The fraud-father

He is intrepid. He doesnt fear the backlash of THE SYSTEM. He makes his own path to acquire treasures of unsurmountable amounts. He is arrogant. He stands his ground despite a billion people pitching for his down fall. He holds his own when the law holds him guilty. He has followers, in fact devotees, who are strongly behind him and would not betray him, come what may. He commits crime, felonies of unimaginable scale and yet roams freely, with a shameless audacity which strikes fear in the hearts of those who still believe in moral standards. In order to ensure that the incredible feats of some of the great citizens of this great country do not go unnoticed, I propose that we commence the FRAUD-FATHER award of achievement in the field of corruption.

For long it was considered to be a bane to be tagged as corrupt. The society banished you. A man with a blot of compromising on values to garner material wealth was an idea unacceptable and punishable by excommunication by everyone, near and dear ones included.

But better sense has prevailed over time. While earlier, being corrupt, even allegedly, was the criteria for punishment, it graduated to "getting caught" after taking bribes or tweaking the law for kickbacks or blatantly partisaning with any party(not just political party) for money. Over time, not getting caught became difficult . The Tehelka's, sting ops and phone cameras made life hell for this splendid species of morally challenged human beings. So the bar was raised to "get caught but do not accept" criteria. So we had people denying that the man in the picture or video was them when even a blind man could recognize them!

Today we have a situation where even after proofs of foul play, A.Raja gets an unprecedented welcome in his home state. A situation where the Supreme Court had to force the police to arrest Hasan Ali. A situation where no one has a clue about what happened to Devas Multimedia. So, now getting caught and denying is an idea of days bygone. Today, you accept you heinous crime and roar a challenge to the countrymen declaring with chutzpah-"Yes I did what I always have done..but what have you done till date and what will you do now?"

The suicide of Sadiq Batcha could not have come at a worse time for the government. As if the controversies already at hand were not enough, the mysterious death of a key accused in the humungous 2G scam just added fuel to fire. But how can a common man be sure that it was a suicide and not the covering of tracks by the other powerful people involved. This clearly means that people are covering their tracks by pruning any loose ends. And they, most probably, will get away with murder. But let us at least give these men, and other similar ones, their due share of lime light through FRAUD FATHER.

As a simple citizen of the country, the sheer magnitude of the 2G scam is fascinating to me, not shocking. The kind of numbers that our politicians, bureaucrats and other members of the system are conjuring up scams is leaving people awestruck. And hence, we have the FRAUD FATHER award to acknowledge the contribution of these fine gentlemen to the dreams of the common man in this country.

2G scam cranked up an incredible Rs. 176000 crore and I am sure, A. Raja would have been confident that he had all but conquered the title of the FRAUD-FATHER. Alas! That was not to be. An unknown, small-time ex-scientist of ISRO, Chandrashekhar beat him to glory by a whopping margin of approximately Rs. 24000 crores. Chandrashekhar broke the psychological barrier of Rs. 200000 crore by signing up a deal with ISRO, which should otherwise have been worth billions, but cost him peanuts.

Just when we thought that the ex ISRO man was going to be crowned the FRAUD-FATHER, another man staked a claim to the throne. It was a scrap dealer from Pune, Hasan Ali, whose scraps were worth Rs. 30,00000 crores!! The governments tax claims against the steed farm owner are Rs. 50000 crores. Now that is an outstanding achiever for sure because even a layman who can afford to do a simple math knows that these numbers are frighteningly large.

But these scams have once again arisen hope amongst the common man. If a scrap dealer, a simple ISRO scinetist and a man who rose from humble roots to Union Cabinet can achieve such incredible feats, so can all of us. We can dream, and we can dream big. Sky is the limit.

A tad compromise on principals here, a little tweaking of values there, an unabated thirst for money, an instilled greed of gargantuan scale, an innate ability to keep one's self above nation, a desire to have an inundated Swiss bank account, These are the hallmarks of a true FRAUD FATHER. All those who feel that they are a perfect blend of these qualities will surely make it big in this country today.

The awards shall be delayed for a little while because WIKILEAKS is providing us with some BREAKING NEWS every minute and may unearth some even more mind boggling numbers. Lets keep our fingers crossed.

May the BEST MAN win!