GIVE US OUR DAILY BREAD O’ LORD (without the chemicals if possible)

 We all eat bread fairly regularly.  We are all dependent on the local and not so local bakeries for it.

Making bread is fairly simple, yet we are somehow reluctant to make it at home. It is true that people, especially housewives are fairly stressed and overworked already but we all do make `Rotis’ don’t we.

There are plenty of things which are wrong with `Bazaar bread’. There are many good reasons why we should make bread at home. Just see the difference.

Bread bought from the Bazaar

The stuff is being sold under dozens of names, Sandwitch bread, breakfast bread, Atta bread, Multi-grain Bread,  brown bread,  milk bread,  sweet bread,  fruit bread etc.  Bad news is that all of it is more or less the same thing.

Selling Bread is one big example of widespread `Thugee’. It is a big racket and we are all getting cheated daily.  The following is a list of things which are wrong with mass produced bread.

1.       It has preservatives to increase shelf life. We buy in Dehradun bread which is made in Ludhiana, Chandigarh, and Delhi etc.  It doesn’t go bad for 5 to 6 days because of the excessive preservative chemicals in it

2.       The label itself tells you about how many chemicals it has. (namely preservative 282, acidity regulator 260, emulsifiers 481(i) and 471 and 472(a). antioxidant 300 and improver 1100,510,923,924(a) and 341(i)  ). All this is purposely made to sound like Greek  so that hapless consumers can’t understand it.

3.       The  brown bread is brown not because it has whole wheat flour  but because it has colour.

4.       The multigrain bread has some 1% grain  by weight which is essentially  pasted on the outside of the bread. Inside is the same bread.

5.       The whole exercise of making bread is the process of making a small amount of flour look like a huge loaf.  Some 60 to 70 % of the volume is of plain air.  If you flatten a slice of moist bread with a rolling pin (belan), it will become like paper, barely 1/4 th of its original size. In other words you buy a sponge.  The 500 gram bread looks the same size as a 800 gram bread used to look earlier.  The weight of flour that you get in a loaf of bread that cost  Rs.20 to Rs 25 is not more than 220 to 240 grams. If you add the cost the cost of sugar, salt, and oil, the value of the food in it is not more than Rs 5. When you add the cost of  manufacturing, chemicals, colour, wrapping, transport , marketing etc , it probably costs the manufacturer Rs 10/-. We buy it for Rs 22. I recently came across an every- day loaf at a bakery which cost Rs 50/- . Wonderful !  Isn’t it.  We are making progress.

6.       It is pure ‘maida’ (refined flour).  It has no fibre. The outside part of the grain of wheat which has the roughage has been removed. Some breads do have a miniscule amount of soya bean flour god knows how much maybe 2%.

 

So  you pay 2.5 to 3 times the cost price, get the bread in a printed plastic bag, get to eat chemicals, preservatives,  colour. Bread looks  and stretches like sponge, tastes yeasty. Most times it tastes bitter if you eat without any thing on it.  It doesn’t fill you up and leaves you wanting for more.  It has become so widespread that most young people don’t know the taste of good bread.

There are some old and reputed manufacturers who make good bread as well but their brown bread is also just coloured maida and has no whole wheat.

Good bread tastes a little bit like soft, moist roti but not chewy like `Roti’ . It should not smell of anything other than the sweet smell of baking. It should be a little crumbly  and not stretchy when it is a day old..  It usually has a crust which is a little bit more brown than the inside but the difference should not be like dark chocolate brown/ antiseptic white but a bit like biscuit brown/ off white. Good bread should get mould on it if left outside the fridge in just over two days. (from the date of manufacture)

Home made bread

Avoid being cheated, eating chemicals, using plastic and get used to the good ness of healthy bread which will eventually save you some hard work. Making bread for a whole week takes as much time as making four paranthas once. Try it.  Most people cannot find yeast. If you send a self addressed envelope to Garhwal post, (write yeast sample on top of the envelope) we will send you some yeast so that you can try making bread at home two times with the following method.

You will need to have an Oven with a temperature setting. You can make it in a pressure cooker but it takes a big pressure cooker and a lot of hit and trial

Here is how to make two loaves of simple enjoyable `Atta bread’. IT IS NOT rocket science.

You need  4 cups of atta (whole wheat flour) and 2 cups of maida, 15 ml (one table spoon) of any refined edible oil, one spoon of salt, two teaspoons of Sugar and 500 ml of luke warm water , one and a half teaspoons of yeast.

Take the  yeast in a small bowl, add two pinches of sugar, two pinches of maida and a table spoon of luke warm (not hot) water. Mix it , cover it and put it a dark place for ten minutes. This will start to rise ans smell a little foul.

Make the dough with the rest of ingredients. This will take ten minutes. Take the yeast from the dark place and mix it in the dough.  The dough should be slightly moister than what you make for `Rotis’.

Cover this and leave it in a large bowl/ `parant’ (twice the size of the dough) for two to three hours. The Dough will rise to twice its volume. Knead it once again and make it into the shape you want, rolls or use a  greased bread/cake mould. Leave it again in a dark place, (never in the fridge) . This is actually the tricky part. It takes ten minutes at breakfast  time,  five minutes at lunch time and the baking takes 40 minutes at tea time.

Preheat the oven at 220 degrees (will take 5 minutes). Put the bread ( which has again risen to twice the size) in the oven without , poking, checking, bouncing or touching  it.  Bake for 20 minutes and reduce temperature to 180 degrees for the next 10 to 15 minutes.  Time given is for two big loaves. (it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a mould Just oil the oven plate and make one big rectangular slab).  Presto !!!  Bread is made. It doesn’t look  rectangular and white but it should smell good. You can cut and eat this bread as it is. It  tastes like a fluffy `roti’. It tastes even better toasted with anything, Dal, cooked vegetables butter, even with just tea.  I urge the people to try this. Make a club of seven people and everyone make seven loaves of bread once a week , one for everyone. Its cheap, its healthy, its environment friendly  and really really tasty.

Of course once you are successful you can make lovely flavored variations of this at home. I will write more about it depending on how many people ask for the free yeast sample.  Actually dry yeast is also available on most good provision stores.

Param Jigyasu

published in Garhwal post on 3rd dec 2012

 

DAILY DOCTORATE

 `What took you so long ‘asks my wife when I spend my mandatory 25 minutes in the toilet.  “Arrey baba this is an all in one trip in which one has to get many things out of the way” (no pun intended)

I don’t know why  I have to give an explanation for this every morning.   We are fortunate that we don’t have to go out of the house to perform any of the functions now. The time spent is very little actually. This business of getting ready to go to work is an important milestone of the day  and I don’t grudge the time spent on it.  Let us analyze it.

First of all you have to answer the call of nature which takes time, sometimes less and sometimes a little more  What the hell !! you cannot save this time, come what may. Ever since we have had children we have not called this activity by a name other than Potty (P).

If I shave sitting outside the toilet in front of a mirror somewhere and take 15 minutes , it Is ok , inside the toilet  it takes less time  because everything is right there, one can take the hot water,  lather the face, change the blade in the razor, shave once , lather again shave twice and  rinse face, wash the brush and razor, dry them and put them back  all in a matter of 12 minutes, but when you do it behind a closed door it seems to be too long. This activity is called Shaving (S)

Everybody has to pay their debt to the toothpaste industry in the morning and I am no exception, I add my ten paisa bit by using a multi-national brand toothpaste  and I follow their advice by brushing constantly for at least 2 minutes, the activity takes  a total of 3 to 4 minutes. It goes by the popular name of Brushing  (B)

In the end of course is the Bath. Personal hygiene being important, a vigorous rub is also important.  By  the time you get the hot water  and other things in place and actually have the bath it takes 3.5 minutes, wiping and wearing clothes, another 1.5 minutes. A total of five minutes is spent in this activity called the Bath (B).

I used to call my trip to the toilet the all in one tour or the PBBS trip. Recently I came across the French word for shit, its `Merde’. I had been looking for a name for potty which began with M.  This made my day. It  made me change the name my all in one trip to the loo. 

I now call it the daily Doctorate. Because when you replace the P of Potty with the M of Merde, the all in one trip consists of Merde, Bath, Brush and Shave or MBBS.

Now when my wife asks me what took me so long in the loo, I simply reply that it takes time to do a doctorate even if it is the Daily Doctorate.

 

Param Jigyasu

 

Greater No idea

 As if No Idea was not enough, they went and made a Greater No idea.

This place is 25 km from anywhere. It is situated at the end of a fast, clear road therefore it takes less time to get to it. It only has geography, It has no history. It is completely new.  the oldest trees are maybe 10-12  years old.
I recently went to see an exhibition there which is meant for the exporters to show their products to the foreign buyers.  The place where this was organized is called the `Export Promotion Mart'.

It is a nice place per-sey , totally air conditioned and secure with great spaces for display, standby power, ample parking, a system for everything and things generally thought out. What is surprising is that they cart the people to this venue which is so far away, about 40 km from Rajiv Chowk( I mean Connaught place). They have also done one cardinal mistake. They haven't  planned for the hundreds of `staff ' who end up working at such an event. drivers, bearers, trolley pushers, security guards, shop assistants, safai karamcharis, parking attendants, information clerks etc.  They forgot to make for them a cafeteria and toilet facilities where a twenty minute break could be spent with a cup of tea and a snack for under Rs 20/-.  Every where in the mall it costs Rs 80/- to have a coffee and a snack.  Why do they do this.  I ask a manager type and he says `No idea. Ask my senior".  I don't ask, because I already know what the answer would be "Greater No-Idea".

They named the sectors Alpha, Beta, Gama etc but the first major roundabout is not called Mayawati chowk, or Mahatma Gandhi chowk. In fact they forgot to name the first traffic junction which is the form of a roundabout, but they put a sculpture of a `Pari' (a Fairy) in the middle of the roundabout. Every body now talks of that junction as `Pari chowk'. Directions are now given  with reference to `Pari chowk' if you wanted to go to `theeta' sector. Will the major traffic junction be known as `Pari chowk' for all times to come. Will the next one be called Jal- Pari chowk (mermaid chowk). I have no idea.

The next thing that I saw there completely gave credibility to the interpretation of the name that I have coined. A pedestrian crosses half of the wide road on a zebra crossing and hits a barbed wire at the central verge, Sorry cannot cross the road . Go back.  The picture is self explanatory.Why do they do this? If they dont have an idea, I have Greater No-idea.

Param Jigyasu

DAILY MASSACRE AND MONEY TO BE MADE

A lot of people may have seen others break traffic rules, jumping red light etc.  I see it too but I see a mass murder every day because I live quite close to a school in which children of the well-to-do study.

The office goer doesn’t get to see this. The bureaucrat doesn’t see this, the average policeman also doesn’t see this because this happens at a generally peaceful time of the day. The massaccare of traffic rules happens in the morning at School time. Several other interesting things also happen. I made a tour of various city schools in the morning when the school starts.

The following is the list of traffic rules being broken regularly with impunity, every day by dozens of people  

1.       More than two people on a two wheeler

2.       People without helmets

3.       People coming from the opposite direction and standing frontally in front of other vehicles

4.       People parking almost at the geometric centre of the road

5.       People stopping cars in the fast lane to make children get off on the divider.

6.       People parking vehicles touching the central divider(in the fast lane)

7.       Underage driving

8.       Up to 20 children in on auto/vikram

9.       Up to 20 children in a maruti Van

10.   People on cars and scooters coming into a roundabout at great speed from the wrong side (anti clockwise)

11.   Complete disrespect and callous attitude towards those who follow traffic rules(like poking the front wheel of the scooter in front of a car and stopping him when he is in the right)

12.   Taking a U turn within a lane

13.   Taking large wheeled cars over the divider and making a U turn

14.   Private cars being used as school vans

15.   Un-authorized LPG kits in school vans

16.   Men Wearing ugly night-suits and rubber chappals, Women wearing baggy see through night wear and looking sleep deprived and driving unwashed cars in your face (OK  !! that is not a traffic violation but it seems like a violation of some rule or the other)

The first interesting thing is that everybody who breaks traffic rules is doing it in the presence of their own children therefore setting up a bad example. Every child who has been brought to school by mom or dad everyday on a scooter driven on the wrong side and with no helmet on head thinks that it is Ok to do this.

The other very interesting thing about the rule breakers is that when they are nearly going to kill themselves by getting run over by a truck, they look so self absorbed. They are completely oblivious to the truck driver who is shouting expletives, If you are driving a car and you have braked hard to avoid killing a scooterist who just jumped in front of you with two Kindergarten kids as pillion riders, they wont even look at you. There is no question of admitting mistake and saying sorry. They just move on as if stopping you by surprise was a normal thing to do.

The other important part of the show are the starers.  A man comes to drop two children one big and one small, and school for the small child begins 20 minutes after. These guys/women stand and stare at the crowd with a small child in tow, they probably know every body’s face by now. They complete the picture in one sense. The traffic is like a circus and they are the audience.

Usually It ought to be a pleasant sight to see young children, with their fresh faces and smart uniforms, being dropped to school by their loving parents but our lack of civic sense makes the school gate look like a fish market with lots of near accidents,  vehicles parked in all odd directions and lots of people honking, shouting and losing their tempers.

If the Government sat one traffic cop and one magistrate everyday in front of Dehradun schools by rotation, they could fill up one full hundred page challan book every day.  There is a lot of money to be made there.

I have one strange request though. If the traffic police does go to the schools to challan some people, they should fine them Rs Rs 110, instead of the regular Rs 100 because with the additional Rs 10 they should take a picture of the traffic violation being made . They should then print the picture and ask the school management to pin up on the main notice board.

Param Jigyasu
(published in Garhwal Post on the 30th august2012)

 

ANNA IS PUSHED IN A CORNER

 For those who are following the Anna movement closely, this may be surprising that Anna has suddenly decided to do something new, get into electoral politics.

It is also true that those who are not  following the Anna movement  closely , think that this move was preplanned, premeditated and imminent.  Nothing can be farther from the truth.

What in fact has been happening is that Anna and team has been standing outside the ring  and requesting the monster  to be gentle, not to eat so much, so many people, the monster has been saying, so what if you created me, I will do what I feel like,  today I am powerful, come inside and I will teach you also a lesson.

Anna says ` stop it !  play by the rules !  have mercy !  etc etc . The monster keeps saying ` come inside’ . The monster mistakes the refusal to enter the ring as the weakness of his creator, so it keeps repeating `come inside the ring’.

The government  has decided to kick those who are requesting, even begging like true `bhikshu’s’ for a legislation. The government has decided to ignore them  and  has  accused them of not playing by the rules. They say its Black mail.

 It is correct that today brute force, buying votes, electoral manipulations are the rule. Requesting for something  which is correct  (quite literally `Satya –agrah” ) is not the rule.  It is not a recognized game.

Gandhi ji should have made the rules of the game for all this protesting in free india. Then nobody could complain about not playing by the rules.  It should have been called Fasting  grade -1, grade- 2,  degree of difficulty level- 1, and level-2, etc and he should have made it allowable only once a year under govt. rules for all individuals.  There should have been a section officer to calculate `desperation level’ of agitation which would be a square root of the product of no. of days with the the no. of people multiplied by a thirst factor ranging from 1.1 to 1.6 depending on the month of the year. Bonus points would be given for every new city added to the agitation, This bonus point would be in turn multiplied a no. from 1 to 10  depending on the no.. of people present in a venue  which would be certified by the patwari. Only those who came , showed their photo id and signed would be counted as protestors  ( not including journos and policemen/ women), An injury or a  death or two would go on adding points to the end score in the `desperation level’.

For every 100 points a police man would be transferred, for every 2000 points grade 2 officer will be suspended…………………..and so on and so forth. The law could have been made at the time of writing the constitution. All the laws were being made and `Satya Grah’ was not such an old thing then. It would have been easy to recall each satya-agrah by name and the resultant action or inaction.  Alas all this never happened and poor team Anna is forced to protest unregulated and unrecognized.  If the rules were in place and Given the scale of protests in august 2011, half the government would have been gone.

There is also no system to grab these chaps by the collars and pull them out of their fast  and furious A.C. cars  and tell them to do the job for which they were elected. There is no system to break the nexus between the criminals within the system and watchdog organizations. You can only protest once in five years. That protest is by electing those who are not greedy and less likely to turn into criminals and those who will listen after they are elected.

That is what Anna is having to do condescendingly.

 Here is wishing power to Anna.  You can also have my Rs 10/- for fighting election whenever you want , wherever you want

Param Jigyasu

 

WHY ARE THE PICKLED ONIONS IN THE RESTAURANTS RED?

 I waited for this season to write this article. The new harvest of Ginger is in the markets. I will explain the relationship between this and the onions in a minute.

We all go to Indian restaurants for a meal. Once the order is placed, the waiter usually keeps a set of three containers  on the table. One has some pickle , one has a chutney of  some kind and the third has pickled onions which are red at the edges. These are supposedly pickled in vinegar.

Have you ever thought what this colour is ?  Have you ever wondered why red, why not any other colour like blue or green?

Now we come back to our new ginger. It is a pale pink colour and it has a tender skin which is also edible. Try the following at home. Take a large piece of ginger say 50 to 70 grams and cut into thin strips. It cuts very easily like a potato.   Now cut an onion and cut that also into small pieces and mix with the ginger pieces. Add some salt and put it aside for half an hour.

Most housewives know this simple day-pickle.  What they may not know is that these strips of salted ginger are blue litmus. Strange but true, its edible blue litmus. This can be used for any laboratory test also.  When we add a tablespoon of vinegar or squeeze the juice of a lime in it, the ginger, the onions in it turn pink and the edges mildly red.  This ginger and onion pickle has a lovely tangy taste and the natural pink colour is lovely.

This red colour is what all restaurant owners are trying to copy but the process has got bastardized two times over. First they tried to bring the same colour by using a piece of beetroot, then they stopped using vinegar and started to use synthetic vinegar of unregulated concentration, Then suddenly all the restaurant owners started to use food colour in large quantites ( a pinch in half a kilo of onions is a huge quantity).  Now they have stopped using the vinegar altogether and you will see that the onions are bland. They have also stopped using salt because of which the onions got a semblance of pickling.

Food colouring is highly avoidable, it is toxic, it gets into the liver of humans and doesn’t get excreted. A simple test is to rub the coloured onion in a white hankerchief. The colour will rub off on the cloth.

We started with a, pale pink coloured, tangy,  onion- ginger pickle and we have ended with deep red, toxic, bland, salt less onions.  This is the sad story of a lot of restaurant food.  I will bring more such horrors to your notice.  The professionals in the food business are taking the consumers for granted and are dishing out some nonsense in the name of good food.  

Refuse to eat the coloured onions, ask for a fresh cut onion with a spoon of natural vinegar or piece of lime and do try the fresh new ginger-onion pickle at home, it tastes good at the time of making and even more wonderful a day later. It doesn’t last much longer than that.

Param Jigyasu

 

A SENSE OF DISORDER

 A SENSE OF DISORDER

Recently I had the good fortune to travel to Malaysia.  It is similar to India in many ways. Its multicultural, its democratic, parts of the population are very conservative . The climate of the country is very similar to south India. Tamils form  some 9% of the population and Tamil is one of the official languages.  I had some of the nicest Dosa’s of my life in Kualalumpur.

It is a petroleum producing  country and its income is more than that of India. The one outstanding thing about Malaysia is that it is very organized and very clean. Life in general seems to be running smoothly. The common man is very scared of breaking the law. We do hear of frequent purse snatching etc but otherwise there is no evidence of people breaking the law blatantly.

In my mind I have been ruminating about `what is it that they do differently from us’.

One thing is definite that  there seems to be much more investment in public infrastructure in roads, paths, lighting, buses, trains, trams etc.

Second and the more important thing that people seem to have done differently from us is that they seem to have killed their raw instincts and they have learnt to respect common property. There seems to be no body spitting (a lot of people chew tobacco and areca nut there). Nobody seemed to be throwing cigarette butts in wrong places (smoking also is very common in Malaysia). Nobody seems to be vandalizing common property.  Buses , Taxis, trains are all clean, Public toilets are clean and everything works .  Public telephones work very well and the booths are clean. Mind you there are still a lot of illiterate and jobless people like in India. Though not so big,  but the urban rural divide is there, it is not that the country is one big mass of  educated yuppies. Their mix of educated- uneducated, city -village, rich-poor etc is not very different from ours.

 Third is the invisible hand of the law enforcing agency.  There are people who serve food on the sidewalks but they keep the side walks shining.  I had some lovely sweet tea (called `chai’ and contains a big helping of condensed milk ) from a chap with a push cart on the road side.  The glass in which tea was served was spotless clean and the pavement was even more clean, he didn’t let even a drop of the sweet liquid spill on the paving in the process of making, serving and washing.  I am sure that there is somebody to ensure that street vendors don’t litter, but the enforcement is wonderful.  

The fact that the invisible hand of Law is heavy is evident from the airport from the time of landing. There are big warnings to say that `Drug trafficking is punishable by the death Penalty’.  

Cut to Scene 2

Came back after a month and  I went for a walk some days later  in of the quieter bye lanes of Rajpur Road and I saw something wonderful. It was such a contrast to my days in Malaysia.  Some body has just cocked a snook at MDDA and built a house right on the road(on two roads in fact as it is a corner plot.  A three storied monster has been constructed without leaving even an inch from the roadside say within 9 feet of the centre of the road.  If I know the law right 15 feet from the centre of the road is right of way or road and some 6 feet minimum is the setoff. So one cannot build any structure within 20-21  feet from the centre of the road.  I invite the powers to come and see this wonderful creation still under  construction. The pillars of the porch are not even 10 feet from the centre of the road. The main structure is not more than 12 feet away from the road and all other setoffs are zero. In fact on one side he seems to have built  a roof projection over the neighbours land. I asked one of the neighbours and  everybody seems helpless. 

I had started to think that we in India have also come around a little bit, every body wears the  seat belt in Delhi, The Delhi Metro is actually quite clean. Railway stations are not as dirty as they were some 10 years ago. These and the nice thoughts of the ordered developments still fresh from my Malaysian experience came to a screeching halt. 

Here are some pictures of this house which is on the lane behind Ramakrishna Mission Temple.

Another wonderful thing I see  not far from here is a sort of nursery on the Kishanpur Masjid  bus stop.  MDDA makes the wall to its property behind it, the proprietor of this nursery breaks it. (all this is within 50 metres of the Chief Secretary’s residence). Again one day MDDA will come and make the wall. Again the same thing will happen. Needless to say at least 150 feet of the sidewalk is permanently occupied by his nursery which has half a dozen dogs, children men and women.  This has been happening for many years.  If you are walking from say Jakhan to the Diversion , at the busy junction of Inder Bawa marg, behind the bus stop there is no sidewalk, you have to walk on the main road in front of the bus stop in the fear that a bus may be right behind you.

A stretch of road between the main Rajpur road and the Indane gas agency at Jakhan is under construction since the last six months . Its work under progress  but it’s a big mess worsened by the heavy rain. 

It is good to be back in India and buy lovely sweet mangoes for Rs 25 a kilo but along with it comes the `sense of disorder ‘ which  hit me thrice in one mornings walk.  It has  been there and it refuses to go away. Are we different, or selfish or too relaxed. We all like a good burger when we see it but we do not seem to be taking enough care to produce one.

Param Jigyasu

 

VOT 4 I VOT 4 U

 

Recently I was reminded of time spent in Tamilnadu during one assembly election. People had just realized that they could ask questions from the candidates and they had started to ask `Yenna Da vot 4 I vot 4 U’. Roughly translated it means `What You Fellow!!! What for should  I vote for you’.  I asked the same the other day in Hindi to the MLA candidate for the constituency in which I live.

One tall fat man came to my door accompanied by some other fat men in white clothes. The most noticeable feature of this lot was that they were all willing to do `Namaste’ (fold hands) at the fall of a hat. I did not count but they executed at least twenty Namaste s in a span of five minutes while talking to my wife and self. They happily addressed my wife `bhabi ji’.  They had all come to ask for my vote for the assembly election in which the fat man is a candidate.  He seemed the kind of chap who had made money in business somewhere, I didn’t know if he has funded the expensive walking shoes for all who were with him, but himself he had invested in good walking shoes and seemed to want to lose some weight also. Win or lose the election, but definitely win this battle with the flab.  He had the expression of an otherwise ferocious dog who just wants another bone rather badly and he is willing to wag his tail and beg for it without any qualms.

 He is introduced by one of his chronies, the plain-white-clothesman who said `AAP  Mr. such and such hain, AAP ke chunav kshetra se khade hain, AAP ka sahyog chahte hain,’ ) The  first AAP meant  fat man, second AAP meant me and the third AAP meant all the adults in my family.  I knew about him, I had seen his publicity posters, he has no reputation for social work, of helping any one other than himself, no other claim to fame except that he has a fetish for power and that he was willing to spend some fifty lakhs or so from his pocket to fight the election.  He didn’t offer me any money or liquor but I did suspect that he had paid for the `support’ of the men accompanying him.

He gave me a copy of his manifesto, it had nothing new in it, every body including him are now saying that they are inspired by Anna Hazare. I asked about his particular agenda and he muttered `Vikaas’.(Development). He just said that his  party would take the state towards ` vikaas’. Spending money on Development was  all important because the earlier governments had failed and as if spending Government money is itself `Vikaas’.   He didn’t have a programme. He also muttered a few words about how bad some other parties are.  He didn’t really talk about things that he would do as an MLA, any location specific business ideas, He didn’t have any think intelligent to say in his five minute stay except that he wanted a `sewa ka mauka’.(an opportunity to serve) 

My head went in a bit of a tizzy, does this man know anything. Did he know anything about building schools, Highways, or sewage treatment plants?. Did he know how state’s economy works, how much of the state’s rupee goes where and why?, Does he know about the lacunas in the PDS system., does he know of the problems of development in the hills ? Does he support the increase of no. of tourists in the wild life parks, is he aware of the plight of the Indian sailors stuck  in the gulf of eden?. Does he know the value of one Kg of Yarsa Gambu, does he know about the rampant sale of hooch ? Does he know how many people are buying adulterated milk. Does he know that the auto drivers overcharge at least 80% of the times? Does he know about rampant malnutrition in our kids and women? Is he a good manager and does he know this complex business of managing a four layered workforce in the government? Did he know about sustainable development, global warming?. I had my serious doubts. He looked very worried about the fact that his mobile phone was ringing and he couldn’t answer it. He also kept looking at his own spot less shoes and uniform.  I took pity on him, didn’t ask him any more questions. More smiles and more Namaste’s and they went away rather assured that I would vote for them.

At this point of time he seemed capable of nothing except to smile and spread the charm, looking for a `mauka’(opportunity). I suspected that he had earned pots of money in his life and he wanted to taste real power too. He was looking for a `mauka’ to enjoy power, the `sewa’ part was just incidental.  I could be wrong and maybe he is a nice hard working man.  I regretted that I didn’t directly ask him, the question learnt from the Tamil Nadu elections in the same intimidating tone   `Yenna Da ’ VOT 4 I VOT 4 U  ?’  Maybe he could have told me? Maybe he does have a game plan outside his manifesto.

Hell !!!!! will never know because I suspect he will not win.

Param Jigyasu

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