The cost our leaders extract from us for the job of leading us

My very ordinary mind tries to grapple with the figures that our Esteemed Leaders take away from us and then give some back to the society. Mind you my subtraction skills are adequate enough to realise that the difference is a huge one obviously in favour of what they charge us in return for leading us as a country (is that right?)

The numbers game was triggered by a news article yesterday (a small one on Page 12 of the Sunday Times of India). It read that the entre has declared Rs 6000cr sop for weavers in UP. Is that UP alone or for the entire handloom sector in India? It has the stamp of ‘authorship’ of Rahul Gandhi ahead of UP elections and has left little doubt that the package is his ‘personal gift’. Personal you say? Then I have no problem because I am not middle class and ordinary to not the know the difference between public money and personal. So it means that Rahul Baba overcome with sadness for the plight of weavers has pledged money out of his personal fortune for the betterment of the weavers. Still 6000k crore must be a pretty big sum……

It is not big as the sum quoted by the CAG caused due to the 2G scam and that stands at 1,76,645 crores. Or the commonwealth games scam that hurt us to the tune of 8000 crores.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, lakh, ten lakhs, crore, ten crores…..my counting abilities stop here and I cannot even for the fear of a hundred lashings imagine a thousand crore. Can you?
Liquor scam cost us 3600 crores where IT officials raided distilleries and discovered that excise duty evasion amounted to 3600 crores and It is believed that 5% of the total excise duty thus saved is paid to political patrons. India lost a stagerring 452 billion dollars due to illicit financial flows due to tax evasion, crime and corruption post-Independence, according to a report released by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity.

Now compare that to what our mai baap gave us- Two things come to my mind as of now because I live in Chennai and these figures are pretty recent and appeared in The Hindu-

Amount spent on Anna Centenary Library- 172 crores
Cost of improving Aanganwadis in Tamil Nadu state- 98 crores
You think my mind is like a headless chicken? Well I will dwell on one more fact before putting my head back on and then trying to walk on the straight line of logic and reason.

Try this-The financials of the Nehru- Gandhi family. Theirs it the bluest of the blue blood. Rahul Gandhi is in his 40s. He has never worked. Rajiv Gandhi worked as a pilot in the Indian Airlines but that was a long long time ago. His Mother, Indira Gandhi also never worked except the 14 years that she was the prime minister of India. His grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was in and out of prisons during India’s freedom struggle and then became PM from ’47 to ’64. His father Motilal Nehru was the only person who actually used his law degree to run a practise. So I am wondering how such a family like the Gandhi survives in these very hard times- costs of vegetables, petrol, housing, interest rates, gold, milk and bus fares have all gone north.

These questions have always plague me. And the same goes to all politicians like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Advani, Sharad Pawar (to name a few but most of our political leaders fit the bill in my line of questioning) who have come so far on very very meagre earning. And mind you they are all octogenarians (Sharad Pawar is approaching that zone soon). My grandmother-in-law too outlived her husband by a good thirty five to forty years but then she lived frugally as well and he was a doctor with a flourishing practise, not a political leader!
Folks, this is something to think about- Our Leaders give with a closed fist but take with shovel and a dump truck!

Have you ever chucked things you didn’t need?

I have and if not for experiencing the spiritual lightness it lends, then do it for the fun of just junking stuff that you absolutely do NOT need.
I clear my cupboards with an amazing regularity and not it has become addictive. So sadly you will not find wrapping paper, chart paper, sundry tissue papers, springs, footwear, clothes, kitchen items (like dishes, bowls, glasses, katoris, kadhais, vessels) electronic items (though I will admit that I can start a small enterprise on the footpath selling USB ports), plastic bottles and containers, empty pots that held dead and withering plants, extra plastic buckets blah blah and blah in my home. I clear things whether spring or not.

Its spring time in my house all the time. Once my zeal got the better of me and I ended up with having to shop for clothes. No regrets though. A healthy home is one that doesn’t have to lend its corners for stowing all sorts of garbage. Literally and figuratively….for that’s what this post is about.

Just as you junk what you don’t need, have you tried to trim the excess baggage that your mind carries inside it every day for the rest of your life? Sit back and evaluate- bitterness, sadness, reluctance to let go, grudges, memories that you regularly dredge up and let your mind well in unpleasantness all over again. You are a walking talking house with junk falling off the balcony. I came across this thought is a magazine by the Bihar School of Yoga. I couldn’t agree with more.

Just let go of thoughts that increase your heartbeats (that is my test for unwelcome thoughts. These days I feel my pulse do a head banger’s ball when an unpleasant memory swims to the surface) I play a quick twenty questions with that memory as if it were a personified object. Let’s say I replay an incident where I feel that the person in question has wronged me. I feel outraged at the unfairness. The wrong hasn’t yet been righted and never will be so I will forever feel ‘wronged’. Is it right to let the memory pummel me till I feel sick? The person has been bad to me only once but I take over from that person and like a sadist let the memory dictate me into feeling anger and helplessness each time I think about that incident. Enough! Is Enough!

Believe me trashing things you don’t need is fun. So is trashing things in spirit a lot more fun. Imagine you have lit up a bonfire (just like on Holi) and are tossing things into it, one by one. You will be surprised how light you feel, how easy you will breathe when you toss that excess baggage (of people, emotions, feelings) . You feel free. You think it is easy? Ha! Try it. It is like flying. Once you have learnt how to fly, can anyone stop you?