Skip to main content

Fastag Extortion

From Deccan Herald

 What India now has is an extortionist government. It raises the prices of everything on a daily basis. Petrol and diesel prices are just conspicuous examples. Today the price of cooking gas went up yet again. Do you know how many times the price of gas has been increased in the month of February alone? Probably, you don't. We have stopped thinking about price rises. We have got used to the mounting prices. Maybe, we have accepted the rising prices as the cost to be paid for keeping Narendra Modi as our PM. Maybe, this is what patriotism means: attaining multiple orgasms while being screwed wholesale by your government. 

What are we to Mr Narendra Modi? Are we citizens or subjects? 

In the olden days there were kings and subjects. Not citizens. We have been taken back to those old days by Mr Modi. Of course, he is in love with old days. He spoke to us no end about the greatness of the old days. Now we are there: king and subjects. No more citizens of a democracy. 

The king has dedicated a stadium to himself. The Motera cricket stadium has been named Narendra Modi stadium by our President. Who is the President? Well, we know him, don't we? He will be remembered by posterity as the Head of a state who usurped a stadium from India's first deputy Prime Minister and freedom fighter and handed it over on a platter to a narcissist with the deference of a galley slave.  

I was in hospital the other day attending to my wife who had been admitted for a few days with a rather serious medical situation. As I sat outside the intensive care unit, a message landed in my phone which read: "As per record, vehicle no PQR is not issued a FASTag. Non-fitment of FASTag is a violation of CMVR 1989 and liable for penalty. Get a FASTag today..." 

I live in a village in Kerala and have never had to pass through a toll gate in all my driving years in the state so far. The nearest toll gate is some 100 km away and I don't think I'll ever have to go anywhere near it. Why should someone like me fit a FASTag to my car? Why does the government extort money like this from us? We pay road taxes, vehicle taxes, insurance and its taxes, fuel taxes, maintenance taxes... an endless array of taxes for the simple convenience of owning a vehicle. Now another burden which is nothing short of plunder for people like me who never drive on those elite highways. Moreover, banks are charging fines too for not keeping minimum prescribed amounts in these FASTag accounts. Indian banks have already looted Rs300 crore from FASTag users, according to a news report I read this morning. Not only the government has turned looters in Modi's India!

Has there ever been such an insensitive government in independent India so far? Yet why is this man still worshipped like a god? I know the answer but won't say it. Find out yourself. 

Comments

  1. जितेन्द्र माथुरMarch 2, 2021 at 1:56 PM

    I am in complete agreement with yourself as I am also sailing in the same boat. This is an extortionist government beyond doubt. And the question asked by you in the penultimate line is for everybody like you and me. And yes, each one of us has to find his answer himself only.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 2, 2021 at 4:13 PM

      Our country has become a frustrating place in too many ways. I wonder when the tide will turn. It has to turn anyway.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
12 comments
Read more

Uriel the gargoyle-maker

Uriel was a multifaceted personality. He could stab with words, sting like Mike Tyson, and distort reality charmingly with the precision of a gifted cartoonist. He was sedate now and passionate the next moment. He could don the mantle of a carpenter, a plumber, or a mechanic, as situation demanded. He ran a school in Shillong in those days when I was there. That’s how I landed in the magic circle of his friendship. He made me a gargoyle. Gradually. When the refined side of human civilisation shaped magnificent castles and cathedrals, the darker side of the same homo sapiens gave birth to gargoyles. These grotesque shapes were erected on those beautiful works of architecture as if to prove that there is no human genius without a dash of perversion. In many parts of India, some such repulsive shape is placed in a prominent place of great edifices with the intention of warding off evil or, more commonly, the evil eye. I was Uriel’s gargoyle for warding off the evil eye from his sc
11 comments
Read more