Bareilly Blues

My stay in Bareilly has been short this time, unlike earlier years, this time I stayed here just for 10 days or so and that too at a time when the cold wave kept me almost inhouse.  Every time we visit Bareilly we witness change, change in its physical as well as behavioural context.  

I posted on my wall: It looked quite different than before... more rush, no traffic rules, shabby roads, arrogant attitude, corruption everywhere, Cold Weather-Hot Behaviour, Personalised Hoardings of Opportunist Politicians.  I was just thinking UP has gone worst than Bihar.  The replies of friends from all over the places made me believe that it is really a fact and though these are things which concern us, we still keep our roots and respect them.  

Yesterday when I got back to home I was just thinking on the amount which must have been spent on putting the hoardings of the Birthday celebration of Mayawati, the chief Minister of UP.  On almost every available space there were posters, banners, huge size hoardings on the grand celebration of her birthday on 15th of this month.  It comes every year, it goes every year and in a country where more than one third still does not get enough to eat, in a state where around half of the population does not get a square meal, people, we can afford to spend so much of money on just putting these banners etc forget about the amount of gifts, donations, gratifications etc that floods around the state.  Bareilly is just a small city of this state of around 85 districts and I have strong reasons to believe that this must be the case in almost every city of this state.  Bareilly which does not have BSP MP, yes MLAs are there, can boast of such an stupid act of flattery seeking favors.  

Where are we heading?

(Jan 13, 2011, Lucknow)