A Merc for an official’s daughter

by Sunit Dhawan 

Thanks to the anti-corruption movement spearheaded by campaign commander Anna Hazare, corruption has become the buzzword, of late.

Today, almost every child on the street knows the character of the leaders of the ruling as well as waiting-to-rule parties. The campaign has also embittered our previous notion of taking the canker of corruption in our stride by accepting it as part of our life.

The drive has made us put on our thinking caps and reconsider the validity of our traditional “chalta-hai” attitude. It seems to be high time to let our forgive-and-forget philosophy take the back-seat for a while and find a lasting cure for the menace.

It was in this backdrop and this sort of thinking mode that I came to know about a lavish wedding. One of the invitees told me that the father of the bride, who had remained posted as tehsildar in the district, gave a brand-new Mercedes car as a dowry-gift to his beloved daughter.

Now, corruption is a ubiquitous phenomenon these days, and this writer has had quite a few opportunities to examine, expose and report various instances of corrupt practices. Still, this was a bit too much.

What proved to be the icing on the cake was the fact that several government functionaries present there, including revenue, taxation and administrative officials, preferred to focus on the sumptuous delicacies and networking rather than ruining their evening by getting into the nitty-gritty of their host’s source of income. After all, all duty and no pleasure would only make them dull babus.

In sharp contrast, I was reminded of an old anecdote narrated by my grandfather. He once told me that when Rafi Ahmed Kidwai - a socialist leader and freedom fighter, who later became a minister in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet - passed away, Nehru went to his house to offer condolences to his family.

There he saw that a portion of the late minister’s house was in a dilapidated condition. Nehru offered a certain amount of money to Kidwai’s widow to get the house repaired, but she refused to accept any financial aid. “Whatever my husband has left behind is enough for me,” asserted the lady.

“Such was the character of our leaders and their families then”, maintained my grandfather with a sense of pride. But then, he gloomily shook his head over the present-day state of affairs. I silently decided to avoid telling my 90-plus grandfather about the instances of dishonesty we often come across. Ignorance, they say, is bliss.

A few months later, I called up a seasoned all-weather friend for his advice on some worldly matter. After having addressed the issue of concern, our conversation veered towards the prevailing scenario.

Disenchanted with the scheme of things, I quoted poet Iqbal’s couplet,

“Barbaad gulistaan karne ko bas ek hi ullu kaafi tha.

Har shaakh pe ullu baitha hai, anjaam-e-gulistaan kya hoga”.

I had not even completed the couplet when my worldly-wise friend quipped: “Bhai, yahaan to ullu ke patthe baithe hain”, innocuously giving an all-new perspective to the age-old verse.

The views expressed and Information provided by the author are his own and left to public to judge and rationalise for themselves.