Elections Make An Ass Out of You!

By Manuwant Choudhary

The newly launched Telegraph in Bihar has a banner all over Patna `Elections - Triumph of Truth'....but at one crossroad I met these two asses standing right under the banner so I thought how right - `Elections Make An Ass Out Of You!

The past few days I have been busy with two maternal uncles...one passed away and the other survived.

So we decided to take him home although he wanted to take the next flight to Bombay.

Even he knows that Patna is hell.

And right he was as his ambulance reached his home we found the water pipe had burst and his bylane had become a gutter.

Soon water entered his home.

Two labourers dug the road. I asked them how deep is the water pipeline and they replied 6 feet under. At their speed they would take 7 days. And the water supply pumped water every five hours.

So I asked the contractor if there was a drainage system where the pipeline water could be drained out so that the water doesn't enter the homes of people. And he replied, "Sir, what you have just said is an idea that belongs to the United Kingdom or to the United States of Amrika. In India we have no such system. The pipeline is 50 years old and the pump is new so pipe-bursts are common. Sirr...iss bikaas ke daaur mein bhee yeh jo aap kah rahe hain wo nahin hua..sirrf surfacing hua hai."

(Sir, what you have just said did not happen in the last few years of development also...only roads were surfaced and resurfaced during this period.

I tried meeting the municipal commissioner Manish Kumar (IAS) but he had no time since he was in a meeting.

I called a deputy mayor (who has many criminal cases against him) but even he refused to pick up his phone.

So this morning when I got a call again that more water had entered the home I called up the press and I asked my relatives to call a judge at the Patna High Court.

As photographers, reporters and judges began making the calls..even on a day of Bakrid...pumps were brought in and the water pumped out.

My bhabhi has invited me to her home for dinner - mutton chops!!

But I won't be going...just as I did not go to vote...there is just too much muck in this country.