Monday, March 30, 2009

Hey Asshole, stop asking me to vote!

It's not like I don't want to vote. I do. In fact, I want to vote so bad that I once thought of voting for Indian Idol or one of it's clones. But then, thankfully, the next second I realized that it would involve voting for ugly, talentless karaoke singers the highlight of whose life would be a few weeks of constantly trying to impress Anu Malik. That's even worse than being the ghostwriter for George Bush's upcoming pop-up book (tentatively called "Dumbassery for Dummies") or handling PR for Osama Bin Laden.

Although, whoever is handling Osama's PR seems to be doing a pretty bang up job. That guy is huge is Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kind of like a medieval Micheal Jackson, but instead of little human children, he likes to have "fun" with goats.

So as I was saying, I'd like to vote for a candidate in the upcoming general elections. I would. But the problem is that out of the thousands of possible candidates, I can't even find one person who, in my opinion, should hold an office in our government.

Now, I remember a few months ago I was all like "Dude, you gotta vote.." and stuff, but as usual, I seemed to have flip-flopped.

It's easy to say "go out and vote", but really FOR WHOM?

Being asked to vote for the anyone in the current dispensation is like being asked to pick the talented Hilton sister. Or taking sides in the whole Brangelina-Aniston feud.

Democracy is supposed to be easy, isn't it? You vote for people who would do minimum damage to your taxes and spend the next five years regretting your decision. And then you vote for the other guy, and spend the next five years regretting your decision. And then it goes on and on, just like the Lord of the Rings.

Although our democracy is still better and more resilient than the madhouse inmates we have as neighbors. At least it pretends to give everyone a voice, even if everyone is shouting and no one can really hear each other.

What we forget is that a government is supposed to be as good as the people. So, our current government, who in a time of a global economic crisis does not even have a dedicated finance minister, is a perfect metaphor of how much we really care about the people who run our government.

We can pretend that having a bad government does not affect us, just like our board of education pretends that sex education can be imparted without actually talking about sex. We can tell ourselves that having people who have no knowledge of the nuances of foreign policy as leaders in our government does not really affect us directly, even when our leaders make a Bond villain seem like a saner choice. We can assure ourselves that we are lucky to be able to grease palms for getting things done, even for those activities which are essentially our fundamental right. After all, it is infinitely better than not being able to "afford" one's freedom.

Everytime a terrorist attack takes place in our country, we can feign helplessness, call everyone we know to find out if they are doing okay, blame the damn government and then go back to ignoring reality and voting for our favorite contestant on a reality show. I mean, c'mon, isn't Dancing with the Stars the best thing since sliced bread? And have you heard, the Bachchans and SRK are friends again? OMFG.

Unless we are part of the solution, we are also part of the problem.

The people "leading" our country are a mirror to our society. I completely agree that our leaders are supposed to be better than the swarming, bumbling, pathetic, out of touch, low life criminals having a rather large sense of entitlement we currently have.

But that's us too, isn't it?

The real question isn't whether they are better than that or not.

The real question is, are we?

8 comments:

Tazeen said...

ummm we have a state minister for economic affairs who is a graduate of London School of Economics. I have had a misfortune of interacting with her over a project i was doing and she actually had the cheek to ask, "Are pensions and old age benefits part of the economic affirs ministry?"

Someone actually said that they were debating to put it with ministry of foreign affairs and agriculture as well but somehow we ended up with it and she nodded and bought the argument.

I wonder what is better, having minister this able or no minister at all.

sudeep said...

You know what, even before we hire a "kaa-waali-bai" or any servent for that matter, we try to make sure that he/she doesnt have past criminal record (theft etc). But while we go and vote (to hire a person, whose gonna run the country for next five years), we end up voting the gangsters and mafias and killers and what not...

What a pity!

Stray said...

We are.

But seriously, what have u got against goats?!

Never Mind!! said...

If you are not a part of the solution, then you are part of the preipitate, arent you? hmm....

I wont say I agree with you becaue that would make me a "swarming, bumbling, pathetic, out of touch, low life criminal".

araYan said...

shifted gears. off humour. still, brilliant (as-usual)..

can't but agree with everything u say. i'd written an essay on the identical topic, a short while ago, although ur treatment of the topic is quite classy..

ps. it's all very well to acknowledge the fact that we too are part of the system...
however, do present your thoughts on what we can do to foster change...in a future post, maybe. :)

HP said...

"Democracy is supposed to be easy, isn't it? You vote for people who would do minimum damage to your taxes and spend the next five years regretting your decision. And then you vote for the other guy, and spend the next five years regretting your decision. And then it goes on and on, just like the Lord of the Rings." --- aptly put.
the way you put important things in this phunny way is awesome !

Over Rated said...

@Tazeen: You know Tazeen, you always have a way to make me feel better about the state of affairs in our country. Thanks .. =P ...

@Sudeep: Couldn't have put it better myself!!

@Stray: Well .... the thing about goats is that they don't get offended so easily. I mean, nothing gets their goat.

Ok. Ouch. Sorry bout that.

@Never Mind: Well, I didn't mean to generalize .. :P ..

@aryan: thanks ... as far as a solution .... hmmm ... That's not part of my armchair philosphy ... :P ...

@HP: :D ...

Indian John Doe said...

Firstly I am not happy that you criticised LOTR :(
Must say you changed your tone quite suddenly in the middle of the article and i was wondering wasn't this supposed to be a satirical post!
The lack of leadership in our country is quite clearly visible. On the one hand we have a highly educated puppet and on the other we have a fanatic. In fact, I guess it would be wrong to mention the puppet as the leader...God save the country...

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