Reality is slightly off-color sometimes. Close to 40,000 young men and women scrambled for 48 jobs advertised by the state handicrafts department in Kashmir recently. The posts are all low-grade or Class-IV in officialese. Media reports say that among the applicants are B.Tech degree holders. That is like rocket scientists applying for horticulture jobs. To grow carrots, perhaps.
Meantime at the JK cricket association (JKCA) millions have been swindled by fat cats, reports suggest. It is a league of extraordinary gentlemen. There is a fellow called Ehsan Mirza, neat and bearded. There is Aslam Goni, a NC crony from Doda. Then there is Farooq Abdullah, cheeks the color of almond blossom. So who created the bogus accounts to siphon off sackfulls of money from the BCCI, we may never know.
Keeping in with our first family, Kashmir’s youth National Conference (NC) found a unique way to celebrate Omar Abdullah’s birthday recently. One wannabe politician, youth president of some district and other NC supporters cut a 42 Kg cake (according to the age of the Chief Minister) and fed the cake to Omar’s poster. Excited eye witnesses told media that the ‘young’ CM’s picture actually appeared to eat chunks of the cake. The rest was distributed to party workers.
Celebrations apart, more than 600,000 young men and women in Kashmir, according to government’s own records, are educated with no jobs. The figures are updated to end-2011. Contrast with the yearly expenditure on the security et al of the silly Durbar move. I reckon it is a staggering Rs 2 billion (200 crores). In the last 20 years alone, that is Rs 20 billion (2000 crores). How many jobs is that?
Makes one wonder, did Omar, surrounded by his yes men, none of whom has ever been bitten by one of Srinagar's 99,000 dogs, virtually teleport himself to Kathua to lick at bits of the 42 Kg cake. He was last heard frenetically scouting for his 'cake eating' picture on social media.
PS: The cake was baked in a local store called 'Vanity'.
© Sameer
