The world's most populated joke.

Talking about India,no joke. The joke for me starts from Narendra Modi being the CM of gujarat-the preamble of the Indian constitution talks about some secular democracy- and extends through the 'subtle' nepotism of the shivsainiks and their folk-the preamble also talks about equal opportunity for all- and to the kashmir and such disputes with our 'friendly' neighbors Pakistan and China-yup, sovereign republic,says our preamble, you got it right! Well, I don't know the exact details of the last part so I wouldn't comment on that although so many attacks including one right on your parliament do leave one amused sometimes.

But the cake, the biggest joke is the general naive proclamation of patriotism by the majority of youth in this country. Not many know that a country is made by it's people and not just by a piece of land with borders.

Few examples and jokes- People die every year of some or the other natural calamity. Well, most recently people died of floods in Andhra Pradesh and as a rule, the weather department in the country had no idea what was going to hit them and as another rule, the government has failed miserably,as daily reports come in in newspapers of the officers failing to do their jobs at various levels. Well, sort of a sad joke is that just a week before the floods hit the region, drought relief was being mobilised.

Then there is the media. National media, all those channels almost ignored the floods until quite later. 12000 crores of losses in the country and they didn't mind. Happens. South India you know. Instead, the main story is a metro rail construction thing faaling off in Delhi. Talk about equality.A few years back an aspiring model had taken mentally ill and was claiming to be married to abhishek bacchan-the whole media clutter gathered to interview and mock her. It was a one hour show at peak, prime time on a couple of news channels. Responsible media, my arse.

There was a bomb blast in TN at a station during the same time as the floods, which got ample attention though. Terrorist attacks, way more sexy and juicy news you see. Farmers died by the dozen about 3 years ago in Vidarbha which nobody reported except for a certain P.Sainath of the Hindu newspaper.

Now figure this out- One of my friends, a doctor who works in a government clinic. 3 hours a day in a shoddy clinic about half hour away from his house. He went to school and college like normal people, paid his fees, gave routine exams and got his MBBS degree-became a doctor. Now he works at the clinic. The first month he did his job routinely, like any other job. Going in on time, working as per schedule and returning home on his modest bike. 18000 rupees(about 400$ for my american readers) was the salary stipulated. So at the end of a month came the time to collect his salary.First salary. Exciting. All normal, right? Wrong. He doesn't get the salary. The people manning the finances of his department bring up some unfilled paperwork and some other unknown formalities and refuse to pay the guy. The doctor is confused initially, then frustrated slowly. Then slowly he realizes he has entered the working class of India where nothing budges without money changing hands.(It's actually a saying in ISLAM-Not even a leaf can move without God willing). So he reluctantly shells out the required amount and voila! In 2 days he gets his salary of 15000(350$) rupees. And that's the amount he's been collecting each month, as the remaining one goes into the pockets of the superiors or the clerks who disperse the salaries. After gaining education for years, someone goes to work everyday on schedule, and in the end has to pay his own money to people who he doesn't know, somewhere in some office just to collect his earnings. It's been a few months since I've heard this from him and it still amuses me. Confuses me.

more to come...