Fog-Murphy Effect!

Fog as I knew had interesting effects on different things…whilst, so far I had known a handful of aspects of it namely that it slows down traffic on a chilly morning and can cause an occasional pile up of vehicles as well as disruptions to airline operations and of course the mysterious aspect of fog we see in Bollywood to depict romance, drama, suspense and horror!!

But then, there are some other aspects of fog that come into play in active collaboration with Murphy’s Law!! For the uninitiated, the Murphy’s Law states, “if anything can go wrong, then, it will go wrong”, and possibly “in the worst possible way” that is, if the circumstances are favorable for it!! And this is what fog delivers – the favorable circumstances for helping Murphy out!

Of all things that fog affects, I forgot that it also had tremendous impact on operations of Indian Railways – so much so that Indian Railways not only stop the trains but also start acting in slow motion.

Now, imagine after a hearty meal arguably at one of the best places a city can offer you look forward to a journey back home in an overnight train on a cold wintery night – the image that it conjures up is one that is of bliss as you would cuddle up on a train’s berth wrapped in a warm blanket with the gentle rocking motion of train journey and the contentment of a hearty meal setting you up for a good sleep! Then, reality dawns at dusk when fog comes climbing down from the heavens and gets into active collaboration with Murphy and conjures up a perfect nightmare, you least imagined! And, the train you were hoping to make your home for the night suddenly disappears in the fog and doesn’t arrive on time and then the fog starts taking its toll on judgment of staff manning the Indian Railways – they decide to announce to public that the delay is for about two hour only and then they do these announcements six times over through the night leading to an overall delay of nine hours!! With the delay announcements coming at regular intervals, your sweet dream of a night turns into a nightmare which is all but over by the end of all the announcements and a new dawn is dawning with the fog still holding fort strongly. With the visibility about three meters, you weigh your options and decide that since the train is not in sight and the dream of a night is lost, you can perhaps take a flight back home knowing well that fog has similar effects on flights as well but hope remains strong as you decide and take the plunge and book the flight forgetting well that Murphy is working overtime to keep you amused! After a sleepless and cold night in a railway waiting room, you decide to take a ride on an auto rickshaw to the airport again in the fog with visibility a tad better at about ten meters! After a numbing cold ride of half an hour or so you reach the airport hoping you quickly get the ticket that was booked and get into the warm environs of the airport, you are again in for surprise as Murphy has taken a fast train to the airport and set the plot for you much to your chagrin. The fog’s effect on railway has had a rub-off on the airport as well – your flight is in the afternoon (as that’s the only flight available to be booked online) and you reach the airline counter with the ticket on your mobile only to find that there is no one manning the counter – then, you go to other airline counters to find the status of their flights – interestingly, there are staff in all airline counters except at the counter of the airline where your ticket is booked!! And by this time, you want to hunt down Murphy before he does further damage!! You decide to take another flight, and of the three other airlines, two are choc-a-bloc and the third one has seats but is not sure whether it will fly and if at all it will, it will be delayed and be airborne only by the time your airline too perhaps will be airborne. So, you decide to wait till the time there is clarity on the new airline’s flight and when it gets clear that this new airline would perhaps fly on time and you decide to buy the ticket, you find out that its sold out!! Murphy, you *&@^##*^!!! Finally, you hang your boots and go back to your airline’s counters hoping to find that it is open now but that’s not to be and after waiting in the cold for good two hours you see some people behind the counter and you try and shout out at them and they indicate from behind two glass walls of the counter in sign language that they do not have the keys to open the counter!! Can you beat that???? Another 20 minutes pass by and someone quietly turns up with the keys and they open the counter and you quickly show the ticket on your mobile (which is by now on the last legs of its battery’s life!!) – they quickly switch on the systems only to realize their network is down and therefore can’t issue a ticket to you! Wow!!! Then, as a afterthought they decide to help you out and give you a handwritten airline ticket – so much for living in the age of technology, you get handed over a parchment with your name and flight number with airline stamp and that’s your new age ticket! You move quickly to the airport entrance only to be stopped again by the security chap who says that you cannot enter the airport as your flight is not on the display screen and you can only enter two hours prior to the flight, which was still two hours away! Woooow!!! You go back to the airline counter and ask for help and thankfully he comes up with a brilliant idea – buy an airport visitor’s pass and along with the ticket you can enter (as otherwise you cannot enter with the baggage) and you finally enter the airport. By now you feel you have landed on the Moon and are triumphantly about to announce to the world, “One small step for the guy who let you in the airport, but a giant leap for you!” What an achievement!! Kudos!!!

Finally, your miseries seem to be over as you head straight to the restaurant to find that there is some free Internet on WiFi on offer at this airport and you get hooked on to it right away, order some coffee (to stay awake!!) and get down with work and penning this piece…its been nearly 16 hours since I landed in Lucknow railway station last night to catch the train and 5 since I reached the airport – though the fog and Murphy have not given up yet (and my flight is still 2 hours away), a good day at the village yesterday (Thawar, 40kms from Lucknow) and the taste of Tunday Kebabs over dinner last night will keep me going I guess!

Supreme stupidity or is it a convoluted political game under play?

What’s common between the Congress, RJD, Amar Singh & BSP? Well, you may say they are some of the most corrupt political units that this country has ever seen – though this truly is one commonality, they now have the dubious distinction of teaming up to put together a weak Lokpal draft via the Parliamentary Standing Committee. This collaboration even between some bitter foes (such as the Congress and BSP) is understandable because of the former commonality they share aptly described in a well-known Hindi saying, “chor-chor mausere bhai” which loosely translates to “all thieves are brothers in arms”! Each of these outfits and/ or their heads/ members have been involved in multiple scams and are being investigated and would do better without a strong Lokpal in place.

These three political parties and one independent MP (Amar Singh, who was Congress’ Man Friday for getting it across the magic number in the no-confidence motion during UPA-1’s tenure) were the only supporters of Standing Committee’s weak Lokpal draft. In the Standing Committee, it seems, even a minority can push through their agenda as these people (Congress, RJD, Amar Singh & BSP) represented only 13 of the 30 members of the Standing Committee whereas majority of members gave dissent on one item or another, yet the Standing Committee adopted a watered down Lokpal! Interestingly, three Congress MPs too gave dissent on the Standing Committee’s version of Lokpal – specifically, on exclusion of Group C employees – Meenakshi Natarajan who is known to be close to Rahul Gandhi suddenly decided to put in the dissent in the last minute!

Clearly, the draft Lokpal adopted by the Standing Committee is a dud – of the three things Prime Minister assured in a letter to Anna back in August, only one has found its way into the Standing Committee’s Lokpal i.e. the Lokayuktas shall be adopted by states – the other two, namely, Citizen’s Charter as well as inclusion of Group C government employees are not part of the Lokpal. Clearly, Team Anna and rest of the nation have strong reasons to have felt cheated. And when Team Anna expressed this in public, the Standing Committee Chairman, Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “I am not surprised? If any changes including comma or full stop had been made to their Jan Lokpal Bill, they would have reacted in the same way." So, to Mr. Singhvi, non-inclusion of Citizen’s Charter as well as exclusion of Group C employees are “commas” or “full stop” that are of no consequence! Mr. Singhvi, this statement of yours shows your arrogance, a hallmark of Congress!

Also, what Anna said about that someone higher than the Prime Minister has had a hand in dilution of the Lokpal provisions and he has perhaps rightly pointed at Rahul Gandhi for it as Mr. Singhvi doesn’t have it in him to do it on his own and this is evident from the last minute volte-face to exclude Group C employees from the Lokpal ambit. You would now say, if Meenakshi Natarajan who is close to Rahul baba dissented on Standing Committee’s draft, then, how can Rahul baba be behind the dilution of the Lokpal draft. What we have here is perhaps a convoluted political game under play….read on!

There are two possibilities: (1) the government and more so Congress is supremely stupid in not learning from its past hooplas and is ready for full-fledged confrontation again or (2) the government/ Congress is playing a dangerous game to test waters to see if the people will back Team Anna this time around as well and if people rally around Team Anna again – based on this, they will calibrate their response which will be in “proportion” (as we have in many theorems in math and science) with the response Team Anna gets this time around from people. For instance, if the people rally hard around Team Anna, then, the government perhaps will agree to the key recommendations of Jan Lokpal and if people’s response to Team Anna is ok/ good, then the government will throw in a few concessions and if people’s response to Team Anna is lukewarm, then the government will pushback on Team Anna’s demand. The government and more so Congress knows that people’s response to Team Anna’s call shall in all likelihood be ok/ good or massive – in such a situation, to save government’s face the tactic that the Congress would adopt would be for Rahul baba to intervene and save the day by offering these “proportionate” concessions to Team Anna – this would help Congress launch Rahul baba to national political scene as the savior of Jan Lokpal in a run-up to some big elections coming up in 2012 as well as kill Team Anna’s accusations against Rahul and put Team Anna’s movement on the sidelines. Could this be the real reason for the last minute u-turn by the Standing Committee to exclude Group C employees from the ambit of Lokpal/ and note of dissent by Meenakshi Natarajan (Rahul’s close aide) so that it could be offered as concession by Rahul baba when push comes to shove with Team Anna??

So which one of the above two possibilities it is? The next few days will unfold this secret for us…

Regardless, one thing is very clear that this government and particularly Congress is playing games with the country – so, its time for Team Anna to take up the cause again which has started today at Jantar Mantar and this time it will be a all-out showdown as this comedy (or as flavor of the season goes, this Dirty Picture ;)) of a government has gone on for far too long…it is time for change!