Right the strike note

Now Jug can't hide his low mojo, can he? This article is so "text bookish"..Jug now qualifies to work at NCERT!

Imagine Jug had a normal day (or night) at work (or wherever he does whatever it is that he does), this article would've turned up quite different. Allow a poor impersonation of what it should have been.

To start with..the title - "Right the strike note", that's what it should have been. "Strike is my birth right" declared the Jet airways pilots. You can't strike that away from the Indian constitution. Not even if you are a certain (or uncertain) Naresh Goyal. Yes, Naresh has now been brought down to earth..and reminded not to take his name too seriously.

Didn't the "bad M" do this to the "big T" sometime back? Commies swear by it and manage to run two disparate states for eons singing this very tune. Strike and the world strikes with you. Work and you work alone.

Can someone please remind these modern "efficiency / MBA" types that "work" is a four-letter word, ending with K, and so has no place in descent society?

So what if patients are stuck in a hospital as doctors go on strike? They are not called patients for nothing. They better learn to be ..well.."patient".

Factories - if anyone needs reminding - are places where unions are manufactured. No, those ugly Chinese sweat-shops churning out every damn thing do not deserve to be called factories. Mao would turn in his grave at the very sight of such gross efficiency..err..injustice.

What do you think Indian netas do in the parliament..at those rare moments when the parliament is about to transact business? They "walkout" - in effect, they strike. No, it is not only the comrade crowd which patronizes this form of democracy. Even Advani does it! Congress has done it several times when in opposition. The jhagada dals are so adept at it that they now run a night-school on how to stage walkouts. Talk of art imitating life, directors of saas-bahu serials are queuing up to learn!

Strikes unite Indians like nothing else can. No, not even cricket or tandoori chicken can bring Indians closer. If you need any evidence, just look at the "national holidays" we have. Yes, there are those "doordarshan days" on Aug 15 and Jan 26..and then there are the "real" ones, celebratory ones, uncorrupted by "rote TV programming" - we call them "bandhs". Bandhs are days that the entire nation looks forward to. Firstly, no mad rush in the mornings. Have breakfast without looking at the clock. Bond with the kids. Lunch at home - what better place for pet-puja? Siesta time - with no fear of the boss walking in at the wrong time. Or catch a matinee on cable. As the birds fly home, call up college buddies, meet at the adda, down a few for old times sake. A national holiday couldn't be better!

Jaswant has written a book? Great, let's celebrate that with a bandh. No rain in the Cauvery basin? Only a bandh can help. What, petrol prices are up again? No way, we need a bandh to bring some sanity back. Gosh, what would we have ever done if not for bandhs? Hey, wasn't it the father of the nation who invented them..albeit in a different avatar...Satyagrah or some such thing that these Britishers could never fathom? Pity that we only celebrate this phenomenal invention for just one day - Oct 2. Hey, come to think of it, should we organise a strike to extend Gandhi Jayanti to an entire week?