We worship you, Oh deadline god!

‘I don’t care how you do it, but you have to meet the deadline, coz the customer is waiting’, yells the manager, whose hands-on life was buried deep many years ago. In fact, the firm loves him, because if he is hands-on, in touch with realities, he cannot push the deadlines. The deadline god will not be pleased. Let us pour the blood of young lives which we fatten anyway through vulgar salaries, gyms and basketball courts in our campus. What else are we feeding them for, if not to offer them to the deadline god! The youngsters slog, day in day out, and they meet the deadline. Mails of appreciation flow, awards are given in the next meeting. The customer looks at this piece of _ _ _ _ (work) and is horrified. He calls the manager, only to know that the ownership has been shifted to the maintenance team!

‘Oh my God, the software is not working, and we have only four days to give it to the customer. If we don’t meet the deadline, we lose our face, we lose our reputation’. Here comes the priest of the deadline god again, the manager. ‘ Looks like the architecture is alright. But we don’t have time to fix. So let’s give a patch. That will meet the deadline. We will fix the consequences later’. So the patch comes in 4 days, and there goes the customer and the maintenances team to suffer the consequences for ever.

Looking at the crowds that support the mass movement, isn’t it silly to expect any different culture. The masses who have worshipped the deadline god always, they do not know any other god, they do not worship any other god. The god needs to be pleased, even if blood flows. The god needs to be pleased, even if the architecture strengthening needs more thought. The god needs to be pleased even if many millions have to suffer the consequences of this patchwork. But what else do we expect from the devotees!

With all due respects to all the people involved in the movement, am I the only cynic to see a parallel in the behaviour of the followers?

The gods must be crazy

Close to 20 years ago, I was part of an agitation for a 'just cause', led by a 'democratic' leader against the 'autocratic' authorities of an educational institution. The emotional frenzy, being part of a charged environment, was an experience by itself, which led us into unbelievable chaos, and when we opened our eyes to face the reality, the 'democratic leader' had more fiction than fact, the 'autocratic' authorities were not so autocratic after all, and the 'just cause' was more just to the people who led the movement. Since then, I decided I will not be part of mass movements and signature campaigns, since by design somewhere down the line they get diluted, sabotaged, and even surgically modified by other doctors without your knowledge.

For this reason, despite the presence of wonderful leaders like Kiran Bedi, Santhosh Hegde etc. in this movement, I still kept my independent thinking about the whole issue. But of course, I still respected the passion with which they were doing, since they share a common end goal with all well meaning people of India, which is to weed out corruption. So, while I did not quite approve the mass movement approach, which many a time get followed by many who cannot be the first ones to throw the proverbial stone at the sinner, I still observed with interest.

However, I was surprised at the way the Government handled the movement yesterday. I am still puzzled who went crazy. Or is it that there is a larger gameplan that the government has, only a part of which they were playing yesterday? Maybe not. Or else, why a 7 day imprisonment in the morning and a release in the evening? Why the unholy hurry in many decisions? Why the afterthoughts?

I see classic absence of leadership and effective communication by the leaders of the government. I see blindness by them in not seeing how the common man connects the various scams on one side, and Anna's movement as the only hope! Whether that is correct or not, that is the perception of the helpless masses of India, and that perception will soon become reality if not handled very carefully. It is too early to say if that reality would be the solution.

Why isn't there that boy in the government circles who is shouting that the Emperor has no clothes! Why is it there is no hurry in effective communication by the government to the masses? Why isn't the government touching the hearts of people who are tired of corruption that they will rally behind anyone who leads, without any careful look into the detailed agenda? Why is there a hard insensitivity by the leaders who are in a hurry to be more right than understanding?

Is it too difficult? Is running the government above common sense of common men like me? Or have the gods that be gone crazy!