"Aadhaar" Card

Dear All

If you live within chennai city limits and if you are yet to get your Aadhaar card, this post is exclusively for you.....!!

I am not sure if you were smart enough to get the card thru' the authorized private agencies couple of years back (even I got it you know......!!). Due to some unknown wanton reason, Government of India has decided to issue the card thru the state machinery itself and has declared the earlier cards as invalid.

Having got the cards earlier -  at our home - we were quite proud all these days and learnt this latest update quite recently and got bit frustrated....Life has to go on, right....? 

Mustering some more patience and energy I ventured into this expedition of getting the new card and today I got a major break thru'. 

YES, I have a "token" issued by Government now which enables me and my family to get the Aadhar card tomorrow without any further delay. Believe me, I reached my ward corporation office at 4.30 AM sharp and my token number is 50 which means that there were 49 early risers at least for today in my ward :-)

Since the capacity of this office is to handle 30 tokens per day, while the token got issued, I got a clear instruction to reach only tomorrow for the card issue process - along with the family. Guru peyarchi seems to work in strange ways too, huh ???

Well - inspite of all oddities and frustrations, I have always been too empathatic to our Government machinery and the people who work there...(yes.....no arguments please....after all, this is MY blog). 

The problems of over population (and with our the percentage of literacy of our fellow Indians) are really complex and it is quite an easier act to criticize the human beings who work for government. 

They have their own venting needs too !!

Now, coming back to my today's story, as my turn came to get the token, some thing interesting happened. 

A man who walked from the tail end of the queue reached out closer to the staff issuing token and was shouting at him. He in fact started raising some irrelevant questions which cannot be handled by the puny poor guy at the office who has reached office at 6 AM for this token issue process. 

(I am not sure if this poor chap is in the rolls of the Corporation; could be a sort of additional helping hand who gets daily wages).

At a point of time, this gentle man (who travelled from behind, I mean)  started ringing some body thru'  his mobile and started assuring all of us in a dignified voice that he is organizing Mayor to reach shortly and appealed to all of us to be patient. 

The token issue boy was meekly (rather sleepily) trying to explain on his point about the process of token issue but our hero was not the one to budge !!!!

Since it was my turn after all, I had to politely intervene and patiently explained our hero the process that they are following as I had a full idea when I visited the corporation office last week to get details. 

Now, this man got wild at me and started imagining that I am anti people (rather pro government ?). 

He roared at me telling that he is only fighting for me and my fellow comrades......!! 

I had to clarify that there is really no need for it as they have evolved some process and it is important that we cooperate with their way of working if we need to get things done. 

Then he fired at me telling that he is fighting for the people who are last in the queue and curtly asked me to leave after getting my token.

In fact that was exactly my point too....!! 

I smiled at him looking into his eyes and told him that he needs to help me to get my token having reached at 4.30 AM ahead of the hundred people behind me - if he respects democracy. 

(To be candid, I was in a good frame of mind today and was trying not to get harsh with this gentleman who had lost his control already).

Taken aback by my response, his eyes turned really red. 

To his specific question, I clearly told him that I do not have any intention to have a look at the Mayor and pleaded with him to allow the queue to get operational without wasting every body's time. 

(With his decibel level, he was actually drawing lot of people from the queue and the situation was getting out of control).

As I got my token and I walked towards my two wheeler, the only thing I was able to do was to pacify the people in queue to be patient and wait for their turn. 

I have lot of regards and affection to the Father of our Nation but still, I am fully with Netaji's view that our democracy needs to get delayed a little bit till the time people get ready for it. 

Some times, the philosopher within me wakes up in such situations where I feel such pseudo leadership confuses and collapses the already feeble system.....!!!

I am really unsure if before the end of my life, we will start seeing a real "developed" India....but extremely determined not to offer my share of confusion to the maze of things around me. 

Thamasomaa jyothirgamaya....as our scripture says...... 

Let us keep moving from darkness to light always.......and in our every wakeful moment.

Love // Suren