Toll Free?

Had a pleasure trip last week towards ECR with my family..Enjoyable to the max but the journey of 150 Kilometers from my hometown to ECR, chennai took me across five toll gates.....yes five toll gates and a cool 150 around bucks to get thru all of them....Really odd to find out that taxing the few, more and more seems to be the mantra now!
If you are an indian tax payer, you wonder if anybody is paying more than you in the whole planet....Tax on all food items purchased (all our super-duper departmentals have no choice), tax on phone bills, electricity, water, house, vehicle registration tax, insurance, roadtax, toll tax, to even tax on eating your favourite sandwiches to teas....plus on the official front, professional tax, income tax, fringe benefits (which bird goes by that name is anybody's guess) and whatever you have left and want to spend, you cant do a single penny officially without paying an associated tax, unless you were indulging on a road-side dhaba or some non-fancy restaurant (namma hotel maams aka bismillah hotel or something), be ready to be taxed...
If all that is scary, there is more to come when you even think of starting a simple business...you cant sell a single biscuit packet without paying a tax....what with all the STPI and SEZ, its common middle class guys like us who bears the brunt of this skewed taxing rules....after all this the finance minister gives a breakdown and claims that 20% of our national income comes by debt....if only there is an end of corruption...!!Ah!
No wonder the rich dont pay, ( they only deposit offshore in some tax-haven), the poor dont have a means to pay....its only us who are left to fend for ourselves....Hope some sensible finance minister coems into the cabinet next time and takes a realistic approach to solve our taxing tax.....

Laloo - The quality that matters!!!

Its amazing how one can easily fill the hearts of everybody watching with a sense a humour that one can feel as though calming amidst a tornado!!!!

I was watching laloo videos on the net regarding the budget and it struck me to see him enact his wizardy over the entire session. (believe me...these guys are not too easy to please)...so spellbound are the listeners, that they have nothing to do but? Laugh What else along with the  rest of the nation....

No matter what the CBI, opposition, detractors and "others" say about him, laloo, to me stands for optimism. The reasons are simple....no need for brouhaha over his past legacy and his so termed tainted rule and all elitist opinions about him, he has stood the test of times.....

of course, lots of good things were happening before in previous administration of railways, but this gentleman is a cut about the rest. For his courage (propogating secularism), determination (fighting CBI cases), intelligence (remember his master piece in making his wife the chief-minister), managerial skills (railways turnaround folklore), his bone-tickling speeches and his indomitable spirit....I am his FAN!!!!....just for his incredible quality to charm his way through detractors.....

PS : care not to explain if there are not convincing for others and for people who have other opinions about laloo...everyone has an opinion, so do i

Here comes the fun!!!

            I have always been amused by what people can do when in the face of serious consequences. Like the feb 14 drama played out and promises of free marriage to any guy being around a beautiful woman. (enticing but really damn bad and a bad joke from me too)
            Everyday, we see news of "this day" or "that day" but the greatest thing is nobody bothers about others choice of celebrating a particular day. That is the whole point...we just leave people to be on their own and not force our will upon them
            sadly this whole debate about feb 14 shows one thing. The inability of the people to accept other's choices and the inability of the affected parties to let go.
            A "pub roko" cannot be fought by a "pub bharo" campaign. If anybody bothers to even listen, both are not our (Gandhian) way of doing things. When the apartheid dogs threw him out of the train, he did not launch a train bharo campaign. Its high time we donot flame up these small incidents into something unpleasant.
            "There is always a better way of doing things"