“You really should start a blog, you know!”
“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you write more often?”
“God has given you such a wonderful talent, and you’re wasting it. Shame on you, dhikkar hai tujh pe!”
While comments such as these make you feel special, that feeling disappears the second you realise that the friends who’ve made these comments aren’t trying to praise you. They’ve just ranked you one rung above pond scum in their overall ratings of all living species. So after all those false promises to start writing more regularly, here is what I hope will turn out to be my most honest and sustained effort at writing more often.
So where do I begin? Ah, yes! The economic recession/financial turmoil/monetary crisis that everyone’s talking about. And while everyone would be telling you “Man, the real estate/construction industry is SO busted. It’s going down...WAAAY down”; I beg to differ. Well, yes, if you are the average construction company owner who has lined up a few malls and residential projects, you might as well put that gun to your head or give a few melodramatic riches-to-rags interviews. But if you’re in the construction business in Delhi – nobody can EVER stop you from getting rich.
I’ve just come back from a two-week Delhi trip and if there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s the never-ending construction (ok, and the unbearable weather). Over the last ten years or so, each time I go back to Delhi some new flyover has come up. Somewhere, some contractors are getting REALLY REALLY rich. One would think that they would eventually run out of flyovers to build...in that case, one could not be more wrong.
There seems to be two golden rules governing the construction of new flyovers:
- There are ALWAYS bigger flyovers you can build. If you’ve built flyovers at every possible junction, start building even bigger ones that would help people bypass earlier flyovers.
- Flyovers take time to build. So, at the time of commissioning a flyover, if X million vehicles are estimated to use it, by the time of completion there would invariably be X+Y million vehicles using it. Hence new flyover is already outdated. A newer one is needed. And so begins a vicious cycle.
Of course, no one is complaining. The roads in Delhi are better than any other metro, although that isn’t saying much considering the fact that three of these metros are Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore! But in these times of great financial peril, when you’d trust your local bank as much as you’d trust your local bank robber, it is heartening to know that there are still some avenues for making money, that get-rich quick schemes are still possible. So go ahead and head to Delhi, everyone!
2 comments:
Its about time. Thank God good sense prevailed and you FINALLY started your blog. You did stick to your new year resolution, albeit a little late. And your first post is true to your style. Don't stop the flow. Congratulations and keep up the good work! :)
Orgho Shorkar!!!
Congratulations on opening your blog with a pertinent commentary on social reality. I know this is just the beginning, and so I'm not going to pressurise you just yet, but gradually I'd like to see lots more variety. Your 'everything you always wanted to know about the Cookie Monster but were afraid to ask' piece would look great here! So would one of those early mails you sent after you left to study in Goa - the one about some party you didn't like and how you hitchhiked back home. Hmmm.. sorry to have gone on for so long, and this has become 'comment and suggestion' but knowing you, this blog is going to become a favourite with many (and then i'm hoping I can steal some credit :P). Once that happens, you could also allow some ad's to be shown on it and charge! heheheh!!! Great going Orgho!!!!
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