Paid Prostitution

Buying a car is easily one of the biggest, the most tension fraught, and the most important decisions one can manage to ever take. The fact that we have billions of people driving around haphazardly taking pot shots at the environment does not make this decision any less monumental. In fact, the reality that it is still as monumental despite being so rampantly taken adds more consequence to it.

A wrong house is not an issue, you just sleep and poop in it. If you could sleep and have sex in a roadside motel on that budget trip to Cambodia, you could do it anywhere on the planet. A wrong girlfriend is just a matter of a good dump (no, not the one you took in the hotel loo back in Cambodia) and a lot of drinking en route finding a new one.

A wrong wife is just half your hard earned money. But a wrong car is like a wrong government. You cannot get rid of it before the term is over, and no one else will loan you theirs. You are stuck with it, and each morning you wake up with the morbid feeling of having to spend a large part of the day wrangling with it.

If you are stuck with a bad car AND a bad government, the only option you have is to immediately move to the pleasant environs of Central Africa and join in the general excitement of being able to throw stones at whatever that does not please you. Additionally, you cannot have a car which means you are back to the stone age. No Car, No Money, No Problem. No wonder life is all well and exciting these days in Northern Gondwanaland with all the flights from NATO making passes over to burst some crackers.

The shortest route to happiness then is either a fantastic car and a great government or not having a car and having a government that you can throw stones at. But then, not everyone is in Egypt or Libya. So, we will have to do with cars – most of which are bad, and those of which are good being horribly out of reach – and governments that do not really care much about stones. Incidentally enough, our measure of happiness is now only the car.

Naturally, when I was asked to pick a car – which I would, in all probability, be driving for long stretches – with the condition of its price fitting into the budget the size of a pellet of goat feces, my terror indicator pointed squarely at  ’Telangana Agitation’ which as it happens sat between ‘Mumbai Terror’ and ‘I have to talk to you..’

While any mention of Telangana Agitation is taboo for us here in Hyderabad, it is a clear indicator about how funny people in usually are. It also gives you an idea of why Telangana Agitation rates higher on the terror scale than Mumbai Blasts. It is because people in Mumbai have the easy way out. They either survive or perish. With the Telangana thing, people get raped – regularly.

Mumbai blasts are like holidays. They come and go. They are temporary brakes to the Mumbai pace, with apathy acting as the accelerator. So, you have a blast here and there, once or twice and then everything is back to normal. End of it. The agitation however is made of sterner stuff.

First, the citizens are forced to shell our money so that our beloved politicians can sling mud at each other on national TV. Whatever is left over is generously used to bathe the local ruffians in liquor and sweat of high street prostitutes to try and ensure victory. If this seems inadequate, the vestiges of whatever money was snatched from the workers’ pockets is thrown back at them to buy their favour. Two weeks later, when the results are out, all hell breaks loose and remains recalcitrantly broken.

This is when the public realised, that it has been screwed. Again.

Not only are the promises not kept – which is expected, tantrums are thrown. The leaders we chose pour more liquor to more ruffians leaving the unsuspecting public to watch these live on prime time TV in one of the news channels or as a scrolling ticker while a mother-in-law is merrily plotting away to do in the daugther-in-law. The insult is two pronged. Each going into the orifice of it choice. First we get to choose our father and promptly get screwed over by our. Not only do we lose our virginity, we also lose our money. The point is alarmingly clear – that everyone would have been better off being a prostitute.

Good then, that democracy is in full glory by serving half the people – those in power, in succeeding to buy the people and being far from the people.

The moral of the story is simple: Change is not accepted. Terrorism, like first night ceremonies with grand-moms pushing coy brides with glasses of milk into a room furnished with a horny groom being aired on national TV, DDT, scandals, is everyday stuff . But Telangana Agitation, like Talking about Sex, Asking for condoms in a crowded medical store, GM foods, and Reading books on gadgets, is new and hence uncool. All these things will serve to unsettle only till they remain new, once they become old – no one really notices.

Over time, these become like 60th birthdays – you really don’t want to notice them coming, but you get used to them coming and going. Better coming than going. At least some variety.

Talking of birthdays, Happy New Year Shaifali!

This is for you.