Iss-Q mein jeena

I saw my friendly neighbor’s son, Raghu, every day queuing up for the bus at the depot. By now the whole staff at the depot knew him well with his first, middle and last name, with the details of his curriculum and a lot of stuff. I always wondered and thought why Raghu is so dumb! When everyone knows him there why did he lined up early morning for the bus when he can just say hi to the fellow in the uniform and avail any seat he want anytime. One day I decided to spare some time and have a nice discussion to teach this lad how ‘Jugaad” works in India.

On the following Sunday, I called up Raghu for breakfast to give him some “gyan” about how much “Jugaadu” he should and can be. Here is the conversation below:

Hey Raghu, Good Morning! You are very punctual dude.

Thanks dada.

So dude, howz college? How do you manage time attending all the stuff including your GF yaar?

Oh, that’s not that tough you know! Just a matter of prioritizing your priorities.

Raghu, I see you arrive every morning punctually at the bus depot. Why do you need to come early, wait in the queue when you have such good relations with the staff in there! Dude, learn to use the JUGAAD formula. This is what gonna help you in the long run. This world works on it. Time is equal to money in this city.

He listened to all the GYAN I was pouring with gleaming eyes.

Then he came up. Dada, your Generation till now has been running the jugaad formula, bestowing favors to the known ones and pushing a plate of Hard Times to the unknown or the ones who is not related or concerned to the authorities showering favors. Have you ever realized that all the Human beings have same needs, irrespective of their PR status and their relation building skills? Where does it lead to?

Lemme tell you where does it lead!

It leads to the chunk of corrupt masses, the one who exchange favors, blending and molding the laws.

It leads to shower of wants to the unwanted and deprival of needs of the needy. It leads to imbalance, injustice in the society.

It leads to hatred from the ones who don’t have this heck of a jugaad to the one who has a jugaad.

It leads the future generation to develop a skill called Jugaad even there where its unnecessary.

It leads to lazy, unscrupulous generation which has been the basement of all the scams.

It leads to thoughts being put up to legalize corruption with the saying, “Yahan toh Aisa Hi Chalta Hai”.

It leads to spoiling the habit of hard work which should be imbibed in the youth.

I can skip the lines and the queues to save a few minutes in the day, but do I really utilize those for some fruitful work, atleast for myself! What do I really do saving the time from the queue? Spoil my habit of being a good citizen and then setting examples for the people behind me to do Jugaad with the staff which in turn starts expecting some CHAI PANI for people to skip the queue!

Dada I don’t want myself to be grinded in these wheels of corruption. Atleast if I start now, my future generation would be free from it. I really don’t need your Jugaad!

Zip mouthed, spell bound, stunned, etc. Nay, these words can’t express my expressions at the time. But one thing was for sure; I knew what my new year resolution should be.

His formula “Iss-Q mein jeena, Iss-Q mein marna” was far much better than my Jugaad. I regained the memory of the song from Mughal-e-Azam……..