Stop Entitlements and You Make Enemies

“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.” ― Jon Krakauer


Giving a very simple example of a college where there is no discipline and no attendance norms. It is a very liberal environment- live and let live. Parents pay a hefty fee, the teachers deliver lectures to almost an empty class and students are having a ball. Who is the loser- the parents? The guys who gain are students and the cafeteria manager who keeps raking his money as sales are good. Doesn’t make much difference to the teacher as he has to deliver a lecture- doesn’t matter if the class is full or only the front benches are occupied. In fact, the lesser the number of students the fewer problems for the teacher. Everyone is happy.

Let us say a new principal is appointed and he says ‘You have taken admission so I expect 90% attendance’. All hell is let loose.

Students – the knowledge seekers- are the first to protest as they are so very knowledgeable already. ‘How can the college dictate terms to us; we are adults’?

Start Dharnas, boycott, Gherao the principal’s office, stop his car, shouting slogans of ‘murdabad’ and ‘Aazadi khatremein’, ‘Murder of democracy’, ‘this has become a police state’, ‘Vendetta’, even vandalize - mass bunking and same pony-tailed professors join too- I don’t understand why.

Parents some in different cities have no clue of what is happening.

They say ‘Hamare bachche takleef main hain’ .You heard it right- 25 years ka adult bachcha! Pradhan mantra Kuch karte kyu nahin hain. As if PM’s job is to change diapers of your poor 25 year old bachcha. Then liberal media also jumps in and takes bites of students in ‘dire takleef’. This goes viral and you watch the same scenes replayed again and again at least fifty times on TV for next several days and who comes out as a villain? The principal. Now enquiry is held to sack him- a special committee is formed and sometimes a question in the parliament also could be raised. This is the power of entitlement!

And when you ask, ‘Attendance is not important and why are you making so much of noise?’ you are told ‘Sir kuttey ki poonch paar paer rakhoge to w0h kya bhaunkega bhee nahi?

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.” ― Abraham Lincoln

Cut to bigger things that the government has to do. And it did.

The Modi government is being hated by some and they have a good reason for this (according to them). Most were the ‘entitlement champions’ whose entitlement has been reversed. It is the result of a ‘disruptive leadership’.

Most of them have been having a ball for decades on. Top of the line were the privileged few. Yes few as they were only in thousands or hundreds in a 1.4 billion people of India. Many of them were hanging around for years on in this elite high end area with three to four bed room houses – big rooms han. An address like Pandara road or Moti Bagh gives you a high as much as to celebrities living in Beverly Hills or Hollywood Hills in America. And of course the huge Bungalows of Lutyen’s (loot yen) Delhi are incomparable to any other luxury living. ‘Central Delhi ki baat he kuch aur hay’. Here also high and mighty ministers, MP’s et al lived as if they owned these. You see they got ‘used to’ it so you cannot blame them for it. Even if a twenty year old tree is uprooted- it dies as it may refuse relocation- these are poor humans. They were the ‘Jugadoo Jantoos’ who ‘managed’ to get an allotment. ‘Bhai Pandara road accommodation mill gayi to lottery lag gayi’. I have lived in some of these and the whiff in the air itself is great- though in winters it is full of smoke but it is a privileged smoking, none the less.

The number of houses vacated increased three times under the Modi government. Urban development ministry data, revealed that 246 houses were vacated in 2013 under Congress-led UPA government. This number more than doubled in 2014 and then jumped to 746 in 2015 under the Modi government. However, 1,207 houses were still to be vacated by unauthorized occupants! Work in Progress and of course progressed.

‘Ghor anyaya hai yeh’. Artists, painters, musicians, people who are pride of India and proud of themselves and of course some dead and gone law makers, their next generations too have been wronged.

Obviously they will hate the ‘trouble creator’, dictatorial government.

For the last 75 years our basic needs were ‘Roti, Kapada, aur makaan’.
Instead of giving the government has taken back our basic requirements!

‘Makkan to gaya aab roti bhee chcheen lee’

4.28 Crore Bogus Ration Cards were cancelled during 2014-2021. This government is a ghost- in fact ‘Ghost busters’. They have busted 4000,0000 plus invisible people- It was a game of ‘Mr India- Mugambo khush hua’.


“Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When we think that we are automatically entitled to something that is when we start walking all over others to get it.” ― Criss Jami

Middlemen have been stopped from getting richer

‘It is well-known what a middleman is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other.’ - Benjamin Disraeli

‘Prostitution is the oldest profession’ said Rudyard Kipling in one of his writings. But who worked for prostitutes, who did their marketing? They were the ‘pimps’ or in Hindi called ‘Dalals’ aka middlemen. So Middlemen also are as old as their product the marketed- prostitution! Pimp Naam wahan se pada.

Prostitutes in the online hi tech times can go to customer directly- call girls was first step towards e prostitution? This is the best way to eliminate middlemen who live of the land. They do no value addition to anything. They are facilitators (another name).

But man is a quick learner and can replicate business models very quickly.

There is a profession across the world, a respected one, of creating a profession out of nothing. These are middlemen who are generally operating in a clandestine or incognito mode. They work for a fee- a service charges- very fancy management jargons for the same rudimentary ‘dalals’ or ‘dallaas’ not Dallas Texas in America.

They got into the demand and supply equation and said, “You can’t get through without me.” They became a partially opaque glass wall. The suppliers too support them as they handle the dirty side of the game. Bargaining, pulling and pushing and haggling, cajoling, threatening.

Whether you were the poor farmer or any other beneficiary of a government scheme, or you were a talented sportsman hoping to get into a national team, it all went through a middleman. Nobody understood why they were important, but they made themselves indispensable. So much so that they were responsible for 85% loot in India.When Rajiv Gandhi the late former PM said that we send one rupee (hundred paise) but only 15 paise reach the beneficiary these were the holes in the pipe. So the government and the people were the suckers sucked by the suckers called ‘dalals’. They were a stumbling block for genuine needy people. These were legitimate transactions.
It was a loot and a largesse for the middlemen. For them it was a profession. Unki ‘Rozi roti’ chcheen lee tumne.

Even all hush hush stuff needs middlemen. Defense deals, getting your bill passed or getting a government contract (out of turn) or circumventing or bending the rules, getting inside information were done by the gentlemen even ladies. Even minister portfolios were allegedly- yes allegedly- dished out according to go-betweens. It was as good as selling ‘hooch’.

Going online the middlemen were as good as decommissioned. They were out of business equation- out of service. I as a techno manager always say that understanding how to deploy technology is more important than technology itself. Modi government did a brilliant job of using automation to make things transparent with hundred percent on the dot delivery. They used IT as rocket science and the middlemen kept on looking at the flying rocket as the money was literally snatched out of their hands.

‘Aab Rona to banta hai na’? Obviously for those it was the only way to earn a lively hood, support their family, drive a fancy – yes fancy- car, club membership, four bedroom home was all coming from this shady profession, bahut paisa thaa bhai. They obviously cannot be singing praise for the government.

Gods of small things

Then there are brokers for daily errands kind of work. Real helpers- sahayaks- saathi.They are god sent for some. They settle your long term outstanding bills, wrongly charged bills by electricity departments. They are actually ‘stress busters’ for a common man. You do not have the time to spend an entire day to stand in the queue to meet the clerk concerned. These guys have GJF ‘golden jugaad fingers’ and find a way to the desk of the officer who actually signs the waiver. Circumventing and short circuiting is their forte. And they charge you for their service. To some extent they are doing some work and assisting to do a legit thing.

They also stretch out a little for getting a driving license, getting an electricity connection on priority.

Technology has not made them totally redundant but partly reduced their income as most things including driving licenses can be organized on line today.

Intellectual brigade got annoyed

The other breed which is highly annoyed are the ones of ‘setting brigade’. They managed to get plum positions after retiring from government service, retired Vice Chancellors, bureaucrats, journalists, bankers, doctors and professors and even generals of the army who on quasi merit cum bhaibandi got a Redeployment not re employment. Thoda merit, thoda luck, thoda jugaad, thoda bum sucking, thoda ji huzoor, thoda contacts (bahut mushkil se milta hai yaar). It not Tora Tora Tora of Pearl Harbor but Thoda thoda thoda of government dock yard.

Don’t be surprised- South and North block with adjoining buildings has so many cozy nooks and corners which have adequate space to park the entire ‘consultant corps’. Dill bada ho to jagah baan he jatee haI!
“A Consultant takes your watch and tell you the time.”

Here he takes your watch, your office, your car, your flat, your hefty salary and may still tell you a wrong time! If caught he will not blame you but blame your watch. Cool. Tum bhee khush who bhee khush.

If I can get a secretaries post, and salary and perks, including accommodation in central Delhi all things paid for, with little accountability and become a self-acclaimed expert I am a consultant bro! They are all classified consultants and group themselves in a hallowed umbrella of ‘intellectuals’. They are the ones who make opinions and share with each other to shower and collect bucketful of praises from each other in a bar.

They have a very high level of ‘noise and trouble Quotient’ NTQ If you kick them out- which happened to many with new government. They became suddenly unemployed and an empty mind (on top of it an intelligent one) is a devils workshop. With the workshop they had the tools and also a circuit board of old friend’s network.

So kya karo? Shor machao. Same tune from campus to class room to cultural centers to cocktail circuits  ‘Intolerance, aazadi khatre main, constitution is torn apart, failed democracy, police state, muzzling the freedom to speak’, ‘unemployment’- actually they got unemployed. And every day the same gang sits either on the right, sometimes left of Arnab Goswami and shouts their lungs out to abuse the government and PM Modi. But they are not allowed to speak!!

In fact they have made Modi larger than life by speaking only about him making him All in all- he is the entire government for India and this brigade is entirely and squarely responsible for making him so formidable.

Reservation Gods

In whichever country affirmative action was taken it had banged itself hard into the wall of reservations. These were all made to provide a level playing field, but have become a rigid concrete like thing for ever and the concrete block is increasing in volume and weight incrementally. Courts, politicians and NGOs come together in some form or the other and keep stoking the fire and the whole society suffers. Level field was achieved long-long ago but now the slope has reversed.

But today no one can upset this apple cart or dare make a change. Precedence had been set. In India at the good hands of Shri VP Singh through the instrument of Mandal commission. VP Singh is dead but we keep singing long live VP Singh.Till the cows come home or not- who cares.

“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.” ― Jane Wagner