We May Be the Most Corrupt

India may be the only country in the world where garbage bins have to be kept chained so that it doesn’t get stolen. In this case the garbage bin belongs to government and the a*****e who steals it thinks he can keep his dirty laundry in it. Because we are a corrupt people who don’t realise that what is not ours should be left alone or reported to the authorities. We constantly covet other people’s property. When we see others with some gadget we ask for it (or even take it out of their pockets) and examine it, with the intention of possessing it.

Just the same thing struck me when I heard of the Adarsh Society case. It was like a thunderous bolt from the recently-rained blue sky. Clarity struck! It struck with such awesomeness, I was dazed, nay, flabber... whatever. I was left reeling from the impact of scams on my life. It came after a series of scams, just so that we are tired and fatigued by these revelations in the press. Just shows how corruption is deeply ingrained in our conscience. We turn the page thinking, “I knew that man was dishonest.” In the corporate world (which is equally internecine as the political world) we think constantly of appropriating another’s position and power, we try to get the other guy sacked by spreading rumours so that we get a promotion, worse: we try to grab others’ money.

What struck like a big bag of grain soaked in water suddenly released on one’s face is that perhaps there’s no one in this country who is beyond corruption. Take the following examples:

·         A publisher of books says (since I have many publishing inside stories being found unpublishable) he is helping the author and the cause literature when he accepts money from the poor starving author who doesn’t know his career will be ruined if he self-publishes.

·         Yesterday a woman broke the queue and requested the man in front of me to buy her ticket when I refused taunting me, “we should help each other, I too help people, you know.” Well, she is too corrupt to even realise she is in the wrong.

·         We throw litter anywhere because our garbage bins get stolen as most of the time it is empty and unused.

·         Education has become so corrupt we gladly shell out money to schools and colleges as donation which is a bribe and no amount of white washing will make it look clean. Thus our children learn the first steps in corruption from us – parents.

·         How can a housing society come up in a plush locality without requisite permission with the big man himself (chief of ministers who regularly wears khadi clothes) doling out flats to his cronies? Didn’t it strike them they would be caught, eh? How dumb and naive! How absolutely infantile. Even a child would do better when it comes to preaching morality. Don’t they even think before they do something which could easily be discovered? What thoughts were going through their minds before they did this act of chicanery? That, too, a chief minister.

·         Stop and ask a beggar on the street and he will say, “I am doing this as a hobby; I actually am a well-settled corporate profession and have enough money.”

Well, get the drift?

Now about the flat scam. Guess the Commonwealth Games scam and the IPL scam got over-ridden by this one. Each new scam rides pillion back over other scams. Now hear the Commonwealth scammer (the Mantralay maverick), of whom my billionaire friend who lives in Malabar Hill Dhansukhbhai Jethalal Shah is a keen supporter:

“See, thame soo khailu (what should I say to you), we do chota-mota (big-small) scams they get bugged, eh? Look, who-who are scamming and being caught. Hhehehehehohohoho! Poor wretch, I told him so. I told him not to give permissions to buildings in coastal zones. He being the minister thought he could do anything and get away with it. We are corrupt for fun, they are corrupt because they like to be corrupt. That’s the difference.”

I don’t know who to believe and who not to. I will leave that to the investigative journalists.