Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Kabootarbaazi

I think every real kabootarbaaz worth his while should take offence to this new use of term which describes age old hobby. Once a royal and nawabi hobby of north indians, i remember it from the childhood memories of small town like Moradabad in UP. Coming to think of it, there is that classic hollywood movie of Marlon Brando "On the waterfront" where our hero spends his most humane moments with the pigeons on the terrace.
Poor kabootars have always been used for those celeberations touting peace and all that blah blah. Still the lasting impressions for hindi cinema buffs is the scene from Parinda, where Anupam Kher is shot and dies in the arms of Anil Kapoor. Kabootars sort of function as the harbinger of violence.

The headlines these days arent about noble breed of kabootars and kabootarbaaz but about the greedy ilk of new age politicians who have turned politics into an enterprise and every perk into revenue generating business. one would expect normally a summary censure from all political parties and resignations or lifelong ban on such people but lo and behold, there are party leaders who are saying that these people are being maligned as a conspiracy!! Hmm reminders of the Money against Questions in question hour episode. Even that incident seems to have faded from public memory and i dont recall if any of those MPs had been banned for life for their crimes.

When will this rot stop?? when will the people in public life gather enough courage to own up their mistakes and walk the plank. I guess real problem lies in the fact that there isn't any one left in politics who is clean enough to be able to point fingers at these tainted ones.

Time has come to overhaul the entire system!!!