AUGUST MUSINGS

Here I am, sitting in my office, wondering what to do next, when I realize that it’s been a while since I posted on my blog.

Indians had a reason to celebrate at the Olympics this time. Three brave and dedicated souls excelled at the games to bring us a few medals. A silent, but sure, start to what I hope will be a sports revolution, and an indication that people are finally willing to look beyond Cricket.

The reaction of the Government was typically knee-jerk! A spate of prizes were announced after the win was recorded. A well coordinated effort would have been to announce prizes to winners in advance, so as to act as an incentive. Or was the Government convinced that its citizens would never win a medal at the games?

The monsoon is receding. It has been erratic this year. When it should have rained, it stayed away. When it did come, it came with a vengeance; floods that caused destruction and took away lives. Roads in my town, Mangalore, are in a pathetic shape; the potholes resemble craters. And as in the past, this time too, it is the same portion of the road that bears the onslaught - year after year. The authorities fill the potholes with stones and mud and people of Mangalore, get a free session of break-dance on these roads. Why don’t they ever learn, year after year? Do we complain? We do! Do we complain enough? Perhaps not. Does anybody listen? None or perhaps they don’t care.

Independence Day has come and gone. White clad politicians, white being the colour of purity, paid respect to the nation and mouthed the same old rhetoric. Some citizens celebrated while others introspected. I belong to the latter category and so I listed out points to ponder. Coming from a small town which is fighting in vain to be a city, I have identified my areas of concern. Firstly, communalism & all that follows it has raised its ugly head and like the many headed hydra refuses to be silenced. Unemployment levels are rising at an even pace; (if only development would record as steady a growth). The quality of education is falling; students are growing up with a near absence of breadth of knowledge; whatever is imparted to them is very superficial. Corruption is rampant and growing exponentially. The schism between the ‘have’ and the ‘have-not’ is expanding. Chaos, disguised as “development”, reigns supreme.

Much like the Samsung advertisement, I ask, Next is what?