Let Mallya, Nirav and Choksi loot the banks and enjoy  life on a sun-lit foreign beach

 And you tax-payer? Well, pay the tax, obey law; dare you not commit any breach

To 'Sri' I sing an  ode though sad thoughts of our plight obsess my mind day and night

That’s what I share with you this week, as the taxman’s noose round our necks gets tight

Mallyas, Niravs, Choksis plunder while India ups its rank on ‘Global Corruption Index’

                     

                                       

You must be very angry. Like I am. In fact ‘angry’ seems like a mild word. It doesn’t fully reflect what is raging in the collective consciousness of us – the middle class - over the recent money laundering disclosures. We are seething and sizzling with raw rage at the systemic, organized ‘loot’ we have been witness to all these days. And why not?  While we pay our taxes through our skins, there are Mallyas, Niravs and Choksis plundering crores and making merry in the titillating company of hot, sexy Bolly- and Hollywood temptresses. So cool!

Just look at the dismal, shocking picture. So tight is the tax noose that even a low paid employee earning barely enough for the basic family needs has to pay income tax. He/She has to SAVE the mandatory 1.5 lakh to help fall under a lower tax slab  and thereby save a couple of thousand bucks.  And save where?  Fixed Deposits in banks that we think are a safe and secure option. But wait. Here too the unsparing hand of taxman is there to squeeze us. In the UPA dispensation, the banks reduced the rates of interest on FDRs to discouragingly low levels and in the NDA government it has continued to be so. And if you still tighten your purse strings and do manage to save but exceed the precribed limit, you again pay tax on the interest. You save to avoid tax but finally end up paying tax on what you save! How ridiculous. For me it simply defies logic and the idiocy of it should shame any government. What is more, even the pensioners have no respite from this faulty, strangulating tax noose. And those of us who are more money wise and have been investing in tax-saving mutual funds to earn better profits - though at some risk - and avoid tax at the same time too have come under the tax net henceforth.

The governments tax us (the middle class or the salaried class) so punishingly because we are an easy prey for them, while most of the business folks and the super-rich have several escape routes and loopholes to avoid the noose. And the smart operators amongst them – the Mallyas and the Modis - connive with  officials, babus and the politicians, loot the banks, park their crores in foreign shores and  thumbing their noses at us live happily ever after. They live a life of lust, luxury and splendour on sunny beaches and in palatial bungalows sipping their scotches, while the farmer, unable to pay small bank loan (because of crop failure) commits suicide; while we pay our housing and car loans taking utmost care not to default. Because we know if we fail, the bankman will make life difficult for us; because he will be impatient to seal and auction off our mortgaged property if we default. Or the interest rate will shoot up to heavens and make it painful for us to meet out from our monthly salaries. What gets our goat is not just the incompetence, apathy and delay (perhaps deliberate to let the fraudsters escape to safe sanctuaries abroad) by our governments in bringing the culprits to book and recovering the booty. It is the silly doublespeak of the politicians on top that exasperates us and makes our blood boil with rage. Mallya’s loot had been going on for years. Ditto for Nirav and Choksi.  Since Congress days and right through the BJP’s present stint. What prevents Rahul from being candid enough, say it out loud and clear  and admit that yes it has been so…and  we are sorry? What prevents Modi government to be honest and say yes we erred in detecting the crime early, say sorry, and then get to work in all earnestness and do what the whole nation is craving for: transparency, accountability, fairness and justice. But no. Obfuscation, subterfuge, distortion, sheer falsehood and you-snipe-at-me-I-snipe at-you is all that is served out to us by the politicians as well as in the ear-splitting TV debates.

Vote with discretion we are advised. Vote for a candidate with a good, clean image we are told by the wise. But when the whole system is so rotten, when all parties mostly field incompetent, illiterate, criminal and corrupt candidates, even goondas and history sheeters , when no party is willing to have proper electoral reforms introduced to cleanse the system, जब इस हमाम में सब नंगे हैं, then  we have no choice at all.

No wonder therefore that we have not only slipped in international reckoning on the 'democracy index' but gone up a few notches in the 'corruption index' also. We now rank 81 from the earlier 79 in 2016.

Keep it up Mr Politician! 
But beware the wrath of God if not that of the Aam Admi.

    
                                                        *
                           

                                       Ode to Sridevi

                              

On your passing away the nation sighed and every heart missed a beat

O celestial beauty, why from earth to heavens you made such hasty retreat

Your bewitching smile, your grace and arresting charm we will dearly cherish

Eloquence of your eyes and childlike playfulness, remember and always relish

While alive, you ruled over our hearts with your undying magic spell

Now RIP Sridevi, in our dreams and thoughts you will forever dwell

                                     

                               ***

Naseeruddin  Shah’s book has been on my reading table this Feb week

 And  makes me write about my (PU) days when I was callow, dumb and meek

Naseeruddin Shah's memoir and my musings on PU Chandigarh

I am  reading Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah’s memoir ‘And Then One Day’ these days. It is an engrossing, charming book written with luminous honesty that Naseeruddin is known for. Among several interesting things, he writes about the AMU, Aligarh. And he paints a dim, unflattering picture in regard to its insularity, and general air of neglect and apathy in some respects. Reading that, I am reminded of my own days at the no less prestigious PU Chandigarh in the good old seventies, and find some resonance with him.

After having missed entry in Medical College Shimla by a whisker – for which I had no real regrets – I got admission in the PU’s zoology department. Looking at the beautiful, sprawling campus with neatly arrayed, grey, red-tiled buildings, lawns, water fountains, playgrounds, I was overwhelmed with joy. This is the place where my talents will blossom…where my worthy professors will ignite the spark of scientific quest and empower me with knowledge and learning…make me a scholar, an academic worthy of respect and admiration…What pure joy it would be to hear brilliant, thought-provoking lectures from them, and participate in steamy, stimulating discussions, debates and discourses to delve deeper into the mysteries, puzzles and wonders of biology... Thus would the cobwebs of my ignorance be removed from my poor rusty mind…Thus would the sunshine of scientific temper light up the dark recesses of my inner self and broaden my mental horizons to take on and embrace the whole world. With such fantasies flooding my mind, for a few days I walked the hallowed corridors of PU’s science departments with a sense of pride and exultation.

But my dream was short-lived.

As the classes commenced and we settled into a regular routine, my fantasy-world began to crumble; optimism began giving way to mounting disappointment with each passing day, week, month and year.

There we were: a batch of 30-some huddled in a classroom with boys and girls perched in distinctly separate clusters. Soon a grave, ponderous professor would enter with an old musty file tucked under his arm. He/She (mostly he) would open the file and on cue, in hushed silence, we would open our notebooks and pens and get (battle)-ready. Then there would follow a marathon, non-stop, 1-hour dictation from out of the mouldy, yellowing, dog-eared pages stashed in the file. Sometimes our aching, tired fingers failed to catch up with the professor’s  dull but fast paced drone. But who would dare ask him/ her to repeat the missed word or line? At times some words or sentences remained inaudible or improperly heard. But it didn’t matter…we had to march on doughtily, regardless. This went on class after class, teacher after teacher.

Classes over, we would tuck our note-books away in some corner of  a shelf in our hostel rooms. These were meant to be opened only at the time of house exams, and the final annuals in peak summer. Come exam days and sweating and fretting we sat long hours late into the nights in our fan-less rooms, mugging up a few select topics out of the many scribbled in our notebooks. It was sheer gamble, but if lucky, we found questions relating to the stuff learnt by rote in the question paper and belched it out feverishly on answer-sheet after answer-sheet.

That was how we were taught, trained, nourished and groomed as future zoologists at PU Chandigarh!

In the evenings, to get away from the day’s dull, uninspiring rigmarole, some of us wandered off either to the  theatres to watch Bollywood movies ('Rekhas' and 'Hema Malinis!) or to the sector 17 shopping complex to ogle at (only furtively and from a safe distance) buxom Sikhnis strolling about leisurely there, mostly accompanied by handsome brawny Sikh hunks. Another exciting diversion for some of us was to meander off to the arts blocks bubbling with life and energy with sprightly, vivacious ‘arts girls’ to ogle and salivate at - unlike the ponderous, introverted, reticent, glued-to-the-microscopes, romanceless girls of our science departments.

Naseeruddin Shah had at least the cigarette-smoking, 'feisty' lady-professor Zahida Zaidi in the English department at the AMU to recognize his latent talents and show him the way. Later he had an erudite teacher Ebrahim Alkazi (may his tribe increase) at the National School of Drama (NSD) to take him under his wing to inspire and guide him through. But sadly, I had none at any stage of my  formative, learning years.

But having said that, it would be very dishonest and unfair of me to lay the entire blame for my poor innings at PU on the teachers alone. Some of the blame must rest on me too for having been casual and careless about my classes with Epicurean tendencies having a greater sway over me than commitment to studies.

Be that as it may, when I came home with the degree under my arm, I had no clue at all where to go. And it was with great effort that I had to de- and re-learn zoology entirely on my own to pass muster as a teacher in a college later on, with a secret vow NEVER to replicate the follies of  vain worthies who (mis-) taught me at the university.

Perhaps I bored you with my personal outpouring above. Well, coming back to Naseeruddin’s book, if you like this genre of writing, which I personally find the most inspirational reading of all, I strongly recommend this gem of a memoir.

        

                                               ***

      To a lady, nay, a  lioness  called Asma -  I pay my humble tribute

           A beacon of  hope she was to the oppressed and mute

           Who lit a divine torch of love, peace, liberty and goodwill

            Whose loss sends in our hearts a deep, painful, unending chill

  Let's salute this lioness amongst pygmies

                     

We in  India must shed tears over the untimely death of this brave, unorthodox, unconventional, enlightened, liberated woman- at least those of us who are not jingoists but patriots in real, liberal sense. In the present times when dark gloomy clouds of mutual hatred, muscle flexing, abuse, eye-for-an-eye kind of attitude loom low and ominous over our sub-continent, she was one of the few crusaders for peace, amity and goodwill between the people of two nations, India and Pakistan. Besides being a zealous champion for human rights and liberty, it was she who helped found Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD). And no less significant is the point that she was not an Indian but from the Taliban-infested, crisis-ridden and violence-scarred land of Pakistan where human life sells dirt cheap and such intrepid voices attract bullets rather than applause. Well, she was Asma Jahangir. As you must have read in the news, she died last Sunday, the 11^th of February, at the young age of 66, felled not by a fanatic’s bullet but sadly, owing to a heart attack. And at a time when the common people of India and Pakistan, people like you and me, needed her the most. Asma Jahangir was an advocate by profession and the first woman president of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar. She was a  lady with the guts - a lioness among pygmies I would say - to take the all-powerful Pakistan army head-on for its anti-India approach, its war rhetoric, for paddling terrorism and for the ongoing sordid drama of death and destruction across the Indo-Pak border. Besides that she was an irrepressible voice for women, minorities and the LGBT community.

She was a frequent visitor to India and had a sizeable number of admirers, supporters, associates, followers and fans (myself included) in India who shared her vision and joined her mission for mutual peace with hope and gusto.

When in India she was not the one to be cowed down by the diehard, misguided, anti-Pakistan fanatics, and fundamentalists. She was as forthright and outspoken in her views here as in Pakistan. Therefore – as I read in the obituary to her in a newspaper – she had no hesitation in asking bold and blunt questions from the big and mighty in India such as Bal Thackeray on his politics of revenge and retaliation when she happened to meet him… the Bal Thackeray feared and dreaded by even the most powerful and the rich in India…and before whom the bigwigs of film industry have squirmed, cowered before and payed due obeisance to just to keep him in good humour.

The liberated souls like Asma Jahangir are rare and an almost extinct species. Both in India and more so in Pakistan. Particularly in these times: when bigotry and jingoism are rearing their ugly heads like never before; when communal, caste and religious hatred are radicalizing the nation like never before; when ‘intolerance’ is at an ascendant to the extent that even movies like ‘Padmavat’ are being sought to be banned through sheer goondagardi; where under the veneer of (perverted) logic of 'religious sentiments' or ‘old values’, even perfectly inoffensive scenes and songs are being violently protested against by the goons in the land of Kamasutra and Khajuraho.

Asma Jahangir, you leave a huge void in the sub-continent. May your kind, loving, never-to-die soul rest in eternal peace! May the rich legacy of courage, goodness, harmony and amity that you left behind keep on inspiring us!                          

                                                          ***

               

How we are  rated in the world is a cause both for thought and worry

 I have a  word or two on this, this week, read it at leisure and without hurry

And by the way what was so bad or unwanted about Padmavat, I simply wonder

The Karni sena did no good:  for the country or for Rajputs by its needless thunder

             Is India a 'flawed democracy'?

                               

The  other day, The Tribune news item made me sad. The heading was: ‘India slips 10 ranks to 42 on democracy index’. The shocking thing is that this slide  on the global democracy index has happened in just a year. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) we are a ‘flawed democracy’ with an overall score of 7.23 points. We are good on electoral process with a score of 9.17 but have slipped on: political culture, government functioning, political participation and civil liberties. On the freedom of press also India’s score is dismal. Norway, like before, tops the list and countries like New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Finland, Switzerland sit and shine among the top 10. Luckily, we are better off than Bangladesh (92), our pesky neighbour Pakistan (110) and worrisome China ((139).
 EIU is a credible UK- based body of 70 years’ standing which makes these evaluations on certain well-known and universally accepted criteria which define democracy. These ratings come handy to foreign investors in deciding which countries would be safe and risk-free for investments.

Days later I read Ramchandra Guha’s thought-provoking essay in the Republic Day Special issue of Outlook magazine dated 5 February 2018 only to feel sadder still. Ramchandra Guha is our well-known historian and an intellectual. He minces no words in expressing his anguish over rapid erosion of India’s democratic values in his piece carried by the magazine. Not just Mr Guha. Increasingly strident and louder voices of dissent and anguish over India’s steady shift from patriotism towards jingoism are emanating from several other quarters as well. And are becoming increasingly audible too.

According to Guha, a distinct line has to be drawn between 'constitutional patriotism' and ‘jingoism’. These are “…two distinct, different, opposed varieties of nationalism. Patriotism is suffused with love and understanding. Jingoism is motivated by hate and revenge.”  The founding features of patriotism, Guha argues, are:

1.      An appreciation of individual and cultural diversity

2.      A readiness to enact one’s citizenship at different levels

3.      The recognition that no religion, nation, or leader is flawless

4.      The ability to feel shame at the crimes of one’s religion, state,                     society or nation

5.      The willingness to learn from other countries

What about jingoism? Its founding features, as Guha points out, are:

1.      The belief that one’s religion, culture, nation and leader are            perfect and infallible

2.      The demonising of critics as anti-nationals and deshdrohis

3.      Violence and lumpenisation, not just abusing your critics                but harassing and intimidating them, through the force              of the state’s investigative agencies and through vigilante             armies if required.

In this lucid essay, Mr Guha also lambasts the Congress party for having let the country down, having promoted and perpetuated dynastic Nehru-Gandhi culture and having “turned its back on its own founders".

Friends, I don’t know how you feel about this diagnosis of our country’s ailing or “flawed democracy”. But when EIS says so and a man of Guha’s standing strikes a similar note, I think we need to sit up and take notice. Well, not just take notice.  Those of us who deem themselves to be patriots and not jingoists must fight to rescue and safeguard our values. Values like “pluralism”, “democracy”, “decency” and “non-violence”. For, these are the values that are enshrined in our constitution...that our great leaders like Gandhi, Tagore and Ambedkar blue-printed for us. And these are the values we all need to imbibe, preserve and foster among ourselves, and will take India forward  on the path to greatness. These are the values that will help India rise in global standing and empower it to rub shoulders with countries like Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark in all the parameters that define a country’s overall wellness.
                  
                                                      

                                                          *  
In passing

"What was all the fuss about?" I asked myself at once after watching Padmavat. It is a neat and clean movie. And quite a good one to watch compared to the trite, trashy stuff habitually served out by the Bollywood’s fan-pampered bigwigs. If anything, the movie just extols Rajputs…maybe a tad too much. What on earth was the ground or reason or justification for the rage, anger, hooliganism, rampage let loose by the Karni sena’s goons and hoodlums? Why did some governments let them run amuck and hold so many cities to ransom? And look, what a roaring success the film has been at the box office. I am sure each and every one who saw the movie had just the same very question in mind after coming out of the theatre: “What was all the fuss about?”

                                                        ***

           

                Let's leave science alone, let the great Darwin's soul rest in peace

               Evolution is as true and right as the plural of goose is geese

              I write this week on our worthy minister getting it all so wrong

             I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or sing a baleful song

      When Charles Darwin turned in his grave                               

Friends, Charles Darwin turned in his grave. This happened two weeks ago because a minister in the central government suffering from foot-in-the-mouth syndrome waxed eloquent on man’s evolution. This he did, not in a casual, off-hand manner in some cocktail party sipping scotch but at a public function. Origin of species is scientifically wrong, he boomed before the mike. No one, not even our ancestors, have seen an ape turning into a man; humans appeared on earth as humans, he said. Going a step further, the worthy minister of state for Human Resource Development, Mr Satyapal Singh then asserted that since this was the case therefore necessary changes should be introduced in the school and college curricula. The cocky, over-zealous minster did not stop here. He repeated his misplaced notions at another public function soon after and justified them further by claiming that since he is himself a Chemistry postgraduate, he knows science.  Therefore what he says is a scientific fact. As was natural, the entire scientific community squirmed and uttered a collective sigh of shock and surprise at the minister trying to turn the well-established theory of origin of man on its head with just one sweeping statement. A body of 2000 scientists therefore had to issue a joint statement to contradict and reject what the ‘scientific-minded’ minister had tried to push down nation’s throat. And his own superior, the HRD minister Mr Javadekar, had to ask him to desist from trespassing into a field (of science) that he knows little about.

Like all, I too have been shocked and surprised at the brazenness and the gumption shown by the minister in making such a  stunning assertion on  a universally-accepted, time-tested scientific concept like human evolution. For,  to say something wrong is one thing. But to try to  justify a baseless and fanciful argument and peddle it as a fact of science merely  on the boast of your own scientific background - after you have dealt science a body blow – is ludicrous and hard to swallow. Needless to say, it needs hard scientific evidence to prove a theory wrong and not an irresponsible comment at a public function.

Charles Darwin didn’t enunciate his theory sitting in a cosy, cushioned chair in an AC-cooled, swanky ministerial chamber. He set sail  in a ship ‘HMS Beagle’ on 27 December 1831 on a rainy morning enduring all kinds of hardships on a long voyage to South America and the Galapagos Islands brimming with diversity of life. There he made thorough observations, collected samples, made elaborate notes. Back home he pondered over what he had seen, collected, observed and written. Then after years of meditative reflection, debate and scientific enquiry did the light of knowledge and discovery illuminate  his mind, leading him to pen down and spell out page by page the theory of evolution in his book:  ‘ On the Origin of species…’ which he published on 24 November 1859.  That was not the end. His trailblazing ideas came under severest scrutiny in the scientific world. He also faced stiff resistance from the orthodox Church which thought it blasphemous because it ran counter to the misplaced idea of all creation being an act of God.  But Darwin’s concept was scientifically robust. It stood the test of time. And is now an irrefutable fact of biology beyond doubt which only the superstitious, the dogmatic and the ignorant alone would dispute.

Now let’s answer the minister. He says that the theory of evolution is wrong because no one – not even our ancestors - have seen an ape turning into a man. Well, Mr Minister, this is because evolution is not an act of magic. It is not that by merely waving a magic wand an ape will transform itself into a man in the twinkling of an eye. It takes many thousands and millions of years for the process of Natural Selection to work its way. Under its slow, invisible ‘hand’, small little changes accumulate and then a species different from an original one takes shape. That’s why the ancestral man - the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons - some 200,000 years ago, were so different from us. Any biology book of a plus two student will tell us that.

Therefore, may I please respectfully say this:

Let's please leave science alone, and with those who belong to it  and do their work. For, such utterances demoralize us, give a bad name to the country and make it a laughing stock. We have enough of superstition in our society already to get rid of and are still miles away from fostering scientific tamper in the country.

                                               

                                                                 

                                                ***

                  Let's hail the new HP government

                             

Let us applaud the BJP. The choice of Shri Jai Ram Thakur as the HP CM has a stamp of wisdom, political sagacity and foresight. Credit goes to the dramatis personae – the king-makers – who kept vested interests at bay, stayed above petty considerations and resisted all kinds of pulls and pressures in making this choice. It is in fact a master stroke.

First and foremost, Mr Jai Ram Thakur is ‘Mr Clean’. He comes from a humble background and therefore has his feet rooted to the ground. A man of action rather than words, he is also known for being upright, suave, decent, humane and not bogged down by the trappings of power. 

Look, how he has already given a decent burial to the unwholesome ‘topi politics’ that was being practiced for so long by both the Congress and the  BJP top guns to symbolize and foster the divide between the state’s ‘old’ and the ‘new’ areas. (Imagine, one top leader even refused to wear a cap at a public function which had a band of a different colour than the one epitomized by him!) Further, Mr Thakur has asked people to desist from touching his feet. ‘Respect comes from the heart,’ he said. I personally feel that when it comes to politics, feet-touching is demeaning and is the crudest form of chamchagiri. But our politicians love their followers and favour-seekers to pay them obeisance by touching their feet and even prostrating before them: it gives their false  egos a big high. Then, the new CM has also expressed himself against fresh flower garlands being used for welcome.

Well, small little steps these but enough to suggest how he is some notches above and different from the common breed of power-drunk, self-serving politicians in our land.

Second, his anointment heralds the long awaited beginning of a new era. Era of generational shift.  Era of investing in youth and vesting political leadership in the hands of the young. Himachal politics direly needed this switch-over to rid it free of the stranglehold of the old and the ‘tired and retired’  clutching the seats of political power and perpetuating dynastic hegemony. It is like a breath of fresh air which will infuse new vigour in the state’s political landscape.

Third, it fills a big void by giving much deserved and long awaited representation to the district of Mandi, denied for so long. Kangra is equally, if not more, deserving of a CM’s position but you all know as well as I do who to blame for this!

Mr Thakur’s elevation to the high chair is also a slap across the face of the Congress which has been obdurate and impervious to change and has kept beating its same old drum. The bold but sane voices in its cadres have either been silenced, and such people marginalised or simply chucked out. It has not let the old order yield place to the new. Instead of grooming young new dynamic leadership imbued with vision and idealism, it has let the old dynastic culture to proliferate and fester. Even the high command let itself be arm-twisted and let itself dance to the tune of those who wanted their own ends served at any cost.

Perhaps Rahul Gandhi will take a leaf out of Himachal BJP’s book, take bold initiatives and use a strong purgative to impart new energy and vitality to the state Congress without much delay.

Be that as it may, we, the people of the state, have reasons to rejoice at this welcome change. And it is now for the new CM and his team to deliver and make Himachal Pradesh a model state with its unique and new agenda of holistic, handsome, environment-friendly and sustainable  ‘development’.

                                                             ***

Good luck Ashish  Butail; now let’s together nurture and groom  Palampur                            

 The sojourn is over. And it feels wonderful to be back to my blogging ways. Back to be amidst you and be a part of you. To share my thoughts, joys, sorrows, anger and agony over all that impacts lives: mine and yours. And trust me I missed you all so much.

 Much water has flown down the Neugal khud since my last blog post of 17 November ’17. Elections have been won and lost and a fresh, young and new BJP government has come in place. For Palampur, we have a young leader Ashish Butail as our MLA. In  many ways, Palampur’s care and development is now in his hands. He is aware of its most pressing needs: a state-of-the-art, non-polluting waste disposal plant, parking lots, traffic management, assured potable water supply… to name a few. But he will need to marry development with environmental preservation and ensure that the natural assets of Palampur are no longer sacrificed on the altar of ‘development’. He has the necessary wherewithal (except for the handicap of being in the opposition) to deliver and steer the ‘chai nagri’ along the right course.  I hope he will not stand on prestige, would rise above party politics and even  seek Shantaji's active help and support in  executing the agenda for Palampur's development. That would only enhance his stature in the eyes of the public. 

I rather hate the word ‘development’. It has come to mean jungles of concrete, encroachments, illegal and unsafe buildings, congestion, traffic chaos and pollution- all at the cost of environment. Therefore we expect our new MLA to nurture and groom Palampur with tender care and a loving touch. Palampur has to stay clean, green and beautiful. And not just the MLA, but we all have to be proactive to make it happen. Hark what Gandhiji  said: "Let us be the change that we wish to see in the world." Therefore, let us be the Palampur that we wish to see and leave behind; for, Palampur belongs to us and we belong to Palampur. Do we want it to be a grey, barren, noisy, ugly, choked town disfigured by unplanned concrete structures everywhere? Do we want it to be a town where passing through the bazaar is so scary and hazardous- both for the pedestrian and the carwalla? Do you want it to be a town bereft of its majestic deodars, pines and tea gardens? ... A town with its Neugal khud mined to death and turned almost dry? ; its cool gurgling waters – which attract tourists in hordes - turned dirty and brown with silt and mud; its banks soiled and spoiled by garbage dumps?

Friends, the stakes are high. And the choice is yours: whether you want to remain indifferent and unconcerned or step out and have your say; whether to not  look beyond the four walls of your home or ready to stick your necks out.

I am  being 'teachy-preachy' but let’s remember:

Who lives if Palampur dies?







                             

                                                     *

Being personal with Ashish Butail

On a personal level too I  wish Ashish Butail success in his new innings. I am sure he will take the NGOs, the environmentalists, and enlightened citizenry along as he starts on  ‘agenda of (green, holistic) development’ of Palampur with a fresh, new vision. In turn, it is for us to strengthen his hands. I am sure being suave and sober, he shall be receptive and open to constructive suggestions and new ideas, and gracious enough to view in right perspective should any of us point out any lapses on his part in the 5-year-long debut innings of his. We all have to work as a well-knit team above personal biases and prejudices and petty differences to take Palampur forward. 

Good luck Ashish. Palampur looks at you with hope and expectations.

                                                         



                                                                    

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Last word

Development must

But environment first

So

Let's all forget all greed and lust 

And welcome what is fair and just

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