Devils Advocate 2 : The case for Corruption.

The Irony

I was browsing through the Hyderabad Public Library in Chikkadpally yesterday (mainly because I was waiting for someone) when I found the Income Tax Ready Reckoner for FY 2010-11 in the ‘Fictitious Novels’ section. There are two explanations for this:

a.   The person-in-charge of the public library, who is supposed to be dumb, is dumb.

b.   The person-in-charge of the public library, who is supposed to be dumb, is smart and knows that that law belongs there. This is wishful thinking because it is unlikely that a bureaucrat has a sense of humor of that level.

It pays to know the other side..

        The curious case of Indian Laws

In India, it is not just difficult to do things by the book, it is many times impossible. The reality of regulatory framework at the ground zero level is horrible. The frustrations that genuine people face when trying to get some work done via a bureaucratic system is beyond the scope of any statistical measure. But then, here and here are the statistics.

The seeds of corruption are sown at the stages of drafting of laws. It seems like the bureaucrats pay the law makers (who are again bureaucrats) to just be oblivious to the practical world. So, many things are left unanswered and vague. Our laws do not have red tapes, our laws are embedded into red tapes. You need to satisfy some officer for everything and there are no objective rules on when he is supposed to be satisfied. Sometimes, it makes you feel whatever you do is not going to be good enough to satisfy the ignorant obnoxious bureaucrat, he can give an order against you despite everything being right on your side. He can still say ‘I don’t give a fuck’ and you have nowhere to go – either you buy your way out of the shit or you go to the courts against the bureaucrat and get into deeper shit – which is not cheaper.

A day in my life:

I have to deal with the Hyderabad Sales Tax department on a daily basis. This involves completing tasks ranging from getting clean orders on our company sales tax scrutiny’s to getting refunds which is practically our money owned by the government. Not getting into nitty-gritties of what I have to get my hands into, I can say it is tiresome in the sense that things just don’t get done. You can have everything ready but the lazy bastard doesn’t even show up to sign an order – even when I am ready to pay him for that. He isn’t busy; he just wants to show his worth so that the next time, I pay him more. And that is just one signature out of the half a dozen others I have to buy to complete one cycle. I am not making this up, I am currently lobbying on an application since the last 10 months. It was supposed to be done in 1 month. I deal with all kinds of revenue departments and none of them is any better.

The Unwritten Law

Bureaucrat is the boss. You request him, even beg him, to let you show your gratitude towards him by offering him bribes and gifts. You hope that he accepts your offer, you hope that he doesn’t put up a counter-offer. And all this to get things done, which should have been done without your knowledge. We are talking about a person who barely passed his graduation probably by bribing his college and then wrote a civil’s or groups exam and bribed his way to this dusty bench. And you, after having worked your ass off to pass your exams, after attending a thousand interviews before being selected for one, after doing all the work that the ignorant pig was supposed to do, have to go to his office and beg him (quite literally)

But then, given the state of our regulations, this is preferred. I’d rather bribe him and get it done than not getting it done at all. Believe me, there is no other alternative. The bureaucrat is not as dependent on it as the people giving the bribes. I, personally cannot afford to have an officer who doesn’t accept bribes. Because a person who has stopped accepting bribes doesn’t suddenly become honest. He just becomes a bigger asshole. He has the law on his side. So YOU must find a way to bribe him without making him feel corrupt. The other alternative is shutting down your business and starve.

Corruption isn’t the system we want right now, but it is something we cannot live without.

The Devils Advocate - 1 : Humility is for Losers

“I learned a lot from him, but it is now my turn to teach him. So, it’s safe to say that I have surpassed him now””

“Age was partly a factor, but regardless of everything else, he just won to a better player”

These were the words used by the recently crowned world chess champion, the 23 year old Magnus Carlson in the post-match interviews when asked about the person he beat to win the title, the 44 year old Vishwanathan Anand in the prestigious tournament played at Chennai in November 2013. Ouch.. The full interview is here.

This interview which was published by Times of India used the headline “My turn to teach Anand now”. This is very easy to write off as sensationalism which comes naturally to the TOI journalists, but it is not. Carlsen was not asked whether he can teach Anand anything, he was simply asked what he has learned from his previous associations from Anand. No malice. So the headline is justified if anything. From what we know about TOI, they are not below posting a headline which reads “One-time wonder chess champion insults all-time great Anand”. Thankfully, the journalist wasn’t really the TOI mould.

So what if Carlsen is indeed a worthwhile winner and not a one-time wonder. What if Carslen truly surpassed Anand a couple of years back and the only reason he did not win the championship the previous year was because he choose to boycott the tournament. What if he is the highest ranked chess player ever? Does that give him the right to make such bold statements without regard to an accomplished legend? Doesn’t he know that you can only be successful in the long-run if you are ground to earth and humble like Anand? Does he understand what hardships Anand had to undergo to become a five time world champion? And yet see how humble Anand is? Why such disrespect for such a classy person? Why such inferior view on Indians?

Indeed, as can be anticipated, in the comments section of the above article - true, righteous Indians took the new champion to task and laid the lessons of humility, sobriety and what not. The comments ranged from ideas like “This guy must be suffering from Mad cow disease” to government-high-school-teacher advises like “You are young and new to all this kind of attention so first slip-up is understandable but when you are representing your country on a world stage , you need to be humble, that is my only criticism”. This was the major trend. But this one wins the prize “Anand deserves this for giving up the NATION”

No, this is exactly the fucked up shit that made me develop a complete disregard for, even become obnoxious to these kind of people. I’ll tell you what kind these people are. The one’s commenting. And probably majority of the regular people in our Indian society– whether old or young. In fact I can understand the old generation, they are idiots. What I can’t stand is that even the people born in 80’s and 90’s tend to be the same. As if education in India was a complete waste. Oh wait! It still is.

Firstly, people commenting don’t know shit about chess or the happenings in the game. They don’t care about looking up to learn about what they are about to comment on. All they know is that Anand is an Indian chess player who has been defeated by someone who said something about him. No, they don’t know if Anand is still an Indian citizen (he isn’t). And they know the least of all about Magnus Carlsen, except that he said something about an Indian. Yet they decide to take to leave their mark by making a self-righteous comment showing how ignorant and out dated they are.

Fact is, Magnus Carlsen is all that he is made out to be and more. He was a teen-prodigy and now an acknowledged chess genius. Anand of today is not the chess player that Carlsen is, to put it mildly. Carlsen has a lot to teach Anand if you look at it from his perspective. Even if you take the comments on their face value without knowing that Carlsen actually showed respect to Anand in the first instance, it should not offend you in any way. He is speaking his opinions at worst and it turns out that they are not far off from truth. Even if he made those comments in a more in-the-face kind of way, they should still be accepted on their own merits. But we Indians choose to be in the blind nationalistic spirit where there is nothing to be nationalistic about. Funnily, Anand accepted that he lost to a better player without dodging questions. Something to do with not living in India I wonder!

Even worse, some people think Anand somehow betrayed India by leaving for Spain or by not representing India. Yes, we stand for freedom, but first you must prove yourself a slave to our stereotypes.

Talking of stereotypes, Anand is again praised for his humility, which Carlsen doesn’t show, to the utter discomfort of us Indians. As if that is the prerequisite to deserve anything. We Indians are so stuck with our misleading notions of good and bad that we are afraid of thinking them through. We are so afraid of questioning whether humility is really required that we don’t even consider merit if it isn’t accompanied by humility. A winner is only truly a winner if he comes out and says “Na, I am not that good”. It so goes with every other notion that we are taught from childhood. We are afraid of questioning them so we take them as granted and defend them without doubting and we never tolerate anyone who dares question them. Debunking humility, it implies that a person is not better than others, even if he is.

I know these stereotypes and superstitions exist the world over, but I speak mainly about the Indian context because this is where I am, I know so much about it now, I’ve spent my whole life escaping these lies.

Die, please.

My Grandmother (Father’s mother) lived a life in which she will be remembered fondly for her reproductive functions. She will be remembered regretfully for almost anything else – if she is remembered at all. Even the reproduction was overdone. She produced six children, all of whom are burdens to earth (maybe an exception is my Dad, who is the most sensible of the lot, which is saying something about the lot). Let me not start off on my dad now, my grandmother retired from doing part-time work at about the age of 35-40 when she had a source of income in form of rents from her house and she had four daughters-in-law from four sons. Her most productive period was when she gave these in-laws the gift of hatred. She hated them so much and tortured them in so many ways that the in-laws (incl. my mom) made hating her back the purpose of their lives. After my grandfather died 12-16 years back (I don’t remember) she made some dumb decisions and started living on the mercy of the people who hated her (in-laws). She lived like that all these years. She is still living.

The reason I hate her is, she is a hindrance, and she is a bag of emotional and sentimental stupidity, gathered throughout her TV serial kind of life. She expects pity from people who hate her - like my mom, people who don’t care - like me and people who just want her dead so they can forget that she existed - like everyone. The tragedy is, she gets it. She sits on a sofa, and asks stupid--meaningless-redundant-old people like questions when I pass her by (Did you come home? Did you eat?). Thing is, she isn’t concerned whether I eat or die, it is just that she has nothing else to do the whole day. What ever comes out of her mouth is utterly pointless anyways, but her tone makes it worse. I lost my sense for pity long time back but I have to give her some response, yes? This just kills me. I can’t give stupid responses to stupid questions by stupid people. To solve this, I started acting like there is empty space on that sofa. It works but I can only act, right? I still have to bear the thought that she is there, with her stupid face and stupid thoughts. And that my mom will have to nurse her for half a month, every two months. My mom, who hates her with all the energy she can conjure, has to get sick, serving her, that’s torture. Every time our turn of half a month is over, I just hope that she will be dead in the next one and a half months so that I’ll not be required to look at her again.

My grandmother should have died long back. She claims she wants to die, but never does anything towards that direction. She almost died two months back but survived (which wasn’t so bad because it was a busy time for me and taking a leave for the celebrations would have disturbed my schedule). She somehow carries on living, like that is the achievement she will be remembered for – living on people for so long that it got to their nerves and they all started hating each other.

No, I don’t have a problem with the oldies, they should be looked after and all. I am going to be old one day and my parents too. But, ‘BUT’ they should have earned it when they had the chance. I know my parents earned it and so will I. People can’t just expect love and respect just because they are older. Being older doesn’t translate to wiser automatically.

I win or lose today.

Games and wars are not decided on the day they happen.

They are decided well before in small cabins and on rusty pages.

Games and wars are won in details, so is an exam.

They are won in the endless preparations and the tireless efforts.

They are lost in fear and compromise.
 
As I wait here waiting for the day, I lose today by doing just that.

I'll not wait for tomorrow or wander in the past.
 
Here is my goal, I have to reach it.

This is going to be bloody mess, but I will slug it out.

No excuse is good enough, I will make none.

"There is magic, but you have to be the magician. You have to make the magic happen" - Some author.

This Festive Season

Let the colors come live. Let the lights burn, let’s celebrate.

Let’s swipe our credit cards and be grand.

Let’s watch Krissh 3. It is rated 4.5/5 by the fair TOI.

Let’s get a little less corruptive. Let’s only bribe if required and take bribes safely.

 Let’s expand within ourselves. We have enough demand thanks to our enthusiastic mating habits.

Let’s be patriotic. We are not a developing country anymore like we were in 1990s. Thanks to our efficiency, we are developed.

Let’s embrace our traditions and values for betterment of lives, for a change. We have been neglecting them too much for the sake of efficiency for long enough.

Let’s make groups. Because of bright people, the average increases and the dull people get the opportunity to shine which they deserve.

 Let the majority win. People are always right, even if wrong. Look at Bihar.

Let’s work for the development of our country by working at the KPO’s. Let us pretend, the world is watching.

Let’s build more statues in memory of the great. Our glorious past.

Let’s vote for NaMo as a proof of tolerant attitudes. We know for sure that he is not an imposer.

Let’s fire crackers. The FB posts protesting global warming will balance the act.

Let’s pray god. He is watching our closed eyes. Hence he is there.

Let’s be cordial and grateful and humble. Let’s let the society be the judge of right and wrong.

Let’s not drink. It doesn’t suit the taste of non drinkers.

Let’s not drink and drive. Seriously, for the benefit of the drinking community.

Let’s celebrate our fashion. Let’s preach our conservative culture too.

Lets celebrate the prolonged QE. God bless America even as we don’t need them.

Let’s love less of the more. More is less and less.