T H E H A L L O F S H A M E

The Pune ‘Metro’ agenda which has been one the foremost agenda in the city was to be presented in The General Body meeting of the Pune Municipal Corporation last evening. Being the citizens of our very own city of Pune, all of us have a right to attend these meetings by sitting in the ‘Citizens Gallery’. Having heard and seen over the years about the way decisions are taken in our country, I decided to attend the meeting with my friend shibani who has been an active part of the citizens who have opposed the way things have been planned till now.
As we reached the Corporation building, there was a ‘morcha’ right outside the building which was just a trailer of what was happening inside the hall where the meetings are held. We were stopped at the entrance of the hall by a cop saying, ‘sahebanni aat nahi sodaycha, asa sangitle ahe. Aat jaga nahi ahe’ which means his the entry is restricted by his boss and there is no place in the citizen’s gallery. I still wonder who the boss was. We waited there for sometime until a man who seemed to be one of the officers said to the cop, “they are the citizens of this city and nobody has a right to stop them from entering”.
As we entered more than half of the gallery was ‘empty’. The first person I saw was the Mayor sitting all helpless, then the corporaters shouting at the top of their voices. Shouting would be an understatement. I was literally shocked the first time I saw what was going on. I said to myself, ‘is this the way decisions are taken about the common man? Is this the reason we elect these people? It was answer to why elections in India are a mere responsibility which all the citizens want to get rid of. I still don’t find anything wrong in it.
I wouldn’t really talk about the Metro because because it’s a long story and journalists would do it better.
There were some who were religiously involved in the discussion while there were the majority who had no clue whatsoever. For some the meeting was a ‘kitty party’ and a social gathering and some kept themselves busy in scribbling on the paper in front of them. As the meeting progressed there was a point where the parties disagreed with each other to such an extent that they went up to the mayors table and created a chaos. The press was at the edge of their seats as there was drama happening constantly. There is a symbol kept in front of the Mayor, which is a silver rod sort of a thing and it is kept there as a symbol which shows that the meeting is in progress. A man during the argument took it in his hand and ran out side the PMC. I think someone who has probably cleared his first standard of schooling even wouldn’t think of doing something like this. The meeting couldn’t go on till he returned. As he returned and the meeting proceeded, the flower pot in front of the Mayor along with some documents were in pieces on the floor floating in water.
To my surprise there were around 5 cops to manage us citizens who were much more decent in our behavior and there were none at the place where the meeting was going on.

Majority of us would take it as a joke. A joke of whatever is happening in our country. It is shameful, truly. We are all aware of it but still helpless. This is probably because we are the ones who have made it a joke and our politicians find pride for the image they have because they know nothing can be about this. I don’t think there would be any change in system of this very country which apparently has a history of wise people who have ruled the nation. Though the agenda of the meeting was discussed and decisions were taken but the manner in which everything was done states that our country has ‘gone to the dogs’ of which we the citizens are the biggest part.