Who cares???

or, as an extension, what will come of it? Why should I, when no one else is bound to notice, or reciprocate? Big deal! It is too far gone out, anyway....

We are a fickle, caviling, inert lot of reprobates with egos that pander to the bloated self alone. We'd like to believe we are model citizens, with a sound social conscience, meaning that we think, talk and feel like model citizens. Action is beside the point, of course.

We bemoan the sight of an overflowing dump, and curse the offenders to the vilest depths and beyond, and suppose that a periodic increase in volume exonerates oneself of any culpability whatsoever. "What a world," we pontificate, and grimace. Corrective measures are doomed to fail, we muse, sigh and grumble. What's the use? When the neighbour shovels mud into the hole I am digging? When I perennially turn out the salesman with the slammed door to behold? What am I selling? A vision of Utopia, of course....

Colas have dangerous levels of spurious additives contained in them? You know when the problem has worsened in the years since it was first brought to light (despite mass outrage and obligatory declamations at the time), that there is precious little being done in the way of remedy. "Drinking water is bound to present a grimmer picture. Will someone analyse mother's milk and prove that it is just as polluted these dark days, so as not to compromise my lucrative contract?"(or some such thing..), reasons the Big Ham who made the macho weepie a well-represented genre, Shahrukh Khan. Fair enough. He must have some inkling of the fact, ringing box-office registers notwithstanding, of his inability to act his way out of a convention of door-posts, let alone a film; poor guy, what better balm for the soul than the green stuff?

In other words, we are headed for oblivion anyway, so why not expedite the inevitable? That implies no time for traffic rules, basic civic sense, acknowledgement of etiquette, rational conversation as a means of headway, and of course, none at all for attempting to reverse the ominous flow. Perhaps what we need most are unflinching punitive measures such as the ever-dependable fine(the heavier the better) - believe me, implementing this in the smallest of ways can yield results - or something more drastic, if it can survive the political stumbling blocks. After all, a rosy prospect is a poor deterrent. We all crave the perfect system, but that hasn't exactly cut us into shape.

What is worrying is that public memory grows shorter by the day. In fact, it is quite possible that most of us think we've always been this way: dirty, unruly, dispassionate, corrupt etc etc. We have learnt to live with lax rules and insanitary conditions, service delays and mercenary industrial practices, exploitation and lies.... and rarely remark it any more. We go abroad, admire the well-oiled wheels of the system as though it were something far removed from our experience, like something incompatible with our Indian consciousness. (Of course, the frustration that comes with it fuels caustic remarks galore about how impersonal and artificial it all is, home is where the heart is and so on...). The efficacy of collective efforts cannot be emphasised enough, beaten to death though it may be. But then our shallow and pointless cynicism abhors 'simplistic' predictions and solutions, even if they are, for better or worse, the only ones.

One step at a time.