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Robust government

Last Updated 29 December 2013, 17:09 IST

I don’t believe one bit of this bunkum talk that the GOI is undergoing paralysis. This is just propaganda to tarnish the very active, on the go and an efficient GOI, particularly its executive wing which, regrettably has got the lowest rating in Asia.

If you are sniggering at my remarks, I bet you will change your mind when I have presented my case with just two examples although I have many more in the kitty.

I don’t remember the exact year but I am sure of one thing that it was about a quarter of century back. I was a robust 50 and I worked for a company at a fairly senior position. I was hauled up by the GOI for violation of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA). I protested and contested. The GOI’s rep made me a very tempting oral offer. Sign on the dotted line and we will let you go lightly. To make a joke of the whole thing, I told the officer that my pen had run out of ink and declined to take his offer, just to make a point.

Now listen to this one. In this quarter of a century, I have reached 76 with half of my teeth implanted and no one from the opposite sex gives me a second glance and I fit the quotation of Oscar Wilde which goes like this: ‘Young men want to be faithful and are not; the old men want to be faithless and cannot.’

My case has been going up and down. Show us the papers, my lawyer asks, to prove my guilt. The papers have been sent to the then Bombay, the present Mumbai. Get them from Mumbai is our response to be told that the papers can’t be traced. The beautiful part of this tutu tutu, main, main, is that response to my simple queries take years to come. And when I am sipping my scotch and soda thinking that it is all behind me, I am told that the company had paid the fine of Rs 100 each, on my behalf on two charges, Rs 200 that will reduce our country’s fiscal deficit.

Now I am fighting to get that money back because I like onion dosas and by fining me, I have been denied at least four of them. I am a retired person but let the GOI spend some more years on the case which has been in the broiler for 25 years.

When I protested with the lawyer about the language used in my plea like I beg to submit and I pray and I humbly state, he said that that was the language he has to use to make a plea to the GOI. Breaking news. I am told that the fine has been enhanced, accounting for inflation, I suppose.

Now to the second but much briefer case. My nephew stayed with us about 20 years back and he owned a mobike which has changed hands a number of times but believe it or not, I still get insurance renewal notice year after year and I am giving no prizes for guessing that the insurance company belongs to the GOI.
So don’t pay any attention to this paralysis stuff. Active and robust, our government is!

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(Published 29 December 2013, 17:09 IST)

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