Ticking Ticket Bomb

There are tickets where you pay for them, as in plane, train, bus or tram tickets. Also some entry tickets like to a movie, or circus, or concert. Or a parking/speeding ticket, which is your contribution towards speeding up a slowing economy.

But what I am referring to is a bonanza that enables you to holiday at taxpayers' expense-if you win. The ticket to contest an election, I mean. Kids whose lollipops have been snatched between 'the cup and the lip' don't throw such tantrums as we have seen seventy-plus politicos throw in the last few days. When these oldies were denied tickets.

At an age where you either retire to a forest in keeping with the Hindu tradition of sannyas, or play with your grandchildren at home, these worthies aspire to a kingdom of their dreams. They scream louder than their grandkids, or go into a sulk that would shame a Kaikeyi who sent Rama wandering for fourteen years.

Whether they have their faculties intact to do anything useful if elected is tough to figure out. In a nation of young people, as they keep reminding us all, aren't they totally out of place?

Why not buy a bead chain (rudraksha mala) and count the beads until it's time to permanently retire? But they'd rather count the greenbacks of whatever colour in the Swiss Alps, I presume. Oh, for a colourful life in the cause of THE PARTY! Maybe the party should buy them a one way ticket to the moon, as in the once-popular pop song. (Bappi copied it into a Hindi one sung by Usha Uthup).


XLRI Doctoral Colloquium 2024

 Pics from a well-organised event.  With TAS Vijayaraghavan, my classmate and XLRI prof., and Dr. Prashant, host. My talk on Building Academ...

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