House adjourned
Madam speaker with her feeble voice was trying to calm down the members.
This was one dream that I always nurtured: to visit India’s Parliament in New Delhi and see with my own eyes — a member of parliament asking a relevant question about his constituency to a concerned minister and the minister responding to him in detail with total honesty. I knew it would be hard to come, given the ‘cordial relationship the government and the opposition leaders share in both the houses – but I never lost hope.
After requesting (read it as literally begging) my local MP, I got hold of a ‘pass’ to visit Parliament for one hour, for the eighth sitting of the winter session. The initial five days of the session had already been lost as the government could not bring truce with the allies and opposition leaders on the Foreign Direct Investment in the retail sector. Carefully preserving the pass in my wallet and with great enthusiasm in heart I travelled, two-thousand-two-hundred and seventy-six kilometres across six state borders, eight languages and countless countrymen, in the train to reach Delhi.
On that historic day, at-least for me, I was at the entrance of Parliament early by one hour. Passing through the nine levels of security check-ups, which was more like a government-sanctioned molestation, I reached the door steps of the heart of “world’s largest democracy”.
With joy pounding in my heart, I set my ‘right leg’ inside the Lok Sabha’s visitors’ gallery. By now, I could hear the uproar. The opposition was screaming and few MPs were in the “well” of House raising slogans asking for the removal of the home minister for his alleged involvement in a scam.
Madam speaker with her feeble voice was trying to calm down the members — “bait-jaiye… bait-jaiye please” (please sit-down...sit-down) “nothing is going on record… please sit-down…sit-down…”
The scene resembled that of a single government teacher trying to win over the students of various classes who had been stuffed in one classroom because of shortage of teachers in a village school.
The Speaker’s repeated plea fell on the deaf ears of the opposition. The very moment I sat down on the bench, the speaker rose and in her sorry voice said “the house is adjourned till noon!” when the House reassembled at noon, the same scene was repeated and this time, the Speaker adjourned proceedings for the day.
I was completely shattered. The security guy at the entrance said, “Don’t lose heart, you are not the only unlucky person… hundreds meet the same fate every day.” I thought I was almost ready to live my dream, yet it remains a dream.
