R U Game !

A wishlist- Hindustan Times
A wishlist for all be it cops, journos, politicians, Blueline drivers, Gen-X brats or lawyers, writes Rajbir Deswal.

Loosely flipping through half a dozen newspapers, my friend said to me, yawning a bit too wide, “Nothing really exciting!” “What happened? There is enough these days to mull over. And be happy about it!” I contorted mischievously when he said, “Complacence. Isn’t. Can’t we send them all to Coventry?” “Whom?” I asked. “To begin with the likes of you—Cops!” he concluded with all the contempt hurled at me and my tribe.
And he unfolded his intent to banish all the policemen of the country to the “Island of the naked” to learn a passive resistance, a la Gandhi, having no temptation and situation, when they should be able to rob anybody of their belongings. “Leeches all!” he said.
“And what about you, journalists? Should they all be not packed off to jungles—even Abdul Kalaam, kind of, suggested that—where being unable to sneak in private lives of people, they can experience not stinging themselves, but being stung by wild scorpions, snakes and black widows. Only then they would be able to concentrate on issues related to environment and nature and spare Uma Khuranas.” I said and quizzed my friend, winking, if he had any solution for the politicians.
Presto, he propounded a wonderful idea. “These moral lepers be made to spend a year or two in Universities and Centres of Excellence. “ To improve their qualifications?” I quipped poking fun at my friend’s proposition but he said matter of factly, “No! For the simple reason that they should learn how our academicians fight—and on issues that are so trivial that put to shame even the infants in their pans. The politicians may thus, learn to take up issues in larger public and national interests. You know how party politics is, where action begins exclaiming, “1,2,3…!” and finishes claiming, “ Lo! We’ve done that”.
“Look buddy, this gives me enough food for thought and I suggest that all our Blue line drivers should spend atleast a fortnight sleeping in a mortuary; the Gen-X brats be bundled off to old age homes to hammer a point in their psyche that they themselves would grow that old and infirm; the Bollywood brokers be sent to factories making furniture lest they learn that the ‘couches’ are for comfort and not ‘kaam front,” I philosophised.
“Makes lot of sense!” my friend exclaimed and with his tongue firmly in his cheek said, “Let all the lawyers go to Pakistan, where they can atleast learn to ‘really’ fight. “What about the religious bigots?” I asked and my friend had a ready answer, “To the abattoirs and butcheries where they may have a change of heart and develop aversion to spilling blood.”
When this tete-e-tete between me and my journalist friend was going on, I flashed back to the time when I myself was once sent to Coventry. From the nearby Rugby Police Training Centre, we were taken to downtown Coventry from where we strayed into some sidelanes. Here we encountered some junkies and one of them tired to snatch my camera. We looked for the cops around but were later told that even for the police that was a ‘no visit area’. Was it really a part of our training to feel the helplessness of a victim? Or, were we to know the real meaning of being “sent to Coventry” I still wonder.
Dashing down to earth form my fanciful flight of thoughts, I urged myself to make a point, “And …!” But I was checked by my friend, “Hold on dude, for everything else Judiciary hai naa!” I laughed and quibbled “but atleast the middle writers need not be sent anywhere for they are already there, where they should be.”

(What you just saw is the detailed version. HT used the smaller version)