Crossroads

I see a road that's long and straight
As far as my sight allows, there is nothing bright,
There is another which is winding tight
To go on this would need all my wit and might.

The former needs a lot out of me
I'd have to change or let it be,
My senses tells me to take on this
for my mind has what it takes for this.

While my instinct asks that I take the turn
Ride along and enjoy the view,
The pleasure in it is worth the burn
Hold on, for my strength is true

Oh my mind, tell me, why are the crossroads here?
Wasn't I just smoothly sailing by,
Right in the middle of nowhere
forcing me to pause and wonder why.

There is but one choice today to make
For surely, the other is closed forever
Now to decide which one to take
Walk on one and the other is never.

The crossroads are here today
Standing onboard the scale of time
I can't now get out and wait
Yes finally whatever it is, the choice is mine.

Serving Party

We are part of a civilization originating from one of the happiest countries in the world. We owe that to our traditional tolerance and centuries of cultured optimism. We have overcome various hardships and disasters. On several occasions when we buckled under violent oppressive conquerors, we innovated and found ways within our culture to overthrow them or absorb them to become part of us. But now, I must say that, under the daily onslaught of corruption & bigotry we could end up losing our optimism and happiness, and rely on escapism to substitute for happiness.

The question that we ask often, without much hope for an immediate solution is whether we can overcome the current situation of our government predominantly being run by corrupt people. To get a viable answer we should start with being ready to take the responsibility of working towards this change. Many of us have been cursing the system for far too long, very few have done anything about it. However everyone agrees that the system needs to change. Change requires force. Great change requires great force and so we need to gather the momentum necessary to change the system. The first step is to understand that, what we are expecting is a service & the government will be serving the people, and like any service industry the keyword must be satisfaction of the people who are being served. The change has to start with the word Ruling Party. The party that gets elected & forms the government with people who pledged to serve should therefore be called the Serving Party.

Let us change the mindset that believes that politicians are a necessary evil. Politicians don't have to be evil, but that's not the point. The mindset we need to have here is that politicians are necessary. Politicians are not representing a group of people, or plan to represent anyone, they just have delusions of being masters of the people whom they represent. Their aim is to be just a leader, we only need those who want to become a spokesman for his/her group of people, this idea of representing is not entirely new, it is based on what the founding fathers of our nation wanted, ideas that were practiced in Buddhist Sangas more than 2 millenium ago.

In a democracy we need only those who represent people in the House of Representatives, those whom people have appointed by majority choice to represent the people, paying them a salary out of their taxes for services rendered. When we have a legal matter to handle we appoint a lawyer paying him a fee to represent us, he does not and should not become our leader, and when we need our property to be guarded we need a watchman, they are appointed for specific roles, similarly when we cannot spare the time and figure out how to get our common infrastructures set up we need representatives to do it for us, and that is the main role of our elected representatives. They have to pass the bills that we the people want. Have you seen the ease with which bills to increase their benefits are passed? Cutting across party lines they support schemes where they get opportunities to dip their fingers into our money.

Each of us must support a process by which whenever the time arises for an issue that demands a referendum, we r not caught napping. This juggernaut will move only if all of us pull together towards the same goal. Like little drops of rain falling in different parts of our land, they would initially just form puddles, and those puddles would swell & overflow into little streams gathering strength, to form rivulets, which are rushing to form rivers. Initially most of the water would sink through the sand, but once the ground has satiated its need, every drop of water that comes down will be joining the flow, the richer the land is with trees & vegetation the more rain it takes to soak up and then it would continue to feed the stream long after the rains have stopped. Let us similarly sprinkle our ideas and look for citizens who would be willing to represent purely as spokesmen from our rich and fertile civilization. I'm sure that we will have a flow as great as the mighty Ganga in due course. It would probably begin as slowly as a drizzle & take a long time.