FRESH AIR

Arnab was being naïve. Giving us hope. Promising to expose and nail the corrupt. As if on cue, the rivals followed. And we had a CNN exclusive, a Headlines Today expose, and a NDTV exclusive revealing exclusive and incredible documents, sullying credible names. The fact that NDTV got stuck in the muck is another exclusive story. When you play with fire your hands are bound to get burnt. If your job is to fish in the gutter, some muck is bound to stick. Big names hitherto thought sacred and pure are galloping away to infamous glory. Little surprise then that names washed with Nirma ki safedi and Rin ka chamatkar, names of repute and respect, got their share of sticky stains.


As the tide of scams and leaks ebbs we are realizing the fact that several were swimming naked. And the tide hasn’t fully ebbed as yet.And like morons we watched wide eyed, one scam revealing another. The moment one emerged unscathed from the muck, another fell with twice the thump. The word ‘scam’ has become a big joke. And no one is even amused. The scam blizzard is sweeping scribes, socialites and industrialists along with it.


How silly of us to hope. Yes we hoped that the corrupt will be chakki piecing and piecing….How could we forget that the corrupt go to the corridors of Power. In the hallowed precincts of the Parliament. Not in jails.

Why? Because the important files with clinching evidence go missing. How absurd is that? So the corrupt are ‘chakki picing’ only in our vivid imaginations. In reality they are the breaking bread with Mukesh at Antilla or Obama at the Race Course Road.

Worse, more absurdities are in store. The Lavasa designer lake city project might be razed after it is almost ready. The ministry of Environment has served a show cause notice after a decade. Why was the construction allowed to continue on 25,000 acres without the mandatory clearance?
Lofty but tainted Adarsh will also be razed. Will wiping off 31 storeys, wipe off the stains from the face of south Mumbai?

After such absurdities what bliss it was to see the women sprinters win medals for the nation. They gave me goose bumps. From Haryana emerged the story of contrasts. Of golden girls and female infanticide. Of medals and honour killings. Of hookah spewing elders and Nike sporting girls.

Also what bliss it was to welcome a positive message from the people of Bihar. While the Ayodhya verdict gave resounding thumbs down to the politics of religion, the Bihar verdict went a notch higher. It said no to politics of caste. Poor pollies! Now they can’t thump their chests and proclaim, ‘We rule in so many states’. They have to say, ‘We serve in so many states’.


The message is to change the ‘lal batti’ to a sign board proclaiming, ‘Men at Work’.Nitish has done that. Will others follow? They will perhaps take time to learn from their mistakes. Or maybe unlearn what they have been practicing. Playing games with the incendiary mix of religion and caste politics!

A gutsy girl, Ghazal Kalra, working for a multinational, refused full time scholarship at Stanford to join the Congress. She is spearheading the population stabilizing program in Kurukshetra. Another IIM A graduate K. Chepuri joined the BJP. I am hoping that they do not get sucked by the system.

These positive messages emanating from the backdrop of dubious wheeling dealings, give me hope. Despite the scam storm, I can smell fresh air. Do you smell it too?