TO HELL WITH BREAD AND WATER!

My friend Balu had always admired the genius of Sultan Mohamed Bin Tughlak. The utter direct simplicity of transferring the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, the modesty in hoping to cross the Himalayas and conquer Tibet, the fiscal brilliance in substituting leather pieces and paper for actual food are testimony to this.

Balu feels strongly that all our present ills could be solved if only some one like the Sultan took charge of our affairs.

Then it happened--Balu wanting to write an epic poem on Tughlak, and his stay in the Sultan's Mausoleum for two consecutive nights and his meeting the Sultan's spirit in counsel with the other great spirits of his courtiers and courtesans.

It was then that the Sultan's spirit assured my friend that he, the Tughlak, had never been really out of office and out of sheer love for his domains he has fully 'possessed' the key operations and operators down to the smallest village, let alone his erstwhile capital.

"Tell your friends that I and my shady cabinet are fully seized of the matter and we are in full possession. In fact we never ceased to be",

roared the Sultan. The Sultan spirit then revealed to my friend certain blue prints marked 'Top Secret' prepared by his cabinet for the efficient solution of some controversial problems affecting democracy.

"We have already revealed all this to the brilliant minds of those whom we have 'possessed'. So, there is no harm in telling your friends and set their troubled minds at rest",

he told Balu.

Here follows what the Sultan said in his own words:-

"Take the question of water supply. Now, we are receiving hundreds of nomynous, anonymous and synonymous letters about how villagers are quarrelling over village wells, townsmen over taps, and States over rivers. There is no sense of justice, equity and the fundamental right of all for equal water. Our legal department has pointed out the flaw in villagers using their own water. It is unconstitutional that some people drink well water, others Ganges water and others only Cauveri water and yet others drain water. This is absolute nonsense. We have also consulted our Cultural Committees and they say that water sums up a people. For instance, Ganges produces Hindi and Cauveri produces Mathematics. This again is wrong distribution. We have therefore immediately decided upon a plan to kill two birds with one stone. If fully implemented it might kill off everybody. thus radically removing danger of population explosion.

"Immediate measures are to be taken to collect all available water in the land by a system of canals leading to a central pool near our capital and redistributing it equally to every citizen in every corner of the land by another system of outlet canals. Water from every well, pond,river, rain, snow and even the sea will be pumped electronically along these canals. At our capital the water will be aerated, fumigated, incinerated and mixed with calories, vitamins, culture, multiple alphabets and multiplication tables, statistical charts and universally diverse philosophy. The whole will be centrifuged, suspended and delivered to each home in our domains through calibrated rubber tubes.

We have instructed that an immediate ordinance be issued that not a drop of water will be hidden by anyone and one will use water without its having passed through the approved canals. To obviate corruption and local influences we have asked that canals should be made to pass through unpredictable routes. For instance, water from a Mysore village will first go to Nagpur, then to the lock-master at Calcutta, meter-inspector at Madras and then speedily go to Delhi and come back through equally short channels. This also ensures that the water absorbs the different virtues of the soil, ideas and language of these places.

Law courts will be established at all suitable junctions to settle matters of corruption, anti-corruption, vigilance, surveillance,surcharge, affidavit, reclaim and counterclaim. An Omnibusman will be available at all depots who knows all about law,electricity, hydraulics, politics, religion and fiction. Super omnibusmen and anti-omnibusmen will also be made available. Fair-price pools will be opened for excess water.

Some people might stupidly object that there may not be enough water even to fill the canal beds and that money will be needed. It is foolish. Afterall that is how money is already being collected and redistributed and nobody seems to mind it. No true citizen minds even death if it is in the interests of democracy, equality, parity, purity and poverty and law as defined in Chameleonic Sections. Some fools, especially spirit Kuda bux, who is now without portfolio, says that not the seven oceans can fill our canal beds, nor all the coffers of the world fill our foolproof redistribution channels.

Money will be realised by a simple tax on the tax you would not have paid if there was no water before July 1954. This will be offset by a free gift of an umbrella to anyone who voluntarily surrenders water. This will prevent muddy feet and sore throats. Blackmarket will be prevented by prohibiting all selling and buying of umbrellas excepting by prior sanction from Centre and that through certified dealers who have one office only in Jambo City. Proformas of umbrella declaration and sale have been printed.

Anyway argument now is a political stunt by defeatists and pessimists. We understand that already orders have been placed for calibrated rubber tubes and nozzles, contracts placed for tunnels through hills and pipes to snow tops and even the super omnibus and anti-omnibusmen have been designated. The super omnibusmen will stand third to the left of the Chief of State at ceremonial functions and will be addressed His Omniscience, the Omnibus.

That covers everything. The appointment of engineers will be made, hereafter, by direct, single, non-verifiable vote from villages concerned with that section of canal. Our statisticians have already drawn up progress charts to indicate full water self-sufficiency by 11.42 A.M. 1st April 1978. These translated into an equitable mixture of all alphabets and syntax will be displayed in every nook and corner.

Another expert committee of ours has received anonymous petitions that it is most unjust that some provinces should have forests, while others have sand, thus affecting the principle of democratic equality before law and God. This indirectly relates to water supply and hence we have ordered that trees should be cut off at a steady rate from the jungly provinces and equal number planted in sandy States. Special type of trees will be imported which can equally cover all areas in equal time. Self-sufficiency in equal afforestation will be achieved by 7.15 P.M. of 14th March, 1987.

There will be too many questions of democracy and hence villagers have to be educated on principles of democracy. Hitherto they broke their heads over real water. Now they will affectionately murder one another to elect a man to preside over the water going out and hoped to come in rather than on stupid real water in the tumbler.

Well, there you are. Any questions? You can go without any doubts about our actual concern in your affairs. Don't look for us physically as we were in earthly life. We, the Tughlak, appear at all places in different shape, size, age and sex, and We also can be at different places at the same time. Right now We are in every village and mostly of course at our beloved Capital. My other name is simplicity. Submit any problem to me however simple, I shall complicate and compound it in the simplest manner possible in the shortest time. Else I am not I."

Balu had no question to ask. He came back greatly reassured.

"We are in safe hands, Thank God."

"We are to be no longer sleepless over the future of democratic equalism and multilingual legalism".

He exclaimed

"To Hell with Bread and Water"!

11/68