RAISON D'ETRE

When it comes to saying things with the right kind of 'flavour', I guess you will have to hand it to the French.

English would have been so poorer had it not been for the long period of the Norman's sojourn in the Queen's Isles. Whether it is the subtlety of rarefied lies that mark diplomacy, or the fickleness of taste that mark fashion, or the flights of fancy that define the world of romance, or, admit it, when you get down to the raunchiness of sex, you would find it difficult to say what you really would like to mean without the fecund French turn of phrase.

Poor English, despite its closeness to the custodians of culture on the other side of the Channel who happen to be the only ones who know how to taste the joie de vivre, has no words like these that mean the same thing. Let us turn to the old reliable OED--the Oxford English Dictionary, that final arbiter of meaning for us, careful users of the King's/Queen's tongue. Raison d'etre (No, don't try to pronounce it and demonstrate to the entire world that we the non-French will never get it right!) is "... the most important reason or purpose that accounts for or justifies someone or something's existence". Read that again and it easily boils down to "...someone/something's reason for being around". Switch to the plural and you can include all the noble and the not-so-noble reasons that call loudly for that something/someone's existence.

Good. An abstruse everyday French phrase and we have got it licked in two minutes flat! Now, onto more mundane things.

Now for VFM,  the mantra of the Middle Class. "Chathurvarnyam" or the four-class system, was, with the zero and Sanskrit, the invention of Indians. But then in 1947 they threw that out along with the Brits and their Colonial peccadilloes, though 'desi' games like cricket were nurtured side-by-side with 'kabaddi', the truly 'Indian' game in spirit and methodology. The Socialists had their working class and India had no class!

Then God thought that perhaps nascent India needed the MC. Accordingly this class has been expressly ordained into being by our Creator for the very purpose of giving some sheen by contrast to the "business-class" citizens of India and also for serving as the subjects of the Maharajah of Air India, so that once in a while that royal personage could give a boost to his sagging ego and his bottom line by doling out real, unalloyed vassal-like treatment to the MC when the poor souls bought tickets to perdition and flew his silver jets --jets bought with their tax money and whose engines gulped the aviation spirit thrice subsidized by their tax money! Ho, the ways of Providence are indeed mysterious...

I didn't know what VFM meant until a friend's 'savvy' kid wised me up--Value For Money. Maybe they teach all those acronyms in B-schools, along with avarice and a total lack of emotions that are the pre-requisites to being a good 'manager'. But most of us populating that middle level know that value for money is something that you look for in everything, whether it is cars or cattle, chappals or chattels, flats or farmhouses, umbrellas or underwear, or that ultimate high of "shopping", a suitable bride or groom!!

Now let me come to the lakh-crore rupee question--why do we need to bother with these two phrases in our everyday lives? When you want to get something or someone into your life, it is best to ask away these questions and get the answers before we act. But us middle class mortals are not that fortunate usually. By the time we have a breather in life and realize that we are part of the great MC crowd, we have many of these things and people solidly in our lives. So when it comes to the pinch, or sometimes the crunch, we have to ask these unpleasant questions.

This is one such time.

From the first generation of those babies who were the aftermath of the "midnight tryst", with Destiny or whoever else it was, to the generation next and now to the 'generation text' (conceived mostly in the sedate pre-texting days), Indians have been patient. Patient for sixty long years. Nobody is perfect, we all know. And you need time to "perfect your act" and perform.

All right. But sixty years? Sixty long, grinding years...??  Don't you think it is a bit long? You would be patient with a son/daughter who took the long and circuitous route to his/her ‘slot’ and success in life; but your patience is likely to be rewarded with the happy sight of him/her living a full life with aplomb at least by the ripe age of maybe 30, 35 or even 40. Half a century is the insane limit. SIXTY years... and then some. If you are still not with me there, I urge you to start counting from 1947--no need to be finicky about whether to start from the midnight hour or not.

What is the raison d'etre of a government--any government, for that matter? To govern, naturally, stupid! Our government is a clever consortium--they govern strictly according to the dictionary; no need to see if it is to the satisfaction and welfare of the governed, as that is not specified in the dictionary! How many ministers do we have in our Central ministry ? How many in each of our States? How much are they costing the Exchequer, a fancy word invented by the Brits --who love pomp and ceremony, fancy-dress balls and, of course, fancy words-- that ultimately means the poor guys who shell out their money as taxes?

The raison d'etre of this veritable army of self-serving worthies is to 'govern' us and conduct our affairs. How? Ah, my dear Sir, broadly as we wish them to be conducted, and to our general satisfaction and overall welfare. That is why we have representative democracy, and that is the reason for YOU being sent THERE.

Democracy? Ah, yes... But today democracy is like Milma milk, which starts out as the "real thing" --milk from the udders of real, live, honest-to-goodness cows. But then the milk gathers volume, with all sorts of buffalo milk and water being added to it before being fed into the big maw of the dairy machinery, where a judicious amount of "reconstituted milk" (fancy name for the white stuff called milk powder) is added, water is added, various fats and other stuff are added, and is finally checked with that magical device called a Lactometer that tells you if the resulting stuff has the consistency and specific gravity and the colour of milk. It is NOT milk, as you knew it and drank it as a child, but in a court of law you could swear that it IS milk, and you won't be hauled up for perjury. They sell it in poly packs for a fancy price with the catchy slogan " Here is goodness you can wake up to...". (So sad that the Englishman has no 'Vishu' or 'Kani', and so "Keralam kani kandunarunna nanma" has to remain un-translatable.)

What I was meaning was that by the time democracy reaches the upper echelons of power and power brokers, it is as bad as Milma milk... or, as good as Milma milk. It all depends on your point of view. (I do not want to be pulled up for libel--when I used the word Milma, I had in mind any similar dairy product from any State of India which has more or less the same consistency and background. Perhaps I should ask my dear, gentle reader to substitute the word with ‘Milpa’ or 'Palma', an imaginary dairy product, in order to serve as an object of comparison to illustrate the dilution and total transformation of quality/originality as the 'process' is completed.)

If somebody in the meantime has computed the total cost of maintaining all these "servants of the people, for the people", let us ask the second question. Are they returning any VFM? Opinions are sure to differ wildly. So let us look at percentages, rather than 'digital' questions of 'yes' or 'no'. Does the VFM come anywhere near the  "pass percentage" of 35 % ? Or, is it A-grade performance at 60%, or exemplary levels at more than 80% ? Or, are we talking about "performance" that is more like a measly less than 10%?

One thing is clear. When those expensively-maintained ministers, including the prime among the lot, go about saying that they did not know what was happening in their ministries, that very admission is proof positive of extreme "under-performance", if not  total non-performance. Will any employer, past or present, here or in any corner of this wide world, continue to tolerate such an employee, and that too at great expense, not to speak of the damage he does to the system?

Looking at the definition of raison d'etre clarifies another moot point too. The reason for existence should 'justify' that. So much of money spent for so long on so great a bunch of non-performers.... What justification could anyone have for this gross travesty of governance? What value are we getting for this huge investment. Nothing--except double-digit inflation!! And onions, God alone knows, at what rate of inflation!

This 'tamasha' has become something like a circus that has grown to occupy the entire "big top", with the audience kicked out into the rain and the slush. It is high time we realized that, if at all it is a circus, it is for our 'entertainment' and we have tickets and a right to occupy at least our gallery seats. And, let them not forget it, we demand VFM when it comes to the "entertainment value".

We have, whether we like it or not, a huge machinery called the bureaucracy peopled by scores of functionaries from the chaprasi to the Chief Secretary, and, again, funded by our 'enthusiastic' tax contributions. Are they not capable of keeping the machinery of governance well-oiled and running smoothly for a while? C'mon, we have had enough and more "policies" and high-flying things like that taken care of in the past sixty years and more, and I guess we could survive for a few years, if not more, on the sheer momentum of the past policies and principles. We don't want this expensive circus eating up our hard-earned money --at least not until a bunch of "fresh recruits" agree to "play ball" as per our wishes and decrees and give us some guarantees about VFM.

By no stretch of imagination could a reasonable man in our country now accept the raisons d'etre for the existence of the body of self-styled "guardians" of our Constitution and "protectors" of our lives, who have taken an absolute disregard for accountability and probity in public life to the very nadir of decadence.

This must stop. This must be stopped.

And the time--and the opportunity-- for taking that decision is right round the corner.

                                                    * * * * * * * * * * * *