Aheli Moitra
Dear Citizens,
Greetings on behalf of 60 Legislators of the State!
As you know, we love you and swear by our bounden duty towards you; this has moved us to write directly to you for once.
We are afraid you have become far too impatient and unwise. You have been unable to see the consistent and just services we have been providing to you as a government ought to. It has not gone unnoticed to us how more and more of you seem to be taking agitations on such, may we say frivolous, issues to the streets and newspapers in a manner most uncalled for.
To set the record straight, it’s a dog’s life for us. Not the one that sleeps all day and gets its food anyway—in fact, the one that works round the clock, toiling in the corridors of New Delhi to get you the basics you deserve in life. We fly to such places as Bangkok just to make sure HIV/AIDS does not become an epidemic back home. Foreign ‘exposure’ aside, we have to constantly prepare and give speeches (that we often do not even mean) in every part of the State, and sometimes even in neighbouring ones. Do you even know how hard it is to put on a mask everyday, day after day? And do not go about thinking that we don’t read newspapers just because we called for austerity measures to stop subscribing to them on the state exchequer’s money (bless us). Now we are back to the subscriptions and we see what you’re doing!
What is all this talk of adulteration? If you have any idea of the Indian national political culture, you would know that adulteration—of oil, grain, milk, honey, liquor—is an essential feature of it. Hey, you are the ones who continue to take part in this political cycle to bring us back to power; we just adulterate and accumulate to pay you to do it. It is obvious to us that the system that exists (and yes, the system IS corruption. No further comments on this please) must continue to secure our future and yours. You help Us do this. Thank you for that (bless you).
But given all our denials, we must admit that we have made a dump yard of the education sector. We would like to pay teachers we hire but we need to take care of our salaries first. How can we ask a teacher not to buy a job when they know we’re on a cut on every other project? Students have to learn our ways of life to survive. And what if teachers are not paid? It always helps to have masses who are not educated on the sciences or do not understand their rights and democratic values. Using money meant for education to, say, fund our stays in luxury resorts to bring you no-questions-asked governance is a part of our bounden duty towards you.
And, seriously, women in political decision making? The rightful and customary place of the woman is in the kitchen from where she can make all our political choices—after all, what we eat defines who we are. Honestly, at times, even we are denied food at home. It is why we have no energy left to indulge ourselves in the Legislative Assembly. All the traffic regulations and media coverage of even our slight competencies gives us a sense of importance; we convene in all our glory to have tea, pass some laws (why do laws need discussion anyway?) and then get on with our lives. If we brought women into this picture, all the banter on important issues we will have in the Assembly would really destroy this 15 minutes of comfort and recess.
As you can tell from all this, we are completely equipped to formulate a vision for you. If we are given our rightful opportunity to just continue all that we have been doing for you, we can create an empowered future for us by 2030. And you, of course.
So let us join hands—let us accept that we are creating enough disturbance in our area to keep the funds rolling and status running, let us acknowledge that it is in our interest to keep the border problems burning, let us celebrate the blessings (cash brings land, resources and wealth) that festivals in our land bring, let us revel in the economy we create through bad roads, let us use our nationalism and religion to keep our precious 371-A-sovereignty intact.
Glory to our collective future! Forever to stay, Your Loving Patriarch, Legislator
This is a piece of fiction & does not relate to anyone in particular. To comment, please write to moitramail@yahoo.com
