CM angry with red tape!

This news item in the newspaper today made me guffaw, and I couldn't help putting it up. Much irritated by the tardiness of bureaucrats pushing files around, which are badly slowing down her favourite schemes designed to make voters happy, our Chief Minister herself took to task some babus at a public meeting, asking (and that is how the headline reads in Bangla) 'How long are you going to keep things tied up in red tape?'

Isn't that what millions of long-suffering common citizens ask, looking up only to God for succour?

But think, do you imagine that it is only the bureaucracy's bad habits that are to blame? Isn't it a fact that lots and lots of people make a living (or at least a better living than their official salaries allow) only because the files move so slowly unless greased with speed money? Try getting something as humble as a driving licence renewed without engaging a tout! Now all those tens of thousands of touts are citizens as much as you and me, and they have aspirations just as we do, with no more honest and straightforward way to fulfill the same. So isn't it a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black?