SHAKEN, NOT YET STIRRED

GANGTOK: Who do you blame when you are feeling fucked up? The government, of course! That was a lame attempt at making light of our shaky foundations, literally or otherwise. I’m disgusted with the poor joke that our government is. Compared to this bunch of morons – who are assisted by another set of useless bureaucratic imbeciles – at the helm, the feline population seems to have a much better upbringing. At least the cats make attempts at covering up after they crap; these jokers can’t even be bothered to do that.

The recent earthquake in Sikkim did shake up a lot of local people. Hell, it even roused our lazy butts out of bed early morning and made us go checking for cracks and damages to our precious properties, and carry out necessary repair / strengthening works. The quake, apparently, had a particular liking for government buildings. Otherwise why would it shake government establishments with a lot more vigour? Well, most of the damaged structures are government establishments, aren’t they? Unfortunately, the tremor estimated 5.7 on the Richter Scale did little to shake the government out of its lethargy. Some quick governmental / bureaucratic visits to the affected areas, preparation of damage estimate and fax petition for natural calamity funds to the Centre – that’s it.

So what more do you expect, you ask. Well, for starters, I expect newly made governmental buildings and other structures not to start cracking before they are actually inaugurated. What am I talking about? Our sparkling new Khangchendzonga Shopping Plaza. Oh wait, now it’s called Lall Bazaar Shopping Plaza. Or has it been renamed again?

No matter how many times the government changes the name of that new shopping centre in the name of preserving Sikkimese heritage, they cannot change the fact that this particular ‘heritage’ is kinda cracked up. I wonder if anyone remembers but a local English daily had reported some years ago that cracks were already developing around this structure while the construction work was still on. But they hushed it up real quick. Thanks to the recent earthquake, the cracks were exposed (even before the plaza could be inaugurated) and so were the official lies.

I mean you gotta give it to them for consistently screwing up. First, they ‘miscalculate’ and construct inadequate number of shops, and now this! Cracks, and wide gaping ones at that, and those MOFOs try to convince us “they are just superficial cracks”. Yeah right. Superficial development, superficial cracks. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Another to make it to the ‘Recently Made But Already Cracked’ list is our ‘ultra modern’ Paljor Stadium. Inaugurated late last year by none other than President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam himself, the stadium has an interesting construction history of its own. This one takes the cake hands down for its delays in completion of renovation / reconstruction, numerous re-estimates of the financial kind and their subsequent departmental sanctions.

Conduct departmental enquiries into these matters? Why bother?

Gangtok, the capital town of this state touted as ‘perfect tourism destination’. Gangtok, a town abounding in oxymoron. You don’t have to go too far; just take a walk to the ‘View Point’ at Nam Nang, just close to the Sikkim Legislative Assembly building, which incidentally is another government structure on the cracked list, and come face to face with what the state is serving the tourists in the name of ‘breathtaking views’. Broken footpaths that refuse to take the visitors to the ‘promised land’. Urban Development Department, if you are serious about the tag of development you carry around, the least you can do is repair the footpaths around, what you call, ‘places of tourist interest’, if you can’t construct sturdy ones in the first place!

It’s a real pity, my dear government, that there are no crack creams or anti-wrinkle serums to cover up the mess you have created in the name of development. But why worry when you are bold enough to let it all hang out… and that too quite unapologetically.

- NICO -
ENTER THE MADMAN
AIZ: Since I have nothing much new to say abt the govt, I am gonna tell you story abt bloopers by ministers while delivering their speech...

1. " I like your programme , AIDS without education"

2. "I Wanna Congragruch you ...sorry..I wanna congralutate you in our success.."

3. "We are underdeveloping this bridge...."

I will post more when I can recall them...all of those that I know...Hold on.