Cast your vote, don’t vote your caste

Image by ecstaticist via Flickr

Even as deliberations continue ad infinitum on any number of issues, clauses and fractions, the one disturbing factor has been the blatant and blunt disregard of the roles each segment is supposed to play.

This is certainly not encouraging for the Bhutanese as a whole, for whatever is discussed in the two august houses of government affects each and every one of us.

The dereliction of the government as a ruling party that seeks to fulfill its own minimalist and maximalist ends through any means necessary, by the opposition and the upper house, does not bode well for a government that has the mandate of the people.

Conversely, the government’s granted supposition and presumption that whatever it does is for the ultimate good of planting the roots of a democracy on terra firma and the disregard thereabouts of the upper house, a house of honorary appointees from His Majesty the Druk Gyalpo and representatives that fought elections much as the ruling party did, to bring about what they see as their solemn role and duty as custodians of the apolitical sort. To belittle their status by calling them a ‘defacto opposition’ is sending out the wrong message.

The majority that voted, for both houses, did so on the grounds that in the end, common consensual agendas beneficial to the majority would prevail over vested little interests and fighting turf wars protecting one’s own.

A complete agreement or consensus on a varying degree of issues and subjects is nigh impossible but to let those differences become the very reason and not the process itself is mistaking the trees for the forests or the forests for the tress – whatever way you look at it, it does not bode well. Because if the two houses cannot work as a family, really, when the opposition seats swells one day, then one imagine the eternal lover’s triangle - with tragedy often the main theme of the film and the narrative. If we can picture that right now, then we should know better and try working out our differences instead of pointing fingers and casting labels and be party to a sad tragedy that was always avoidable.

It’s like that line from an obscure movie with a fine one liner: cast your vote, don’t vote your caste.

Ps: YourLustForLifeStartsRightNow!

Two guys walked into a bar…

The past couple of weeks have been real bar-stool-fodder: verdicts and appeals, smoking suits and rules, consensual sexes, MTRs and clauses, and now the big bling bling – state funding for political parties

This observation of the past weeks’ many twists and turns could not be resisted without that Shakespearean line hitting the head. “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York…” as a hunched back Richard the III gets all mushy and poetic on the battlefield.

And with the legal lingo dominating most of the news reports, there was an urge to scrounge for John Grisham thrillers from the dusty shelves. Locus Standi – sounded like a still-stationed caterpillar at first until it was revealed that it was a human being standing up for his right to fight in front of a judge with imminent threat to his being. I’m tempted to use that as my new Gmail ID – (locusstandi@gmail.com) - has a catchy ring to it or the inviting motion, (suomotto@hotmail.com), though it’s beyond my ultra vires.

Anyhow, the case of the Objection versus the Implementation is headed to the Super Court for a final climactic decision. There have green grounds for going super duper, one of which has been the suspicion that perhaps the Higher Court was high.

This brings to haste the finer linings of the case. Among the many questions haunting the common ignorant fella and his eager chella are these questions (clockwork soundtrack a la Kaun Banega Crorepati drumming the background):

1.     

What were those taxes about?

2.     Who was going to be taxed?

3.     Did it include people with no money?

4.     Was it targeted at the rich?

5.     And if they wanted to make us responsible taxpaying citizens, why didn’t they warn us?

6.     If the Objection and the House on the First Floor thought it bulldozed the Constitution, why didn’t the Implementation make their cases to their opposing faces and then sung, “I’m the Taxman?” Followed by a rendition of “We all live in a yellow submarine?”

7.    

Now that everyone says it was about the procedure and not about the money, why don’t they start all over? That’s been the bugger so far. The rest of the sessions, with MTRs (sounded at first like a South Indian political bigwig was in town) presented and among the watershed moments, the unanimous passing of the Tobacco Bill that is the conversation of the day with smoke rings blown for added emphasis. A disgusted smoker said in a bar who the heck is gonna carry a receipt in case a tobacco vigilant appears like a ninja and asks for proper documentation and registration? Solid point. No arguments. “And what about enforcement? Who’s to keep watch on the capital’s some 100,000 inhabitants and the rest of the country?” as he stubbed out the illegal stick, he ordered a shot of whisky, double on the rocks and continued. “What about the booze? Is that like the acceptable norm? And made the moral point of how in this day and age, telling people what to do with their insatiable personal indulgences, habits, likes and dislikes was a reminder of our medieval sacks.

The exasperation and the aggravation was more than he could afford to bear. He was visibly humiliated. Duly gulping down the shot, he bottomed up and bid adieu. The conversation was just beginning to warm up, even as the mercury went for a freefall.

The next topic of ventilation was the consensual age of sex. Sounded rather like a bohemian society at first – sex, co-sensuality, age lowered to sixteen (and here comes Dr Hook with (“She was sixteen”), the legal dribble of figuring out whether a man will be in bed the next morning or handcuffed and taken to a retreat to the state meditational penitentiary.

Everyone around the bar wore a look of utter confusion. This is what legal talk does to ordinary folks – renders them absolutely habeas corpus. It’s something like what Einstein did to all of us with his Theory of Relativity. Imagine the abomination had it been instead, Einstein’s Practicality of Reality? What was he? A practical joker who twittered to Armstrong as he was getting off the Hollywood sets in the middle of the desert to utter those immortal lines “A small step for mankind…a giant leap for me?”

Somewhere, Einstein the prankster is laughing his butt off. Remember, he was Jewish. They sure are funny. As is Woody Allen Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen aka Borat, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Jon Stewart et al. Woe be the day they decide to get serious. When State Funding for Political Parties propped up, everyone had left the house.

You cannot beat the weather, no matter how discontent you are.

Ps: YourLustForLifeStartsRightNow!