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Friday, August 19, 2011

A modern all-Indian fantasy tale

Once upon a time, there was a country named Paradise. It had an ancient history, was once the richest country in the world and was freed from evil oppressors by a revolutionary who channeled ancient principles to unite all citizens to a cohesive non-violent unit that the colonial power had no answer to. 

However, not all was well of late. There was trouble in Paradise. Once the colonial powers left, the government that the Paradisans created was slowly but steadily taken over by evil aliens. The aliens looked, spoke and acted exactly the same as the honest, upright Paradisans. In fact, they were identical to the Paradisans in all aspects but one. They were corrupt!!! However, some aliens purported to be representatives of the paradisans and regularly contested elections against one another, just so people have the illusion of choice.

While the Paradisans lived a life that was a mix of idealism and pragmatism, their honesty was never questionable. They never lied, they never faked expenses to avail tax benefits, they never possessed any black money (they always sold houses without taking any black money), they never overcharged customers or hoarded goods in short supply, they never paid bribes to policemen to be let off with a smaller fine than the just punishment for their traffic violations.

Meanwhile, the aliens had eaten much of the innards of the Paradise public life and had lost all fear of being punished for their actions. The aliens siphoned off huge sums of money to foreign lands, making the Paradisans poor and miserable. The honest Paradisans were distraught and outraged, but there was nothing they could do about the bad aliens that were controlling their life. They felt that the aliens just took over from the departing colonial powers and they had never enjoyed freedom at all. Their hopes and dreams were crushed by aliens (even though the aliens were a microscopic proportion of the numbers of Paradisans). Paradise was unraveling before their very eyes.

Then one fine summer morning, a white knight came riding from the horizon. He was accompanied by a band of decorated knights in rainbow cloaks. All the knights were Paradisans of unquestionable integrity (like all the other Paradisans). In fact, so unquestionable that questioning the integrity of any of them would forever taint the credentials of the person asking the questions. The white knight had with him a sheet of paper. The sheet of paper was the deliverance Paradisans had been waiting for. The sheet of paper was also one of unquestionable intent. Questioning its intent, pointing to logical flaws and logistic impossibilities would turn the questioner into an alien.

The knights and the aliens battled long and hard. The battle reached epic proportions, and every Paradisan was directly backing the knights by burning hydrocarbons to cause illumination and by recording missed calls on communication devices. The knights channeled the energies and ancient principles used by the revolutionary (mentioned before) in letter and spirit. Long story short, Knights 1, Aliens 0. The age of the aliens had passed. It was a new dawn.

After the victory, the knights set about implementing the instructions in the sheet of paper. They recruited the services of 20,000 of the honest incorruptible Paradisans to find the aliens hiding in Parliament and government buildings and hang them. The knights and the legion of 20000 (their pals) also set about to get back the wealth of Paradise that the aliens had looted. Turns out, it was easier than it seemed. All the white knight had to do was skip a few meals for a few days and the dragon hoarding all the wealth got scared and returned all the money to the pals. The pals used all this money to develop Paradise, and also handed out the money back to the honest Paradisans by means of credits to their bank accounts.  The elections were now contested only by honest Paradisans and not aliens.

Also, the air was cleaner, the sun rose from the west and Paradisans lifespans were now doubled. All was well. It's just another day in paradise.

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