'Hungry bellies' VS 'The blue ink'

“We promise to provide sewing machines and gas stoves in every home….. (Recorded voice with tempting election offers echoed)”. Sometimes I feel that these candidates provide better offers than Wednesday Bigbazars. A mighty stereo loaded on a mini lorry was repeating these words of an extended list, vomiting out everything fed into it, figuratively speaking, highlight points of the party’s agenda for this year elections. Slowly the lorry took a u-turn and came to halt. Three young boys around 20 may be, who wore a t-shirt which resembled a party office wall got busy distributing pamphlets and explaining the crowd “the need” to vote for their party.

(Period.)

It was about 4 o’clock but the sun was not in the mood to leave. I was waiting for the bus under the shade till I heard the shriek of a woman. When I turned, I found that she was trying to get some help. I rushed to the place without giving a second thought. Few other men had reached there till then. She was with an old lady lying at the back of a broken wall adjacent to the railway track. She was lying unconscious, with mouth agape. White foam was spread out of her and dried up leaving behind its mark on her soiled face. Thick mucus flown out had accumulated below her nostrils. The rise and fall of her chest was the only indication of her being alive. Her stomach had sunk somewhere. It seemed she had no food from days. Her dirty old tattered sari was just enough to cover her body. Sari which she must have not changed from ages, or it was the only piece of cloth that was left with her to hide her body. While one of her leg lied turned with her knee facing the soil, other one was bent abnormally.  Her fist was dug in soil as if she tried to grab on to something out of pain before she went unconscious while the other had stains of some stale food around which flies were wandering. A thin yet long line of ants were riding over that hand of her, picking up their food and were passing down to soil.

Two other men ran to buy water packets while I helped the woman to bring that lady to the shed. The woman lifted her and made her rest on her lap. Two other men were spraying water on her face to bring her back to sense. She was hyperventilating at that time. She opened her eyes at a jerk and closed them slowly to half mast. “Water…water…” was all that I could hear her murmuring.  

Party workers were still distributing their pamphlets avoiding everything that was happening just two steps away from them. Public was also busy grabbing their seats in the MTC bus that just arrived… young lovers were busy talking… spending some time with each other before going home… one pair of lovebirds were treating each other paani puris, while the girl was feeding her love like he was a baby or God hadn't gifted him with hands to feed himself. Strange world, isn't

it? While an old woman was fighting with death and dying just because she failed to fill her stomach, the whole world is busy with their personal reasons without giving slightest of their attention. One of the party members approached me. Handing me their pamphlet they asked me to vote their party this time. With my broken Tamil I tried to convince them to shift the dying woman to any nearby hospital so that she can be saved if they want vote. From my broken Tamil they understood well that I am an outsider and I cannot cast my vote here. So there was no need for them to please me or entertain me. Within fraction of seconds their lorry vanished from the spot.

Thanks to few auto driver annas who shifted the old lady to a hospital and I wish that she gets well soon…

original photo: old lady fighting with death lying unconscious on ground  

Party workers busy distributing their pamphlets who flee from the spot when asked for help

P.S.

“We will give you sewing machine…we will give you gas stoves…..” didn't anyone tell them before that sewing machine will only be needed if everyone in this country have cloth to wear…gas stoves will only be needed when they have food to cook… They left a woman to die without helping, but they wanted vote from us.

These were the party workers of a well known political party which is going to compete on almost all seats over India. Having its roots in UP, it spread all over India this time. No doubt, their party chief too wants to become the next PM. During her reign as CM she has brought numerous developments in her state and now she wants to bring the same in this whole country. Yes...developments…constructing 130 huge elephant structures…This is what they call infrastructural development; I guess… so what if it accounted for 40,000 crore scam, it was a part of development and beautification of the state. When in every corner of India someone dies of hunger each second, our prime motto should be beautification, isn't it? And then they say they fight for backward classes. “Hungry belly have no class”. Shouting only to increase reservation for backward classes won’t make you a good leader. Hungry bellies need food not elephant statues. The statues which should have cost five lakh were brought by state run agency for sixty lakh. Lucky elephants, aren't they? They must be thanking corruption, which made their value sky high. But nothing went into their stomach; they were still hollow plastered from outside by clay, many officials under the project grew stomach not less than elephants though. Yes, she is one of the prospective PM candidates, yes she is…because CBI dropped all scam allegations against her and gave her clean chit. She is clean in records now. But her reflection in public’s eye will come out when the result will be declared...All the so called netas be better answered by millions of hungry bellies this time  

2014 PM CONTENDERS: WHO IS GOING TO TURN PROMISES INTO REALTY ?

“This post is a part of the blog-a-thon by World Vision India on Youth Ki Awaaz” 

A hotel van with large drums of food leftovers was about to leave. It was slowly gathering speed. As it rode down the gutters, some part of it leaked down the back door (May be one of those drums just fell aside and rolled down to the door). With in no time two men came running behind it. Both of them looked hungry for days; with weak legs, untidy beards, dry skin, and dirty tattered clothes just enough to hide their personal parts and revealing sunken bellies that must be squeezing the stomach inside. Both of them jumped over the food like hungry lions jumping over its prey. They ate it up in a go, licked the road literary till it shined as if inaugurated recently. Then they started running behind the van till it disappears far away. They ate up everything that it dropped on its way.
The front gate of the same hotel was packed with Mercedes, Audis and other luxury cars. Political giants were discussing their agendas for the next election, business men and women finalizing their business deals and rich brats were partying after having several tequila shots; complaining over the little overcooked chicken fries and were busy clicking their pictures on their brand new I-phones.

2014 and the election is starting soon all over India….

Modi’s wave is creating ripples everywhere. Though his sudden emergence as the PM candidate shocked everyone and created rift in their party, he has got enormous support from everywhere. His Long speeches, rallies, chai pe charcha, showcasing of the model of Gujarat have gone viral everywhere.

Even Rahul ji have started visiting ghettos, hugging old ladies and eating up their cooked food, though he may be taking several preventives to avoid any contagious diseases or may be vomiting the food out at home in vigilance of some renowned doctors of our country. ‘Har haath shakti, har hath taraki…’ You should accept that power was only in your hand and so the development was yours only, not of the poor Indians. If after being in power for several times earlier, your party couldn’t bring any change, how can we believe your slogans and the power of hand this time? ‘Hand has been infected’, admit it and infected things should be amputated as soon as possible. We have heard you roaring ‘Katar soch nahi yuva josh’ and advertising the same by one controversial lady herself Hassiba Amin. Where was this Yuva centric soch earlier? I think it was in store from the day you were in lap till you grow up as the prime ministerial candidate to drive ahead the legacy of your Family. Rahul ji you must admit that you are a rich, spoiled, ignorant brat and an outcome of a corrupt political thinking. A degree from a foreign university won’t make you a good leader here in India. We have even IITian in the race. Better you should plan to clean your party, reform your mother and jija ji and then try for the elections after at least ten years or else relax at home and enjoy the scam moneys your mother has stored for you in Swiss Bank.    

Even Nitish ji withdrew his support from BJP. He was not happy with the selection of Modi ji as their prime ministerial candidate. Actually he himself wanted to be. ‘Seriously do you want to be???’

Didi too wants to become the prime minister this time. Didi will always remain as a parochial figure well known for her periodic outbursts during public speeches against Maoists in everyone’s mind. She is best remembered as the railway minister when the railways incurred heavy losses and she had to resign after the Tehelka expose of the Bofors scandal. She can’t also be forgotten for forcing Dinesh Trivedi for resigning on price hike of the railway fares though it was most needed at that time. She made a laughing stock out of herself when she got Ambikesh Mahapatra, a Jadavpur university professor arrested for circulating her cartoons. “Grow up didi, take a chill pill.” She crossed all the limits of her craziness and parochialism and made the whole world to laugh at us by saying, “The main reason for considerable increase in rape cases in our country is possibly because of the limitless freedom of interaction between men and women.” Few days back, our most celebrated Anna ji extended his support for her. He thinks that she is the best CM and can prove to be a great PM. “HE” thinks and what “HE” thinks but only what WE think can make a difference. A shockingly feeble mass who attended their so organized rally divorced the alliance between didi and Anna ji even before it get started. ‘Didi’ now you must understand that you have no national presence and Anna ji should accept that his time has gone. His illegitimate child AAP has gained more popularity than what he is having now.

Amma ji don’t say that, but some people, yes I mean some people are continuously saying that she should be the next PM of India. Even the left parties at some point of time, wanted her to be the one. I am not saying that she wants… some people wants her to be…..

Now, Mulayam ji too wants to be the PM. After he had handed over his place to his foreign educated son (I always wonder why these rich people and politicians send their wards to get educated outside India when we have so many premier institutions within our country) I thought that he retired. But no, I was completely wrong; planning was already started for capturing the prime minister’s seat from that time. Now we must wait to watch gundaraj spreading all over the country…no, no I am wrong. Some racial clashes and unlawful attack on medical students by his party member were nothing….

Arvind ji, the present day hero, the phoenix who magically incarnated from the ashes too wants to be the PM. Even he left the CM post in pursuit of becoming the next PM. He wants to change the whole face of our country over night. Can hurrying so much solve the problem we are facing today? Some overnight decision and you came up all of a sudden that you are resigning the CM post. If you wanted to be the PM, you could have nominated someone else as the CM of Delhi earlier instead of yourself. Or you were afraid of losing seats projecting someone else as the CM candidate other than you, or that election was just an experiment to find out how much support your party is getting? Don’t tell me that you came to know about all those constitutional processes to pass a bill and the opposition that usually comes while fighting to get a bill approved only after becoming the CM. And so only you left the post for bringing change in a larger scale, India. You have such a great think tank comprising of some genius people like bhusan ji, yadav ji, didn’t they counsel you? Or was this decision the outcome of those intellect brains? Didn’t you think of the people of Delhi who had bestowed their hope on a new comer like you rejecting Harshvardhan ji’s clean image and popularity? Now with what hope people will vote for you? You could have stayed as the CM of Delhi, bring some reforms in the capital and the next time you would have been the strongest contender for PM. But no… you wanted it all this time…

Left parties came up as the third front in the name of union. Union? What kind of union? Admit it, after the election, one by one out of you will be joining this or that party (helping them to gain majority). By joining I meant getting sold for ministry or for filling your locker. Please don’t get angry….

P.S

2014 elections, we have so many PM candidates and so many promises…. But can anyone of you answer me when will I stop seeing hungry bellies seeking for food and breathing their last, failing in the battle of their search? Answer me and my vote will be yours for sure. Don’t tell me that you provided us with “food security bill”. It is one of the hollow bills which were made just to make poor Indians lame and entirely dependent on the Government. 

We want people to become self sufficient, not beggars begging for free food.
I have asked my question. What is yours?
Ask your question and try to find out who is going to answer you before you cast your valuable vote this time.