Thursday, August 29, 2013

Dear Sir/Ma’am

I write to you in all earnestness to express my gratitude for passing the Food security bill. My heart is soaring with pleasure at the thought of a belly full of food, and I am now in a position to have the long vacation (a year or two) I have been contemplating for the past few months. You see the last long vacation I took was after NREGA was passed a few years back. Thanks to your benevolence I am getting paid even when the babus can’t find work for me. Infact Ramdhari is getting paid even after his death along with my great grandmother who passed away when I was 15. You made this happen!

I am sure nowhere in the world has a government mastered the art of putting the cart before the horse. Surprisingly you also flogged the cart so hard that it started pulling the horse. So what if it is downhill, we should be proud that we are making history. Wow! We can teach the Chinese a trick or two. What is the godforsaken need to create work and job opportunities for people when we can give them free food? After all, what use does education, healthcare, equality, prosperity and democratic right have if my belly is full. The critics of the Food security bill are fellas from fancypants schools, who are crazy about some guy called Maslow. This fellow Maslow knows precious little about the supreme value of enough food in the plate, almost seven decades after independence.

Thanks to you I don’t need to wade in water during the rice planting season or work in the fields of the landowning farmers. Actually I don’t need to work even in my own small farm, as you will now provide me with free food. I am indebted to you for this benevolence. It’s rubbish to assume that the Food security bill will create a dearth of labour and in turn cause inflation. If so many of us have no need to buy food, inflation will automatically come down na sahib.

Sir/Ma’am my humble request is that you should not worry about the naysayers. You are a very busy person with many activities to do from Singapore to Goa. After all you carry the burden of not only your immediate, but even your extended family and are responsible for ensuring that they have enough cars /jets while you put the cart before the horse for Mother India. I understand your pain.

Aapka Dulara
FSB beneficiary


PS: Would be great if you could share the address of my long dead great grandmother since you have been regularly sending her NREGA cheques. I long for her loving embrace and murabbas.