DETERMINED DIGGERS UNITE!

Published in the Times of India edit page article titled "Steeple Chase - No Stone Unturned" on 7th August 2008



DETERMINED DIGGERS UNITE!
By Gopinath Mavinkurve
http://content.msn.co.in/Contribute/Lifestyle/UCStory6769.htm
My friend send me an SMS which goes thus: “Idhar Khuda hai, Udhar Khuda hai, Jahan bhi dekho, udhar Khuda Hai..or Jidhar Khuda nahin hai………..Udhar kal khudega!”

Each day as we travel the distance from our home to our karmabhoomi, our place of work, commuters are faced with the daunting task of keeping themselves busy along the way. While the distance has remained the same, the time taken to reach the destination keeps increasing day by day! A hoarding put up right in the middle of the road, explains it all: “Bear With Us Today for a Better Tomorrow”! The prospect of a better tomorrow brightens up the morning. Hoping for a better today, would amount to expecting too much, right?

Every high-powered meeting begins hours after the scheduled time, with the dignitaries blaming their late arrival on the work being carried out by the determined diggers, somewhere en route, who work incessantly for our better future. Besides providing the eternal excuse for late-comers, the incessant act of digging up the roads also offer enough substance for the talk-show organizers on the various TV Channels, always on the look out for a popular debate. The subject serves as a filler, once they are done with various historic subjects, which also involves digging, albeit of a different type – digging in the past. Which, incidentally is another national obsession, besides digging roads, by the way.

Participants display their indignation and narrate stories of untold hardships and sufferings, to the common man undertaking the safar on the city roads. The Hindi word “Safar” may have its roots in the English “Suffer”. Or is it the other way around? The harried participants often put the blame squarely on the lack of coordination among the multiple agencies, blessed with the powers to wield the mechanical diggers upon unsuspecting layers of tar and stones.

Suspicion has been raised, that these agencies are talking to each other all the time, planning where to strike next, and keep the digging going, lest the world believe they have been rendered redundant! Blessed with special powers, the esoteric group may have drawn up a long list of potential sites to assure their survival for a long time to come. The systematic, dignified and spirited manner, in which the agencies go about their digging, prompts me to suggest a common slogan for all agencies collectively, which goes thus… “We shall leave no stone unturned - Both, physically and literally!”.

Under the circumstances, I have decided to use the time to catch up on my reading and even write articles, like this one, during my journeys, instead of fretting and fuming. What’s wrong with the survival instinct, after all?

g_mavinkurve@hotmail.com