ONE early morning activity that is seen in all the towns and cities in our country is that of cars being washed. Millions of gallons of water I am sure, is used by thousands of watchmen and pump men and man servants and maid servants to get their sahibs or memsaabs gaddi spic and span! But is that car of yours really washed? With all that manpower and maid power, and with all that precious water being pou43e, do our cars sparkle?
Go out and have a look my dear friend and you’re going to be in for a rude shock. Like the remnants of yesterday’s meal on someone’s mouth, you will see a history of yesterdays journey. There right across your bonnet is the brown slush that the bus splashed across from yonder pothole. Near the fender is a black sticky stuff that you know came from the nullah your brave car waded through last week. And those hub caps..!
Car wash or eye wash? We look out of window and see our car being washed and we assume that the car is washed. And that my dear reader is happening in all walks of life in our country. Thousands of municipal workers report for work everyday and sign the muster roll and we take it for granted that we have a clean city. Do we? Look around you at the garbage piled up at the filth and dirt and ask yourself who is fooling whom.
We elect representatives to our municipal councils, our state assembly’s and into Parliament, but whom do they represent, themselves or us? We employ policemen, but hooligans run rampant, violently attacking all and sundry and now even tarnishing the faces of those who sit in educational institutions!
Car wash or eye wash? We have all heard the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. How the emperor was deceived into believing that his royal tailors were indeed making him a fancy suit when in actual fact they were doing nothing. They fooled him into believing that the fabric was so fine that it could not be seen.
The emperor, fool that he was, was finally draped by the tailors in the actually non- existent clothes and thinking that he was wearing a suit of the finest kind walked down the road. The people, his subjects watched as their foolish emperor walked naked. No one had the courage to tell the emperor that he had been fooled. Finally it was a little boy in the crowd who suddenly shouted ‘The Emperor is naked, the emperor is naked.”
Likewise are we. We strut around thinking that our country is draped in silken finer, when actually communalism and goondaism is actually what is wrapped around us. Filth, muck, grime, sludge and foul matter are steadily getting ingrained into the delicate fabric of our country, as the car washers, our politicians, our police and our other leaders, fool us into believing that they are doing something. Today for a start, let’s start pulling up our car washers..!
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
