(Once more my friend Padmanabh Subramanian aka Pady has contributed an article for my blog. I appreciate his effort where he has highlighted the problems faced by the Common Man of today. Have a look at it.)

Dear Common Man,

I have been following your tweets, posts, Facebook status messages and blog writeups pertaining to the common man & his struggle, corruption, social evils, etc.

Just thought of sharing with you few thoughts, which have been cropping up in my mind since long. Just tried to connect the dots, and summarize it as under:

The Common Man & his problems

All the social / national issues, the Common Man Speaks about, are more or less, interlinked or rather ‘knotted’ with each other. Recall the dialogue from Mumbai Meri Jaan, by constable Kadam (Vijay Maurya) to Patil saaheb(Paresh Rawal). ”

“Patil sahab yeh jo galat hai na…ek ka undar ek itna ghichid michid ho gaya hai ki saala maalumich nahi padta hai ki iska shuruaat kidhar se hua tha…”

If one tries resolving one of them, the other becomes a bigger threat. And the solution also lies somewhere within the problems themselves.

Some of the issues we usually speak about are –

• The exponentially growing population
• Democracy
• Politics
• Internal Conflicts
• Crime
• Terrorism
• Poverty
• Development / Standard of Living
• Corruption

Population, one of the well known issues in the nation, is the BAAP of all problems. Simple Mumbaiyaa logic boley toh Naukri k ghante aanth(8) hain, hafte mein din 7 hain, ghar pe khaane waale 8 aath hain, pagaar ek so saath (160) hai…ZINDAGI bole toh vaat hai !!

Development is something we have been trying to achieve since ages. But, it’s only few sections of the society that have been able to reap the benefits so far. And this section is the one responsbile for IT, technology and luxury boom in the nation. Today a call from a cell phone costs you 0.5 ps per minutes and the price of oil is almost Rs 100 / litre. So, there’s a paradoxical situation wherein, luxury comes cheaper than basic needs. And ultimately & ironically the brunt is borne by those who don’t fall in this bracket, i.e. the common man and the ones on & below the poverty line

Overall development of this huge population, isn’t frankly easy, because, to reach out 2 everyone is a Herculean task.

As a result,

1) There are few people who are lucky enough to get their share of justice and okay with the system.

2) Some of them don’t want to wait in queues or lines , but just want to get their work done ASAP

3) Some are too big / egoistic a persona to share the same space with the common man.

Talking about democracy, for name sake, we have freedom of this, that and everything….but it’s only few people who are actually able to exercise them and reach out their voices. Even among these, there are people who only want their rights to be granted “SADDA HAQ, AITHAY RAAKH” , but will never perform their duties and yet escape scot free.

Policies, rules & norms are subject to overnight modifications by the influential class.

Here is where come in CRIME, CORRUPTION & POLITICS

People who get away with Corruption, make it a habit, while those are not able to, resort to CRIME.

So, a frustrated soul has no other choice, but to choose one of the above mentioned.

Politicians play their usual vote bank,divide & rule, musical chairs, parliament chaos, kinda games, and add fuel to the fire, thereby creating internal conflicts as well

To get worse, some pool in relgious bias, wherein normal crime transforms into terrorism, courtesy our not-so friendly neighbouring nations.

However, when a terror attack occurs, it creates havoc no doubt, but if you see it from a different perspective, it targets the 1st problem i.e. population.

So as such, we have a dangerous dead-end in place to target all the problems, if we leave them as it is. Now it’s up to us whether we allow these to continue and the circle to find its own deadly solution or WE THE PEOPLE, work on each problem ourselves separately and in parallel.

If you feel I have made some sense, do share it with the world. Ek baar spell check maar dena please !!

Regards,

Padmanabh