It’s All “Setting” Now!

They have a new word for corruption. It’s all “setting” now. Consider this out-of-teen-shadow-mustachioed collegian in the train saying boastfully. His voice isn’t broken; it is indignant and incredulous.

“अरे, मैने तीन तीन जगह सेटिंग कियाथा, पता है? फिर भी पास नही हुआ.”

“I had made “setting” in three places. You know, still I didn’t pass.”

Guess these geezers know the corruption game even before we knew about it around forty years ago. Every Indian is born into the lap of corruption, right from the time his mommy stopped washing his ass. Because Papa couldn’t afford the donation for his admission into the fancy nursery school, he sent him to the English section of a vernacular school, where the misses changed every month. (Poor misses were paid two students’ monthly fee as salary. So they left.)

That was the first “setting.” The next “setting” was when he went into tenth standard and the private coaching class principal had to be done some “setting” and paid a sum as big as a privy purse only to teach Physics, Chemistry and Maths. Why? Because the vernacular school didn’t teach properly, no (what with misses changing every month)?

Then came this big “setting” for a degree college. Another big-big setting, patha hai? Then the bacha (child) went and flunked the classes. Papa tried “setting” in three places: at the college, at the university and at the education ministry. All three “settings” failed.

What is the need for his degree anyway, if all he has to do is attend to calls as a “Voice Support Executive” or, to put it more simply, a call center employee?

New word for corruption | India |