So I was explaining the whole Anna Hazare situation to Abu & Rabad, and realized that there was a lot of explaining to do.<\/p>\n
“You know, sometimes, our leaders take money from bad people and do bad things for them. That is called corruption. Is that a good thing?”<\/p>\n
“No”<\/p>\n
“What should happen to leaders who are corrupt?”<\/p>\n
“They should get punishment.”<\/p>\n
“Correct! They should be put in jail. Who can put them in jail?”<\/p>\n
“The police.”\n<\/p>\n
“Exactly… except that they pay the police to not put them in jail. What is that called?”<\/p>\n
“Corruption.”<\/p>\n
That wasn’t so difficult. With the basics done, I continued with the sordid tale.<\/p>\n
“So, many of our leaders are corrupt. And the police who are supposed to punish them are also corrupt.”<\/p>\n
“No,” wailed Rabad, the 6-year old, “Why are you telling me these things? I get scared!”<\/p>\n
Ouch! I did not tell her that it scares me too. <\/p>\n
* * * <\/pre>\n“Well, there is a guy called Anna Hazare who is telling our leaders that we should create a new group of good people, called the Lokpal, which will punish corrupt leaders and police. Do you think our leaders will listen to him?”<\/p>\n
“Nooooo” said Abu. <\/p>\n
“You know, our leaders did a tricky thing. They said that they will create a Lokpal. And they said that the Lokpal will have leaders in it.”<\/p>\n
“Whoa!” said Abu, clearly seeing the conflict of interest. (He’s learnt words like “Whoa” from reading American comics and seeing TV shows.)<\/p>\n
“What’s the problem?” asked Rabad.<\/p>\n
“Well, suppose I create a group of people who will keep a watch on whether Abu and Rabad are eating chocolates without permission, and will punish them. And this group of people will be Abu and Rabad. Will that be a good idea?”<\/p>\n
“Ha ha ha ha ha,” laughed Rabad, “That is such a dumb idea.”<\/p>\n
Maybe Sonia Gandhi should spend more time with 6-year-olds. (Or maybe our voters are dumber than 6-year-olds.)<\/p>\n
* * * <\/pre>\n“So,” I continued, “Anna Hazare is telling our leaders that at least half the people in the Lokpal should be non-leaders and non-police.” I simplified things considerably, but accuracy is not always worth the effort. This simplification captures the spirit, I think.<\/p>\n
“So, Pappa, is this Lokpal thing Anna Hazare’s idea?” inquired Abu.<\/p>\n
“No. Actually, various people have been trying to create a Lokpal for a long time. 8 times they have tried, and 8 times our leaders said no. This has been going on for the last 42 years,” I said.<\/p>\n
“And, for 28 of those last 42 years, we’ve been waiting for the Cricket World Cup!” said Abu, the 8-year-old.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, it is rather difficult to figure out whether a statement is a non sequitur<\/em> or a profound truth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So I was explaining the whole Anna Hazare situation to Abu & Rabad, and realized that there was a lot of explaining to do. “You know, sometimes, our leaders take money from bad people and do bad things for them. That is called corruption. Is that a good thing?” “No” “What should happen to leaders […Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,6,62,25,3],"tags":[64],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smritiweb.com\/abu-rabad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}