More holidays

THE CASE FOR MORE HOLIDAYS.

The Indian is not a hard worker. He will never work himself to the bone. The concept of the nose-to-the-grinding-wheel is terribly alien to him. He believes in fate, luck and even though everything boils down to karma, he conveniently overlooks the point of his own effort.

Cleverness is the hallmark; not intelligence. We prepare our kids well for this. The parents do everything for him so the idea that he can take control of his life never even vaguely passes him by. Then at school the teachers want to him to learn by rote and never ask a question which is simply seen as an argumentative disposition. The Govt then stepped in and gave him a protective Big brother embrace with a secure job and no responsibility. To this cauldron add the tendency to cheat on the side which makes us very amenable to reason when requested with a packet under the table.

The Authorities continue to believe in the inscrutability of the Indian’s honesty; especially when he becomes an employee of the President of India. In contrast the rest of the population remains a lot of incurable scoundrels, selling the country down the river.

Everyday, a show is put on by millions of Indians of going to their workplaces, and doing their little bit to take the country forward. Tonnes of fuel are used up in vehicles to transport these zealous workers to the workplace and back resulting in pollution, sickness from fatigue, accidents, medical bills, and at the office - inflated telephone bills, electricity bills and so on so forth. And what have we to show for all this? – A totally disgruntled “praja”, with curses from both sides of the table. The Praja, wanting the President’s employee to do his part whereas the employee revolts on this attempt to curtail his constitutional right of freedom from work’s tyranny.

We want a happy country; right? Why not have more holidays? All the excesses mentioned in the last para will take on a positive note. The exchequer will save millions, thousands of liters of fuels will be saved, pollution will be drastically reduced, there will be less sickness and the pressures on the medical services will more than half, there will be electricity in excess and water also. In one go, we will enter a period of plenty. The work will still be done as it is done with considerations under the table being negotiated in the cafes, restaurants and homes. The stress levels will plane out. There will be less strife and the courts will see fewer quarrels to deal with.

The economy will not suffer. The same amount of money will be floating and doing the rounds changing hands in the market place. I see an exponential growth in trading and therefore manufacturing and therefore in the gross national product and therefore in the per capita income and therefore in the collected taxes. I would even go to the limit and suggest that we work only on Mon, Tue, Thu and Fridays. Our present productivity levels are really not any higher anyway. With lesser interference from the administrative idiots, there will be less of impinging on the rights of the common man to lead his simple life. And, of course smiling faces will replace the care-worn ones of today.

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