Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Sunday, Dec 25, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Sunday, Dec 25, 2005 |
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Variety
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Economic Offences Government - Politics Columns - Say Cheek Are the stables clean now? D. Murali
THOUGH the winter session of the House has come to a close, after a hurried shoving of bad apples, more questions remain than were answered for cash. Such as: Are the stables clean now? Cleaning has started. In Greek mythology, Augean stables remained dirty for thirty years till Hercules diverted two rivers through them. Here, we had to wait for more than 55 years for beginning to disinfect politics. What next? Similar to Hamlet's dilemma, "To be, or not to be," the question before our representatives is "To go, or not to go," to the House, that is, when the next session starts. A greater dilemma will be, "To ask or not to ask," not the questions but commensurate cash. How many more? Since Duryodhana had 99 brothers, one theory is that there are 89 more, after subtracting 11 from 100 that Kauravas numbered. Another line of thinking is that you can't take out more than what is in there! Help! I'm not able to sleep! You must be one of those black sheep, happily hiding in the herd. Simple advice, for your own sake: Kindly return, in front of cameras, the money you'd taken in camera. I've stopped meeting people. Won't that help? Alas, it won't. Because you'd still be communicating one way or the other, and talking stuff, cash or kind. Also remember that there is a whole constituency of people that had enriched your coffers all these years. They can start talking any time. Can we excuse those who confess to corruption? Good idea to invite confessions, because we'd then have a lot of spicy things spilling all over. Instead of blanket excuse, how about stipulating hard labour, under food-for-work programme? The whole episode reminds me of pots calling kettles black! Nobody is naïve enough to think that the unnamed are all non-black. It is just that they weren't as stupid as the ones that fell into the trap in the first round. Not that I loved people less, but... But you loved cash more! "I am sure `tis safer to avoid what's grown than question how `tis born," writes the Bard in The Winter's Tale. Likewise, it is perhaps safer to avoid the chronically corrupt than research into what makes them so. Didn't Shakespeare advise, "Feed yourselves with questioning"? "Fie, what a question's that," as Portia exclaims in The Merchant of Venice. "Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue," I can add using a line from Hamlet, and top up with a quote of Lord Chief-Justice in King Henry IV: "He that was in question for the robbery?" As for the `feed' quote, the Bard continues, "That reason wonder may diminish, how thus we met, and these things finish," in As You Like It. How one wished things finished just like that: Not big rivers but tiny cameras to flush out the filth!
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