Bye Pondicherry, Thanks For Everything, And Some Final Reflections On The Problem That Is The State: Take #2

Dylan once said, "I have new eyes to see the dawn." And Cat Stevens sang, "Morning has broken, like the first morning." 


[Though the only black birds that speak here in Pondicherry are CROWS. I have never seen a town with more crows and more garbage littered all over.]


This morning, I went to see the dawn as usual - but I am leaving today, so I was bidding good-bye to the dawn across the sea.


And how many spectacular dawns I have witnessed here these past many weeks. Sometimes, it is like the picture above - a Gold Sun, with the Gold reflecting across the waters right to your feet. Sometimes, if there are specks of clouds, dawn begins with fiery red hues. And once, only once, did it appear like God had sprayed oil across the sky, for there were speckled rainbows all over! 


Today, it was different: just pastel shades, of pink and blue, over a deep blue sea, the sun itself a pale orange. But it was beautiful.


Good-bye Pondicherry. Thanks for the good times. Hope to be back again someday.


To conclude, some observations that reveal that The People are a Resource, and it is The State that is The Problem.


The tea-shops open here at 4:30am. By that time, I am always bathed and changed, on my cycle, heading for tea - and then, the dawn. By that time, Pondicherry is wide awake, and many, many people are getting organised for their Daily Work. Hard-working, enterprising people of Pondicherry. 


Let us now turn to The State. First, they TAX you. The restaurants charge a 12% local sales tax. That's a lot. What do they do with the money? I have already written about the useless departments they open - like Fisheries! Imagine, every dawn I see REAL FISHERMEN trying to net a catch in tiny craft dating back to 3000BC - no OBM at all - and The State runs a Fisheries Department. Do these guys catch and sell fish? Or do they just live off Tax Revenue? Tax Parasites, all.


Today, let me also talk about the Public Health Department. They have a HUGE BUILDING right opposite my tea-shop. And if you sit there sipping tea in the early hours, MOSQUITOES chew you up! And there are FLIES all over!


Today, I took an early morning walkabout in a pretty park - and mosquitoes bit me there, too. Right opposite was another Public Health Department building.


Incidentally, our The State has banned DDT - the cheapest way to kill mosquitoes. I once published an interview I conducted with Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria for The Economic Times - and he argued furiously against this ban, one that was killing Africans by the million. Shortly after this interview appeared, an Indian DDT manufacturer whose business had been closed down came calling on me at my editorial offices, and told me all about the corrupt politics behind this senseless ban on DDT.


Now, tell you me: We cannot breed. If we do so, Sanjay Gandhi comes and vastectomises us BY FORCE. But mosquitoes and flies can breed freely.


And tell you me: Is General Pervez Musharraf sucking your blood? Or is the RBI Governor doing that, with his "counterfeit notes" that do not honour his SIGNED CONTRACT? All this "funny money" that depreciates in value every day?


The pretty park where mosquitoes bit me in broad daylight right opposite a Public Health Department building must have been built and laid out by the French - but, today, our fellows have built two "children's parks" on the lawns! The equipment there looked like it doesn't work, and is probably dangerous. Your kids might get hurt playing there. They might be better off playing with General Pervez Musharraf.


They are spending YOUR money - on NONSENSE.


Why can't entrepreneurs build parks for kids? Like the guy I met who said he is building a skating rink.

EVER HEARD OF DISNEYLAND?

They have privatised garbage collection - but they don't supervise the work, and much of the equipment is shoddy: little Mahindra trucks that won't carry more than a few kilos at a time, and are OPEN on top. 


The ladies who work at street-sweeping in their uniforms are all sweet and very hard-working, but they have No Capital Equipment.  Thus, their wages can never rise.


We need FOREIGN EXPERT FIRMS to do these jobs - like an ad I saw of an Australian Garbage Company that went:

We Talk Garbage

That's why I like the Philips Slogan:

Let's Make Things Better

The State can NEVER think like that.


The State's slogan is:

Let's Make Things Worse

They have made every city they inherited from the Brits or the French or the Portuguese - worse. Much, much worse.


Because they produce bads, not goods.


Bads like taxes.


Bads like inflation.


Bads like Air India.


Bads like the Indian Police.

Abolish The State.

Replace it with Honest Civic Corporations 

for each and every city and town.