The real Road Show
We say VIPs are responsible for traffic jams. So, imagine what you will get when you put all the VIPs in one place and make them drive through a narrow passage at the same time. I’m not talking about some wannabe VIPs who clamber for recognition and visibility, but real big fishes: Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Opposition MLAs, Commissioners, Secretaries, and Directors. If you want to see what might happen in such a situation, come to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly during the assembly sessions. If you get access permit to witness the assembly proceedings from the public gallery, don’t leave early. Stay behind to watch the ‘Road Show’.
The Assembly complex has a sprawling compound where elephants can play football. It defies the reality that there is hardly any space left in Kohima for an average guy to pitch his tent and start a family. The parking lot is also spacious because only cars with A or B stickers can enter. I had the privilege of having a B sticker, but there was no reason for me to be proud of it. What was an epidemiologist doing in the legislative assembly? But on hindsight, I am thankful to the medical department for sending me there for emergency medical coverage, which was not my job at all by the way. If not for this assignment, I wouldn’t have the privilege of enjoying the assembly proceedings and the road show.
Although the parking space is large, there is just a single gate for the VIPs which form a kind of an hourglass neck. So, when the day’s done for our VIPs, they rush out as school children do when chutti bell is rung, resulting in utter chaos at the gate. This is what I would call the real Road Show and not those that the DAN government is infamous for organizing in the past years. All the cars (innovas, scorpios, boleros) squeeze in at the gate as everyone try to go out together at once, producing an interesting spectacle to watch. This is where power politics come into full play. The ministers cut into other vehicles while the others who also don’t have the habit of making way stand their ground. The traffic police are at the mercy of the gods as they don’t have the public to shoo away. I thought, 'if our VIPs have a little patience, they wouldn’t have lost so much time at the gate'. But that simple thought of mine is irrelevant here. To them, I don’t have any idea what is at stake if they give up the fight at the gate.
What a privilege it was to be there, what a treat to the eye, also how unreassuring a thought that our society is in such hands.
The Assembly complex has a sprawling compound where elephants can play football. It defies the reality that there is hardly any space left in Kohima for an average guy to pitch his tent and start a family. The parking lot is also spacious because only cars with A or B stickers can enter. I had the privilege of having a B sticker, but there was no reason for me to be proud of it. What was an epidemiologist doing in the legislative assembly? But on hindsight, I am thankful to the medical department for sending me there for emergency medical coverage, which was not my job at all by the way. If not for this assignment, I wouldn’t have the privilege of enjoying the assembly proceedings and the road show.
Although the parking space is large, there is just a single gate for the VIPs which form a kind of an hourglass neck. So, when the day’s done for our VIPs, they rush out as school children do when chutti bell is rung, resulting in utter chaos at the gate. This is what I would call the real Road Show and not those that the DAN government is infamous for organizing in the past years. All the cars (innovas, scorpios, boleros) squeeze in at the gate as everyone try to go out together at once, producing an interesting spectacle to watch. This is where power politics come into full play. The ministers cut into other vehicles while the others who also don’t have the habit of making way stand their ground. The traffic police are at the mercy of the gods as they don’t have the public to shoo away. I thought, 'if our VIPs have a little patience, they wouldn’t have lost so much time at the gate'. But that simple thought of mine is irrelevant here. To them, I don’t have any idea what is at stake if they give up the fight at the gate.
What a privilege it was to be there, what a treat to the eye, also how unreassuring a thought that our society is in such hands.
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