TENZING GYATSO
What is it with all these cards nowadays? I am beginning to feel like a senile, arthritic James Bond…. ready to produce any card for any occasion. In fact, if you were to go through my pockets, you’d hardly find anything of value in them except a bunch of these cards. You name it and I have it… Ration card, Voter’s card, Pension card, Aadhar card, aka Unique Identity card. I always knew I was unique but now I have a card to prove it! I have been patiently waiting but with fading expectations to receive my Pink Card, for which like so many other nitwits, I had reluctantly coughed up Rs 50. However the Pink Card is proving more elusive than the Pink Panther!
There are a growing number of skeptics, who are of the view that all these cards are just ‘hand out’ cards. The cards merely entitle the card holders to avail of hand outs of subsidized food and fuel rations, direct cash transfers, free LPG connections, free corrugated sheets etc... Whereby instead of earning an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, the card holders are now akin to the monkeys that squat expectantly along the Siliguri-Gangtok Highway, picking up the goodies thrown to them.
Therefore, viewing both by hindsight as well as foresight, I am convinced that I would do well to repose my faith solely in my Sikkim Subject Certificate. I have stored this precious paper between the pages of “The Complete Works of Shakespeare” on my book shelf. This genuine document categorically proves that I was a subject of an erstwhile small Himalayan Kingdom ruled for many centuries by the benevolent kings of the Namgyal Dynasty.
[The writer is a resident of Sajong, Rumtek]
Yah yah sure...go ask Kazi lendup dorjee how benevolent he found the king that he had to plot and scheme to give away Sikkim to the Republic of India!!
ReplyDeleteWhy would any one in Sikkim need cards to get the dole......its rather simple here, isn't it....u just wait for the festive season, especially the dasain kinds and go stand in the line outside the Mintokgang and there you have atleast two grands in your hand....so what use are the cards!!!
ReplyDeletethe author says and i quote "Whereby instead of earning an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work"....
ReplyDeletewhat exactly is this 'work' kindly explain? Perhaps i should help:
(i) sitting behind a desk engaged in a meaningless ritual called 'pushing files'
(ii) miseducating kids in a Government school
(iii) politics
please fill out the rest...