What do we do about Parliament?

If you’re as annoyed as I am about the opposition parties (well, mainly the BJP) causing frequent disruptions in Parliament, here’s information that will make your hair turn as white as snow sooner than it takes to make Maggi noodles. If you already have snowy hair, be warned: the shock may make it fall out in clumps. And please be seated when you read this, baithjaayen, baithjaayen, please baithjaayen, in case you keel over. 

I browsed through Google-search and discovered that each hour of running the House costs about Rs 25 lakh and each day (if we go by an eight-hour session average) costs a staggering Rs 2 crore. Yes, that’s Rs 2 crore lost on days when no business is transacted — heck, that’s our precious tax money going down the drain! BJP netas can shout as loudly as they want about leakages in the PDS et cetera, but, my my, you won’t hear a squeak out of the hypocrites about the money wasted by their frequent disruptions.

Let’s face facts — so long as the BJP is not in power, it will not let Parliament function. Why should our nation suffer just because their netas are still angry and upset because we didn’t vote for them? Also, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that BJP netas prefer to debate on TV so that their mummies, daddies and babies can see them looking terribly important with make up on.

The way I see it, the BJP is never going to come back to power — particularly not with NarendraModi as their PM hopeful. The RSS may love him, bigots (who are his fans mainly because of the nasty 2002 riots) may worship him, but as for the rest of India — the only chair we’d like to see him on is a comfortable deck chair in a retirement home.

I think we can safely assume that Parliament will never function — never ever, till the BJP is wiped off India’s political firmament. Tsk, what a waste of a grand old building and prime real estate — I really don’t see why we should waste it. 

So here’s my proposition— let’s just shut down Parliament (and the losses it incurs) and use the property to do other useful things that bring in some badly needed money. Take a look at just a few options: 

N  Turn it into a cultural centre with each state getting equal representation. Performances can be held in the well of the house (such a wonderful change from all that screaming and shouting), and offices of MPs can be converted into state handicraft centres. Better still, we know how heavily subsidized the canteen at Parliament is, so once it’s open to the public, visitors can enjoy a vegthali at Rs 12.30, a non- vegthali at Rs 22, and fish curry and rice at Rs 13, among other delicious things. Hell, we’ll never weep or make bad jokes over rising onion prices again, that’s for sure. 

N Or, how about turning the well of the house into a boxing or wrestling ring? Acrimonious TV hosts can be hired as referees. We all know exactly how impartial they actually are, so we can have great fun watching Times Now&Headlines Today referees delivering judgements that are vastly different from NDTV and CNN-IBN referees. 

N  Turn it into a special School for Insults: People will learn how to say nasty things about each other in a sophisticated manner without using unparliamentary language. Imagine the vast sums of money the nation would earn if we made some of our netasenrol in this school. Modi, for example, would learn to his amazement that cheap remarks like referring to MP ShashiTharoor’s wife as a Rs.50 crore girlfriend, equating riot victims to crushed puppies, calling the PM a night watchman and members of the ruling party termites are terribly uncivilized and do not give him the statesman-like stature he so desperately
yearns for.

Oh yes, there are lots of interesting things we can do to earn money from Parliament. But hush — do not mention my plans to any politician from any party. You know how greedy they are — the minute they hear that Parliament may be shut down, they’ll get their real estate buddies/fronts into the act and, before we know it, Parliament will turn into a gigantic shopping mall!