The R(f)ight and P(f)light

They saw....

And...they...well..kept seeing, till two of them came and pushed all those who were miscued into the queue.Obviously, I was pushed back and landed up in the same place where i joined the queue!!!.
Again it was hard fight to get to the front.

De-ja-vu... REPEATT... or whatever..it happened again and was lucky enough to land up in a better position than last time.By that time,the authorities got so irritated and confused that,they chose to follow the usual system(!!) of handling out forms based on polling booth.

Then,it happened..one of the general public,lost his temper and started shouting at the officers.But,the nail that sticks up is always hammered.He forced it again,only to get a larger hammer.Poor guy,he was made run hither-tither to get his "certified certificates" certified.He seemed to have a minor spelling change in his name.For that, he was asked to go to village officer to get it proper although he had a certificate from the notary pulic regarding that.

After giving another tough fight to the officers, juntha found which one was handling their polling booth.Then it was only a matter of minutes for me to get shot.

The fairer sex was cribbing about their spoilt make-up and the office-goers didnt know how to react to such a drilling they experienced,because many of them had put a half day permision and were left blinking to figure out a reason for the overtime...Only people who were unvary of all these were the gracefully aged ones...They knew that elephant was a mouse built to government specifications.

And surprisingly there was no announcement of date of issue of cards except a chit of paper asking us to look out for paper ads.

So here i am again on groud zero,silently waiting for the plight of my right.

The R(f)ight to V'O'te

Many of the "educated" do not go to franchise their vote on the d-day of any govt, due to obvious reason of hatred to all of the candidates.How many realize that, all such votes which are being wasted are not really so?.

Thanks to a few news channels, i came to know a few years back that we can register our vote and say that "i think none of the candidates are fit to be elected".This provision is referred to as 49(o).

Since i am 19 and have the right to put an 'O',i applied for the Election Commission Voter Id card.They gave me a slip saying that i have to come on a date and time with proper proof of date of birth and address.And that voteful day arrived.

My time was at 10:30.I never suspected such a huge crowd at the place and people standing already in the queue were allotted a slot later than me.Usually my dad tells all the possibilities before i leave for anything.But here he couldnt warn me of this ,for he had got his card years before and that too in a door-to-door canvasing basis.

So cursing my lateness i was standing in that queue for an hour or so.The procedure of it is very very simple(So are all other govt related stuff).But there are 2 things which stand in between that and us.Lazy officials or hyperactive crowd or both.To my ill-luck,i had both to contend with.The new applicants had to collect the form that they had already submitted and move to a group of officials who cross check everything that we submit as proof.

I could see no difference in their ranks or the kind of duty, except that each of them was signing in a different color.Then after the last official clears it,i will be shot and will be given a slip,which is to be shown at the time of collection.Thats it.It should be over in,say,one to one and a half hour.

The place of interest is in a somewhat ruff'n'tuff zone of the city.So i could see all the jobless youth hovering here and there ,irrespective of shouts from the elderly standing in the queue,to get their kith and kin's job done asap.I was kind of OK with it(i had no other option) as long as the queue kept progressing(atleast slowly).So after an hour or so, i was so near to the official giving the forms.

Suddenly there was a huge commotion by the honourable vetti's and that was the last straw to break the donkey's neck.The donkey..sorry..ahem...the officer took all the forms and ran away announcing that he wont be coming back unless there was order.So somebody(not the officials) had to call the police to order the queue...They came........

Jolt from the queue

Two days back in the afternoon, i was in the gymkhana office to get the membership card for the fitness club.There was quite a lot of people(students) already waiting there. The form was to be filled and to be given to an officer,who, then, calls the name in the order.There was a student of a different nationality (might be an exchange student) and he was also in queue and he was waiting for his turn to pay the bill.

Well, a student of my nationality comes to take the form.

It is curious that none of us has yet learned to respect the single window/token system.Even if we are given a token in a bank and there is a large enough LCD screen to display that token number, we are highly unrestful and form an unnecessary commotion near the counter.And I need not expect any different a scene here too.So the exchange student* also had a ring of aspirants around him.

I do not know why,may be habit formed,the new entrant pushed along the group of people standing vettily.He didnt even excuse himself to go around.

Most of us,usually feel nothing bad when pushed about in a queue/group because we are used to it.But i could clearly sense the discomfortness of the exchange student* as he himself was pushed along. He silently adjusted his position so as to allow the IIT student throught the crowd.

The scene is not over yet.There comes our guy to cross the vetti people again to get to a chair which was obviously empty due the vettiness.Again there is a compression and rarefaction and it propagates till the exchange student*.He had no option except to stare around in revulsion and again silently move out of the place after paying the bill.

And here i am, doing nothing except cribbing about all these without realizing that i was also one of those adjustors........

P.S: *I am very sorry to refer the student in this way.

The Noisy Silence

Sometimes its golden,sometimes its necessity, sometimes its voluntary, sometimes its compulsory and many times it is forced....

And you are clueless on it

Yup,im talking about silence...
How many times have you been in a queue and helplessly watched many privilaged get into it before you?And how many times have you seen your own friends do it for others and again helpless stood a mute spectator?

I am not here to preach or anything like that....because im also one of the mut(e)ants.

Just a loudspeaker for that kind of muteness i have been through and will be....