कपोल-कल्पित

  विस्तार के इस पार , क्यूँ जागती है नींद खिलखिलाती, अपरूप, नग्न, सत्य सी अधजगी, न्याय सी मुर्छित, खोय हुए परवाह सी, विस्तार के इस पार, क्यों जागती है नींद ?   दिन के आने का इल्म तो है, पर बहती हुई स्याही, सुख जाती है क्यों भला? और जागती है क्यों कलम विस्तार के इस पार?   क्यों समय नहीं थमता , विस्तार के इस पार, क्यूँ भेदती है सुन्य, इस व्यापार को, और थम सा जाता है हर एक आकार, विस्तार के इस पार ?

  A wide pool of people at the receiving end of evil, often termed as necessary, may well be accommodated in the idea of development; only if ideas can accommodate people and development can accommodate evil.  Since development is abundance, a developmental economic idea reflects on the problem of scarcity, from the sense of abundance. It imagines generating abundance from the situation of scarcity. A little more should be discussed about such a development.  Maybe a Buddha could imagine abundance from scarcity. He may reflect on the problem of abundance from the sense of scarcity. But he is no development economist. If Buddha were an economist reflecting on the problem of gainfulness from the sense of development, he would argue that a wide range of pleasures at the receiving end of our admiration, may well be termed as noble pleasures, meaning a positive socio-personal reflection of our emotional desires. Human neglect to those admirations and subseq...

When the going gets tough The journey of Hashmi Dawakhana to Ministry of Ayush, of Ramkrishan Yadav to Baba Ramdev, and of Ajay Singh Bisht to Yogi Adityanath. There is a strange commonality in all three of them. Covid-19 tested the trio to their mettle. Ministry of Ayush successfully became relevant throughout with its various recipes of Kadhas and Churans. Baba Ramdev too distributed free Coronil kits after people refused to buy the over-priced quackery. Yogi Adityanath successfully averted any tragedy by arresting journalists in daylight and solving mortality data issues at night. For a government department, a business tycoon, and a chief minister, this must not have been an easy feat, but when the going gets tough, the tough can always cry on television. Cancel culture The explosion of the Internet and social media has strengthened public memory. People control the narrative today through a strange culture of digging informational graves and calling people out. So it i...

One fine morning, as the leader entered his chamber and positioned his leadership on the chair, the rear left arm of the chair fractured and the leader found him-self on the floor. Unable to get up, he called the chief secretary, who then helped him back on his feet. The leader, laden with anger, gave the chief secretary a severe tongue-lashing and ordered him to file a report on this accident and keep the file confidential.                Social welfare minister was to visit the leader in the morning but the leader, superstitious as he was postponed the meeting and called in the trade minister instead, the social welfare can always wait, he confided to the chief secretary. The Trade minister was worried about inflation that was caused by the rising imports of essential commodities. The leader told him that there are other organs in the government to bother about inflation and that he should concern himself with t...

I had a dream last night. That all the money I had turned into valueless papers and nobody, not even police officers were accepting it. It is not my passion to delve into the interpretation of dreams but this particular dream got me thinking if dreams really mean something. One of my friend's literal interpretation was that something dear to me will turn meaningless. But this is a rather cynical reading of things. Adding more metaphors and tweaking the obvious cynicism can create more mystery and surpass the shallow traps of everyday thinking. Then there was the pragmatic reading of another friend who pointed out that something like demonetization did happen and it’s the post-traumatic stress that’s causing the dreams. His reasoning is that dreams are a more subtle representation of how events around us impact us subconsciously. Maybe it’s the blessed feeling of nostalgia for demonetized currency which has turned into the cursed feeling of abandonment that releases stress hormone...

  If the letter (word) is a kite, the spirit is the thread, no matter how much flight a kite assumes, its fall is destined by a soft cut on the thread. The current Pandemic defines such a soft cut to the spirit of the law. It appears all letters were always dependent on their spirits. Recently, Delhi high court directed the centre to ‘beg, borrow or steal’ oxygen supply to save the lives of citizens. Surely, the spirit supersedes the letter in a pandemic situation. The letter of cooperative federalism is conciliation and not compromise. The spirit of the same is co-operation and not competition. The letter as pointed out by the central government counters the Delhi govt. scheme of home delivery of rations. A section of a certain Act requires prior approval for any change in the method of distribution. There has to be a compromise between the competing forces of distribution, i.e, a traditional mechanism of public rationing against door-step delivery of the same. The 'Delhi Sark...

Who says a leader can’t follow the crowd? Extraordinary circumstances demand survival and the restoration of the ordinary, i.e., to the detersion of abstract and circumstantial decay in governance towards a concrete leadership. The very opposite and undesirable model of governance is at the forefront of a calamity, yet to this abysmal and discouraging supply of leadership and action, many find that the leader himself is the victim of obsolete and undemanding system. The problem of post-colonial India is as usual, of the demand side.     Social mandate of the state Post-colonial India does however has too many demands, and Indian constitution summed it up as the social mandate of the Indian state. Equity, equality and other debilitating wraps to the corporate mandate. Political market triumphs, with few regional irregularities like Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Vaccine market quite aptly adjusts the social mandate of the Indian state. Diplomatic channels and protocols It is ...

    Journalist: Why are most legislators corrupt? Legislator: Tell me, would you ever do a sting on any journalist? Journalist: No, I won’t. Legislator: That’s the point, if you’re friends with the blind, you’ll have to lead them home. Journalist: We are different…we operate on morals and ethics, unlike politicians...  Legislator: Different? There’s rivalry, there’s hierarchy in journalism, tell me, if you water a flower pot for years in your own balcony, and one fine day it falls on your head, how will you feel? That is to say, if you are alive enough to feel.  Journalist: For your information sir, we just feel enough to be alive...and as for the pot, I will definitely feel betrayed…  Legislator: Exactly the same way I will feel, and imagine that pot to be your finest ethics and moral, how will you feel then…? Journalist: I will repair the pot... Legislator: and your head? Journalist: That too Legislator: First the head or the pot? See because if you were to re...