Nerve Endings Firing Away

What is it about our Indian government that refuses to butt out of our personal lives? The moron that is our Union Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss who had earlier tried to ban smoking from movies now wants (health) guidelines for people working in the BPO and IT industry [via]. In an earlier statement, he even generalized people working in the BPO section as those who “want to make a fast buck”, “party the rest of the time” after working “half the day” and indulge in “excessive smoking and drinking”. Do I sense a tinge of jealousy on the part of the Minister? How can you party and drink excessive when as a growing adolescent in socialist India I couldn’t even afford a sutta and a quarter after slogging my ass off?

NASSCOM rightly put him down by stating the obvious that sometimes fails to get into the thick skulls of our mai-baap government – “Personal lifestyle of adults is for them to choose as long as it is within the law…we do not think it is for companies or the government to interfere in the personal life of adult Indians.” Ain’t that clear as day? I understand that liberalization probably hasn’t gone down well with folks who live in the past and cannot bear to see the loss of control over our lives. Probably we just need to wait it out and let that generation die out.