Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!

Whenever I have dared to comment on the state of the nation (NOT with the same impact as an American President, of course!) I have been thrown a curve ball which leaves me gently frothing at the mouth... Let me enumerate a few of them here...

1. Why don't people follow road rules, I ask, when a huge top-of-the-line SUV careens across four lanes of traffic and misses us miraculously.
Excuse: (Indignantly) How can you expect people to maintain road discipline when they don't even get one square meal a day!!!

Okkkkaaayyyy... but the guy in the SUV didn't seem to me to fall into that category. So what's his excuse?

2. Recently a middle level official in the transport licensing department was finally caught taking bribes. What gave him away? His 3.5 crore house to start with - given as how his monthly salary was 18,000 rupees a month. In fact his whole department was caught - from top to bottom.
Excuse: (Sadly) You don't understand! How can he make ends meet on that salary? He has to feed his family...

Well, that's true - especially if you are a foot soldier in the police or a humble teacher in a government school with a take home of 6000 - 7000, if that.
But on Rs.18,000, one can feed one's family - providing one doesn't aspire to houses worth crores!

3. Getting a passport. The horror stories are legion. Six months. One year. In some cases - never. People are made to run around - in circles literally.

4. Getting a gas connection - supposed to be quick and easy, right? No way!

5. Getting a pan card - can take up to three months. Why?

6. Not to mention load shedding (mind you, I read somewhere, that one of the head honchos in our government said right to power is not a constitutional right!), water shortages, uncleared garbage... I could go on and on...

So what's the excuse?
Excuse:(Airily)... Those are minor problems... you have to understand! We have a one billion plus population. It takes time for efficiency, productivity, discipline to trickle down. There's a long way to go - from the top to bottom! (Where the rot really starts, I thought to myself!)

So that's the realty of it all - no excuses, no passing the buck! We have been trying for over 60 years... by the time all this is fixed, I'll be dead and gone and won't be in any position to give a damn!