Winner – 3rd Position
All India Literature Competition 2019-20
by The Creative Post
— by Vignesh Siva
–Reading Time – 15 min Approx
At the collector office’s round table,
- Collector – Sadashiv IAS – Batch Topper, UPSC Rank Holder from Patna, a.k.a IAS.
- City Mayor – Rakesh Prajapati – politician from ruling party managing the municipal corporation. Abusive father, careless mother, robbery, dacoity, rape cases, prison, joins party, political murders, high position within the party, and mayor for the past seven years. Financially worth 2 crores in white, 200 crores in black money, a.k.a mayor.
- MLA – Mukesh Agarwal – Ruling party MLA serving his third term. Grandfather was a freedom fighter, his father served as an MLA for twenty years. No brains; another guileful politician who deceives his constituency with sugar-coated promises, a.k.a MLA.
- MLA’s son – Rajiv Agarwal (pursuing his doctorate in political science from Princeton university) – Visiting India for his research on how the biggest democracy is being driven by the politicians and so far he hasn’t found any valuable insights for his thesis, a.k.a Putra D’ MLA.
- Central Minister – Abbas Siddique, Minister of Water Resources and Development from New Delhi. He was provided with the post just to prove that their party espouses the minority a.k.a Jal minister.
- Minister of water development and fisheries of the state council – Sanjeev Sharma – Gangster, Rowdy, polygamist, once he was caught red-handed watching porn during an assembly session, but triumphs in his constituency by bribing his voters during elections a.k.a PM (Paani Minister)
- Director of Corporation municipality development and maintenance, CMDM – Mr. Dhananjay Kataria – Well-read, strategic planner, greedy for money, a high profile government job officer with no morals, a.k.a
- Honorable Chief justice of Neerpuri High Court – Mrs. Sulagana Bhaduri – Advocate for 15 years, High Court judge for 10 years, Supreme Court judge for 5 years and currently the Chief Justice. Judgments are proffered in favor of anyone who can suborn her, a.k.a Judge.
Four other MLAs also are present at the table, three from the ruling party and one from the opposition, a.k.a MLA 1, MLA 2, MLA 3 and MLA 4.
MLA – Call for an urgent meeting and now no one wants to talk. Just perfect!
IAS – Sir, all of us knew the reason for what we’ve been summoned to discuss. It’s about the news report which was published not only across India, but all across the world.
Putra D’ MLA – Not only newspapers, it’s viral in social media as well.
MLA – Making mountain out of a molehill. Neerpuri becomes the second city in the world to run out of water, just after Cape Town. So what?
Mayor – Curse the United Nations, India! Don’t they have better job rather than digging dirt to find out how much water we have?
Munni – Yeah, they’ve submitted a report claiming we’ll go completely dry in another ninety days.
(Reveals the committee a bunch of papers)
Jal Minister – The name of the City is ‘Neerpuri’ which literally translates to ‘City of water’ and we are in acute shortage of water? *Hiccups
PM – I still can’t believe a drunk central minister attending this high level meeting!
Jal Minister – Well, there is one of the forms of “water” which is not shortage in Neerpuri. And are you planning to watch porn right now? *Hiccups
Judge – Oh come on. Will you guys give it a break and discuss the real issue?
Putra D’ MLA – If only our men here can have such good focus on problems plaguing the country, we’d be blessed right now. I’ve listed down the causes for such an extreme water crisis. Our city wasn’t planned and developed right from the British era. At least the projects which were sanctioned in 80’s and 90’s should have provisions for a better infrastructure. But it wasn’t done by the Municipal Corporation. Well Mr. Kataria do you have any explanation?
Munni – Yeah, my predecessors were all corrupt. They were only interested in gaining inducements and approved projects left, right and center without any knowledge whatsoever.
Putra D’ MLA – After cricket, we learnt blame game from the British. In your tenure too I don’t see any valuable projects being executed. There is no scope of greenery within the city limits. It’s all buildings, cement, concrete walls, and bricks – space between two buildings has diminished to the size of a pinky finger.
Munni – Well Sir, most of the approvals come to my notice only through MLA’s and Mayor sitting in this very room. Commission is the bread and butter of our constitution.
(All MLAs and the Mayor exchange sly grins at each other)
MLA – Obviously, we spend crores of rupees in elections and party posts so that we could earn back our money by approving such real-estate projects. These companies tip us well.
Putra D’ MLA – Well the city is suffering now. Neerpuri quenches its thirst by either underground water or through lakes across the city. During monsoon, the lakes get replenished and serves water for the whole year. Till 1992, this was the case. We can now put up ‘Lakes are missing’ posters everywhere across the city.
PM – All the lakes and ponds have been covered up and we now have more than five hundred residential towers in those areas, which also includes the new IT corridor which our chief minister inaugurated a couple of years ago.
Putra D’ MLA – Although there was a good downpour last year, half of Neerpuri was submerged and flooded leaving thousands of people stranded on the streets.
Jal Minister – Yeah, shouldn’t have allowed those promoters build such huge towers before they promised to build a gigantic umbrella on the terraces which could have saved our people from the rains. *Hiccups
Putra D’ MLA – God. Kill me now!
MLA 3 – What about rain water harvesting, the RWH? We implemented that for every household right?
MLA 4 – Yes, at the expense of state government.
PM – How that failed?
MLA 2 – It was given to a contractor. We all ate our share of commissions’ right? Finally the poor guy got 25% of the allotted budget to implement RWH and he fled away with the money. But we closed the case a decade back saying that Neerpuri is a RWH complaint city, but actually we aren’t.
Judge – So, there are no lakes or ponds, no RWH, no green-friendly projects, flood and famine alternates every year, but I get cases for illegal opening of liquor factories, car manufacturing plants, and textile factories. Looks like I’m actually getting paid less for judgement in your favors.
Putra D’ MLA – Corruption like cancer is killing us all. We’re right now in ventilator and this is our last chance to save the people of this city. Already drinking waters are being sold at 200 rupees per liter. We need strict measures.
MLA 1 – What do you advice?
Putra D’ MLA – Reduce the demand for water. We need to create an awareness campaign for people and business corporations on water-saving initiatives. Instruct them only to use buckets for bathing and not showers. Half a bucket per person per day, leaky water taps should be fixed immediately and anyone not complying to be put behind the bars. Advice people not to flush the toilets unless it is really necessary. Every household will have meters which will allow consumption of only 40 liters per day. Restricted supply will be managed by the corporation. Swimming pools, washing vehicles, gardening and fountains should be banned.
Mayor – That’s a crazy horror picture you drew my friend. I can’t imagine a life not using shower in a soapy bathtub with my mistress.
(All of them sigh in disbelief)
Putra D’ MLA – For long term measures, we need to revive our lakes and ponds. Implement RWH system in all our buildings and encourage people to plant more trees. We need to shutdown factories that consume so much water, why do we care about liquor, beverages, cars and expensive merchandise when we can’t even rinse our butt after a poop?
PM – Looks like hard work. I’ve a much simpler solution. Call this UN report a bluff. I’ll set up a defrauder within the committee duping to be from the opposition party. We’ll ask the ruling party to put a case that UN report is fabricated and their only objective was to spoil the image of the present government. We have the Judge; she can render us infinite number of Vaidas in court. My lawyer can make sure this case lingers in high court for fifteen years and Supreme Court for another ten years. And for expenses, we demand the realtors and factory owners to remunerate by threatening their lives. If they don’t oblige, their businesses will be closed.
IAS – Sir. You’re a genius
(PM Blushes – Everyone applauds his wonderful idea)
MLA – You see son, that’s how politics happens.
Putra D’ MLA – I’m going back to Princeton and never coming back to this country again.
Munni – Once we burgle this country, we also have plans to settle down in foreign my dear. Don’t worry.
Bharat Mata Ki – Jai!
(All of them chant in chorus)
— by Vignesh Siva
