finally some entertainment

I read this line today - Time is misspent twice: we talk about life as thoughtlessly as we live it. (source http://nplusonemag.com/chathexis ). It’s quite an interesting perspective on gtalk and chatting online. I think he almost calls it a conversation renaissance and ends with the following lines – “the spoken word . . . is an instrument that is enjoyable to play,” then chat—these broken lines, these misspelled words, this transliterated laughter, this long, unpunctuated scroll—has tempted us to compare it, at times, to the musical language that is poetry. But what it is, of course, is conversation. And that is compliment enough.”
Conversations. I am ok with them but I hate them in the swimming pool. Between middle aged gentlemen talking on topics of national interest while relaxing in the cool waters of swimming pool. Why do they even bother changing into a costume and enter the pool. The conversation continues right till the showers.
Today at the showers the hot topic being discussed was – yes sir – the Jan Lokpal bill. Honestly the country’s political climate is to day charged with the issue and funnily enough I stand nowhere. I haven’t a clue. I don’t know what bill the government was proposing and what is the one demanded by civil society. Its about curbing, investigating and punishing corruption in India. The civil society is adding teeth to the bill the government is proposing. There have been enough intellectual debate of supporting or opposing the nature of the agitation. The theory being that you cant hold Government to ransom. Well you cant but this is a democracy and you elect the parliament. So if the parliament is feeling so righteous about itself it could choose to ignore the agitation. But at the same time, it knows that the more it ignores the civil society the more it will lose the support of the people.
So while the agitation is not strictly democratic, democracy in its own interests is ceding ground to it. Nice. I am ok with the play. Democratic countries have these plays built in. Because it’s a democracy you can’t send it the tanks for something you think is right. And where the movement doesn’t seem to have widespread support like the Maoists, you can send it the troops.
But that’s not my point. I am merely enjoying the attention that this agitation is gathering. It’s good. Lots of businessmen seem to have given their whole hearted support for this. I saw at the Mandi in Indore, some nationalists hoisting the national flag. Everybody is supporting Anna.
I couldn’t but see the irony here. The entire mandi trading was happening in cash. No official transactions, no tax and no contracts. The secrecy is amazing, where even the deals are done using handshakes under an opaque cloth. India would benefit more from transparent exchanges than anything else.
Then you have all these traders who would have these hordes of black money, pay low tax and then say – we should get the Jan Lokpal bill passed. Dam you. They want public trials and public punishments. I am sure they will also approve of flogging as a punishment. Stone throwing perhaps. But I wonder if they would be equally supportive if there was a bill on punishing black money by a public trail and hopefully medieval quatering.
But then I smiled. If this corruption thing is suitably sorted and we get rid of it to a large extent then, these guys wouldn’t be able to do much if the tax guy came knocking. Hopefully it would reduce corruption there as well and hence get them to pay more tax. Now that’s an interesting thing. I hope it passes before the businessmen get a chance to react. I am glad they are there. And I think one of the big differences in the govt stand versus civil stand is that the civil fellas want to include lower bureaucracy and that means the low end tax men. That’s possibly a good thing.
Great. So I finally did get entertained by shower conversations. Sometimes I think the guys who just come and sing merrily while showering are more entertainment.
Jai ho.