On the contrary: It's all about money, honey

Many moons ago when I was young and foolish enough to believe in true love and the promises of politicians, I found myself at the Gandhi statue on  Marina Beach, Madras being harangued by the renowned orator, M.K.  Karunanidhi. A random journalist had the cheek to ask the father of Stalin  probing questions about the helicopter spraying scam. MK hit him for a six: “As  CM I am like a man with a big jar of honey with which I am feeding the people.

When the jar is empty and the people are satisfied, should I not lick my  fingers?” he witheringly enquired of the hapless journo to the delighted squeals  of his followers. Cut to 2016 and the question poor Kumar Naik, the erstwhile BBMP  Commissioner must be asking himself is, “What have I done wrong?” Despite  being the first public official to make sincere attempts to tackle the thankless,  daunting, Herculean task of actually drawing up a budget and a priority list for the BBMP, he finds himself shunted out in less time than it takes Sunny Leone to undress.

As my former boss used to say when confronted with evidence of deliberate  and unusual corporate stupidity, “No, fair enough I say, inasmuch  as…nevertheless, but WHY?” That is precisely what every single one of us  concerned Bangaloreans should be asking our revered CM, our Minister for Bangalore and our Worshipful Mayor (no joke, check out the website). Why, I  say? A thousand times, WHY? Naik is a fine officer who, wonder of wonders, is  well-educated, erudite, eminently sensible, hardworking, honest…I could go on but you get the picture? Bangalore has become hell to live in with its trees  felled, its lakes destroyed, its green belt becoming a black belt, its maddening  traffic, it’s putrefying, heaving, mountains of un-cleared garbage…I could go on  but you get the picture?

So why, may I make so bold as to ask, when we finally had a decent, competent officer who actually had a gameplan to tackle the various Sisyphean tasks that our city faces, WHY do we have a new BBMP Commissioner? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? The answer may be reluctantly provided by a corporator who recently returned from a study tour in Bangkok. Finding himself short of cash  while he was surrounded by a bevy of Patpong beauties, he studied the BBMP manual and attempted to negotiate credit terms only to be faced with an unrelenting example of Far-Eastern wisdom “Mister, no money, no honey. You go home, okay?” they chorused. Which is precisely the problem a decent, honest IAS officer faces in the cesspit that is the BBMP: he has to turn a blind  eye to inefficiency and corruption, to money and honey and even then, he’s out  of a job. Aayathu, swalpa adjust maadi.