : The freedom to scold Mamata for anything going wrong in West Bengal ( not that something goes right. It has always been 'left'). The freedom to make the state left behind the other states because of their "left" orientied policies. Mamata Banerjee : The freedom to attribute any train disaster in any part of the country to the communists in West Bengal. Governors of Congress Ruled States: The freedom to remain inside the Raj Bhavans of the states and occassionally indulge in proclivities not worthy of the offices that they hold. Governors of BJP Ruled States: The freedom to perform their duties as loyal servants of the Congress Party and act according to the wishes of 10, Janpath. The Prime Minister : The freedom to remain mum at any cost even when China declares that New Delhi is an integral part of China. And the freedom to remain under ground when events of national importance occur. And the freedom to mumble mono-syllables in press conferences. Pratiba Patil : The freedom to constantly remind the people of India and the world that she is totally different from her predecessor by exercising her freedom to be inactive on almost everything. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam : The freedom to deliver speeches to school children about a developed India. The middle classes of India : The freedom to remain in eternal wait for an India that Kalam often speaks about.

UPA-II ( Unified Plundering Authority - Ver 2.0 )

Well, not really sure what to write about. Something like you wouldn't know from which side of the bread that you should eat first. No matter the side, the bread would taste all the same. Likewise, wherever you start from there is one uniform stench that emanates - the one of corruption and official malfeasance. Next the UPA II should be credited for one achievement of theirs - once you concentrate your energies and start collecting your thoughts on how to write about that particular 'achievement' - read malfeasance, corruption, demeaning act - then another comes about totally out of the blue and completely washes you off your feet so that you don't know as to what happened to the earlier one with the result that the perpetrators of the earlier crime - read discharge of one's 'official duty' in the service of the nation- are forgotten by the media and the people at large. We encounter the peculiar nature of the current dispensation -the declaration of motto of UPA - II. The motto is : Un-hindered Plundering at any cost. The mascot being the Prime Minister who has put his image in the line to safeguard the all round plundering that happens at the backend. When we start looking at the Spectrum achievement and start reading more on that and collect some thoughts on the same, the IPL looms into the foreground. Every high ranking minister is involved leave alone what his ministry has got to do with a pure betting exercise called IPL. The agriculture minister who doesn't have time to look into the rising prices of essential grains has got enough time at his disposal to wriggle in a betting enterprise. His cabinet colleague Praful Patel who is incharge of aviation and is not able to control Air India's woes has enough time at his disposal for IPL. Reason : National Service via IPL, you have to believe that. Farmers are committing suicides in Maharashtra due to debt woes. The agriculture minister spends his time in IPL and BCCI. Reason : National Service via IPL and BCCI, you have to believe that. Many thousands of tonnes of wheat get rotten due to lack of storage facilities. Agriculture minister negotiates import of wheat from Australia. What economics this ? Probably the economic stalwart in the Prime Minister would know ! While we linger on wheat, another wind blows over - the CWG mess. Suresh Kalmadi defends all his actions with a forged e-mail from the indian high commission from London only to accept a couple of days later that some irregularities would have happened in the CWG affairs. And the Prime Minister maintains his calm and composure as if nothing of significance has happened while the whole world laughs at India's handling of the pre-games affairs. While China had completed its preparations for last year's olympics an year earlier and Britain has completed its olympics preparations for the 2012 olympics, India still is not ready yet for the CWG that would start in October this year. Aspiring for superpower status, did you say. Time is running out for Sachin Tendulkar. His score is being bettered by Naxals everyday. The day is not far off when Naxals begin television broadcasts from their independent nation comprising of Andhra, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal. While this is the case, the union home minister talks of 'inclusive' talks, un-conditional talks and the like only to be countered by his own cabinet colleagues the next day. His only competitor in incompetence is S.M.Krishna who kept mum, looking like a doll, when the Pak minister lambasted the Indian Home Secretary. What is the PM's take on this ? -- A complete mum on the whole affair. I don't know how many more times would India need to handover dossiers to Pakistan giving credible evidence of its involvement in the 26/11 attacks. I have strong reasons to believe that there is some secret pact with the dossier making industry to make it more profitable than even Microsoft.