In Faculty of Law, Delhi University, whenever there is a function or a program or a conference, flowering pots magically appear. These pots are nowhere to be seen on ordinary days. But on these 'special' days, they seem to be everywhere around the venue. Later, I got to know that the University has a Garden Committee and pots can be requisitioned from the University gardens for these 'special' days.
I am sure this is true for other educational institutes. It's even true for our homes. When the guests are about to come, everything is super special.
I live close to Chhatrasal Stadium in Delhi. Every year, on/around Independence Day there is a function in the Stadium and the Chief Minister graces the occasion with his presence. Independence Day is just around the corner and like Faculty of Law, ad-hoc preparations are in full swing.
Numerous saplings have been planted in the road dividers that lead upto the stadium. A wanter tanker comes almost every evening to water these saplings. I don't know which magical saplings they have planted that would yield into beanstalks by the weekend. I am not even sure if monsoon is the best time to plant saplings. Perhaps, the aim is not to sustain the plants, but to only fix them till 15th August. Maybe like the requisitioned pots, they will also go away or worse die an neglected death. The water tankers have come only now, they don't come throughout the year.
Water tanker watering the saplings
The pavements and dividers are being painted. The fact that the pavements are broken and that people urinate on those pavements is conveniently ignored. The charade of cleanliness has to be maintained. If and when, the pavements are ever repaired, the paint job will have to be redone. But hey, the guests are already on their way!
Jurisdictionally speaking, the road on which I live comes within the jurisdiction of the Public Works Department (PWD), which comes under the Government of Delhi.
When the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power, a lot of us thought that change was really here. That this sort of shoddy and ad-hoc work would finally reduce, if not, end. I can't speak for others, but I am surely disappointed. This is a subtle type of VIP culture. Do ordinary citizens not deserve plants? Do they not deserve clean pavements? Sadly, this is the same culture that other political parties perpetuate.
I wonder, when we will get independence from this. Certainly not until the Aam Aadmi remains content with this model.