Head waiters at the secretariat!

Mittal is coming! During the last few days, the entire babudom and media world of Orissa was agog about his hyped up visit! Yesterday, our dear Papu was also sweating and getting nervy over the flight delay. None of these morons of course had his satphone number to call up and find out. Ultimately, there was relief when the steel baron in his plush jet touched down at the desolate local airport.

Our local netas and babus were salivating in happy anticipation since they knew that richie rich would not arrive with small change! What if the steel badshah decides to invest in a multi million tonne steel plant? Dispensing the usual red tape, they promptly declared him a state guest!

But I doubt if the wily Marwari was impressed with the blaring siren of the police escort and the local bureaucrats jumping up and down like jacks in the box to attend to his whims!

Thank god, nobody thought of checking him into our cockroach infested state guest house or made the momentous mistake of sending a state car to receive him! For the record we have a Contessa and a couple of faded white Maruti vans and rickety Ambassadors without ACs earmarked as state cars! Never know, the ride in the doddering Contessa might have impressed him as he would have thought that he was being honoured by a ride in an antique car! However, his help had ordered a swanky private car to ferry him.

Trust the babus to change colour like the proverbial chameleon! If you guys would have seen the way the tycoon was ushered into the Secretariat you would have thought that probably the missile man has resigned and this guy is the new Prez!

Do any of you guys remember the bad old days when businessmen were shooed out of the office of any self respecting sarkari babu? They were supposed to be cheats, ever ready to loot the public exchequer for sinful profits! A rich man was both despised and pilloried, blamed for everything from price rise to failure of monsoons!

At the height of the permit and quota raj, the babus loved grabbing the businessmen by their necks and tying them with up a maze of clearances and permissions. The poor sods needed a sarkari nod before they could even pee! Sorry for the history lesson, let me tell you more!

In this bloody sweltering heat and humidity, the Queen’s chief courtier who negotiates all his deals, was waiting at the ground floor to welcome the prized catch! Both the district collector and the police chief ushered him in like two head waiters at a fancy 5 star restaurant! One on the left and the other on right! It was a disgusting sight!

There is no need for the stupid babus to fall at his feet in supplication! If Mittal, the sharp nosed businessman wants to lay his claws on the richest iron ore deposits in the world, then he has to come here you idiots! There are few places in the world which have 65 % grade reserves. It is his need, not our fortune that he has flown down to do business. He is not here for charity!

And we also need to strike a good deal with him, not offer him captive iron ore mines at the niggardly Rs. 26 per tonne royalty rates like we did with Posco! But must say I have serious doubts, since the double faced Queen would happily fork out all our prime maal at a pittance; claiming that he stands committed to wiping out Orissa’s poverty!

Ah, the bloody fraud! I think he shall be reborn as a famished bullock for at least seven lives and pull a Oriya peasant’s plough through unyielding soil to atone for all the gargantuan sins committed on the trusting Oriyas!

The Queen in his supreme ignorance had his usual bored face while he sat through the presentation made by the laptop savy CS, scarcely comprehending anything beyond the lovely pics! However, I did notice the worried look on his beefy face! He had nagging doubts if the chalu Marwadi would pay up in advance after seeing the plight of Posco and Tatas who are yet to get an inch of land! You see, the murga might flee without dropping the golden egg!

I wonder what the useless Paika, the Minister for Industries was doing at the meet ? Trying to impress upon the steelman and his cohorts that he was somebody important in the government? Ha Ha? Has he forgotten that he came to know about the Posco MOU only from the morning papers?

I was also amused to see the moronic minister for mines who has a perpetually lost look, eagerly bending forward, trying to make head or tail out of the Mittal’ utterances! The official fall guy’s two penny initials are sought after the file is complete, to wrap up the mining deals, nice and tidy! Heard that the mining lalas do not consider him worthy of even a courtesy call since the Queen’s office does the entire paperwork and decides the take as well!

What a relief after the baratis left! But guys, they sure forgot the bride! Shall I conduct a poll to find out who is the bride ?