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| alice in wonderland - Making sense of madness. Wikimedia Commons |
By Justice Markandey Katju
One day a
little girl called Alice was dozing on a green meadow when she saw a white
rabbit wearing a blue coat running on two legs, looking at a watch, and saying
'' I am late ''. The rabbit jumped into a hole in the ground, and following him
Alice got up and also jumped into the same hole.
She fell and
fell until she landed with a thud on a pile of gobar ( cowdung ).
She got up,
brushed away the gobar which was splattered all over her face and body, and saw
a sign board on a wall with the words '' Welcome to Gobarland ''.
Alice came
out of the pile of gobar on which she had landed, and walked away.
After a
while she saw a strange sight.
Tens of
thousands of people were dancing, singing, celebrating, frolicing,and making
merry. There were numerous long tables there with huge plates on them, each
with a pile of gobar, and bottles of gomutra ( cow urine ), of which people
were partaking with zest.
Alice asked
one of them the cause of this carousal, jollification and jamboree, and why
they were eating gobar and drinking gomutra.
The person
said that they were eating gobar as that was the favourite dish in Gobarland,
and drinking cow urine as that was the favourite drink. He added that the cause
of this carnival and festivity was the landing on the moon of Chandraayan, a
rocket made by the great scientists of Gobarland.
Alice
responded by saying '' What is there to celebrate about ? The Americans landed
two astronauts on the moon in 1969, who came back. This is an unmanned flight
54 years later, and nothing will come back. So is not your country far behind
the Americans, and did you not borrow their technology ? ''.
She added ''
How can you celebrate when there is such widespread poverty in Gobarland, half
your children are malnourished, tens of millions of youth unemployed, there are
skyrocketing prices of food and other essential commodities, proper healthcare
and good education is unavailable to your masses, minorities are oppressed,
Muslims often lynched and beaten for not saying 'Jai Shri Ram', Christian
churches and homes burnt or vandalised, etc ? ''.
On hearing
this, a person in the gathering came to Alice and handed her a plate with a
heap of gobar on it and a bottle full of gomutra, and said '' Eat and drink
this, and stop talking nonsense ''.
Alice threw
away the plate and bottle in disgust, at which people started throwing gobar
and gomutra on her, with which she was soon drenched. They then started
throwing rotten eggs and stones at her, and Alice ran for her life, with the
crowd chasing her.
She
screamed, and this woke her up, and she then realised she had been dreaming.
