Rail Budget 2022: A talk show with Ghālib and Shakespeare

 

Anchor: Welcome Mr. Ghālib and Mr. Shakespeare to this session on Rail Budget 2022. Since I have no words to speak about your greatness, May I request you to introduce yourselves!

 

Ghālib: My introduction?

Pūchhte haiñ vo ki Ghālib kaun hai

koī   batlāo   ki  ham  batlā.eñ   kyā

(Although Ghālib, the passionate lover, is well-known, the beloved teasingly asks as to who Ghālib is and the former now asks the gathering rhetorically to advise him on a possible reply)

 

Anchor: And you, sire, what’s your name and…

 

Shakespeare: Let me take a leaf out of my creation, the most moving love story of all time, when Juliet said to Romeo, “..What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet. So Shakespeare would, were he not William called…”

 

Anchor: Sir, the PM GatiShakti framework, world-class modern infrastructure and logistics synergy among different modes of movement– both of people and goods. By the way gati means speed and shakti means force or power so the power of speed…

 

Ghālib: Raftār or speed is a relative, an abstruse concept. Remember,

Har qadam dūrī-e-manzil hai numāyāñ mujh se

merī  raftār  se  bhāge   hai  bayābāñ  mujh  se

(dūrī-e-manzil: distance of the destination, numāyāñ: conspicuous, visible, raftār: speed, bayābāñ: wilderness. To the extent that I move forward, just that much the destination keeps moving away from me; the speed with which I travel is also the speed of the wilderness fleeing ahead of me.) 

 

Anchor: Sir, my question was…

 

Ghālib: Ok, OK, you want a practical assessment. Consider this, these budget-walas are in bekhudi, confused,

Chaltā huuñ thoḌī duur har ik tez-rau ke saath

pahchāntā  nahīñ  huuñ  abhī  rāhbar  ko maiñ

(tez-rau: fast speed, rāhbar: guide, leader. Short distances I walk with everyone who moves rapidly, I know not yet who the guide is.)

 

Anchor: Shakespeare sir, I think you are better placed to reply…

 

Shakespeare: What speed are your FM and this chap Gaulib talking about? I wish my horse moved as fast as their tongues and it was as tireless. Have you not read As You Like It? I had Benedick put Beatrice in a spot, by stating clearly, “I would my horse had the speed of your tongue and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God’s name. I have done.”

 

Anchor: Sir, moving on, multimodal connectivity between mass urban transport and railway stations will be facilitated on priority. Design of…

 

Shakespeare: Connectivity? Dear Mr. Anchor, always have your words and thoughts connected. Even that murderer I created knew this in the play Hamlet, did Claudius not say “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go."?

 

Anchor: Chāchā, this bard is befuddled. You should…

 

Ghālib: Angrez hai, nādaan hai. Connectivity has its own perils, janāb Anchor,

Khatar hai rishta-e-ulfat  rag-e-gardan na ho jaave

ġhurūr-e-dostī aafat hai tū  dushman na  ho jaave

(Khatar: risk, rishta-e-ulfat: relationship of love, rag-e-gardan: vein of, noose around,  the neck, ġhurūr-e-dostī: pride of friendship. There is a danger that the connectivity, or the thread, of affection may turn into a vein, or a noose, round one’s neck, that one may become proud of having won indulgence of the beloved and this misplaced pride may make her one’s enemy)

 

Anchor: Mirza, answer something seriously please. Railways will develop efficient logistics services for small farmers and enterprises, integrating Postal and Railways networks to provide seamless solutions…

 

Ghālib: Wah! This FM lady, she does not eat onions but her thinking is sharper than them. Post office and trains at the same station. So qāsid, the messenger and messages will go by a train, fast.

Qāsid ke aate aate ḳhat ik aur likh rakhūñ

maiñ jāntā huuñ jo vo likheñge javāb meñ

(ḳhat: letter. Let me keep another letter ready before the fast-moving messenger arrives, I know what they would have written in reply)

 

Shakespeare: What does he know about messengers, this Gaulib? In my plays, a messenger is ubiquitous, an insignificant character but appearing from nowhere, a message is used as a dramatic device to convey to the audience a lot of what is off-stage and yet very central to the goings on. So, my messengers can make very effective use of trains now.

 

Anchor: Sire, you miss the point. Anyway, how about the announcement of ‘One Station-One Product’ concept to help local businesses & supply chains.

 

Shakespeare:  Selling a product is something I know so much about, like I made Rosalind, speaking as Ganymede in As You Like IT, “…For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can; you are not for all markets…”

 

Ghālib: This bard miyān speaks all gibberish. ‘One Station-One Product’ confirms our belief in unity of existence, vahdat-ul-vujuud, the doctrine that, in material universe all beings are manifestations of God. So, my ignorant friend, we have divinity within us,

Na thā kuchh to ḳhudā thā kuchh na hotā to ḳhudā hotā

Duboyā  mujh  ko  hone  ne  na  hotā  maiñ  to  kyā hotā

(God was present when it was all void, God would still be there if it would all be nothing. My existence has drowned me, what would it be if I did not exist, because I am within him and he is within me)

 

Anchor: I am yet to get a straight answer. At least, give me a reaction on prideful self-reliance. Atmanirbhar Bharat and 2,000 km of network to be brought under Kavach, the indigenous technology for safety.

 

Ghālib: Too late for prideful self-reliance.

Arz-e-niyāz-e-ishq  ke   qābil   nahīñ   rahā

jis dil pe naaz thā mujhe vo dil nahīñ rahā

(Arz-e-niyāz-e-ishq: supplication for the blessings of love, qābil: deserving able, capable, naaz: elegance, pride. My heart is now incapable of voicing lovelorn longings, a heart which did me proud of yore is no longer up to it.)

Shakespeare: Well, à la Olivia in Twelfth Night, as explained by Fabian, your PM is harping on prideful self-reliance “…only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valor, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver…”

 

Anchor: You make fun of Atmanirbhar but consider this, four hundred new-generation Vande Bharat trains…with great aesthetics and riding experience for passengers …  

 

Shakespeare: A beautiful train, a very fast train, “She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is a woman, therefore to be won”, my own Suffolk in Henry VI, Part 1, and like Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’ll “put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.” and Antonio in the Tempest, “…Travelers ne’er did lie, Though fools at home condemn ’em.”

 

Ghālib: These angrez fellows have caused me so much trouble and now I have to listen about beauty from them,! Me?

Fursat-e-kārobār-e-shauq kise

zauq-e-nazzāra-e-jamāl kahāñ

(Fursat-e-kārobār-e-shauq: leisurely time for the engagement in love, zauq-e-nazzāra-e-jamāl: seeking pleasure from the sight of beauty. Who has the leisure and the inclination to indulge in passion and romance? Where is that taste in the pleasure of the sight of grace and beauty?

 

Shakespeare: Oh, you loser, there you go again, "Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eys of men without an orator"

 

Anchor: Enough! The last question, William, about the spendthrift ways of railways, their precarious financial position and yet their party goes on stronger than ever…

 

Shakespeare: Quiet, do not try to be holier than thou, hark unto Sir Toby in Twelfth Night, “…Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

Ghālib: Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad? (What would a monkey know about the taste of ginger?) Have you ever had Old Tom, your own Angrezi product? I doubt.
Qarz kī piite the mai lekin samajhte the ki haañ

rañg     lāvegī    hamārī      fāqa-mastī   ek    din

(fāqa-mastī: cheerfulness in starvation. I used to drink wine on borrowed money, in the belief that my profligacy would bring me prosperity)

Anchor: OK, your closing remark about presentation of the budget in the parliament.

Shakespeare: As I said, had you read As You Like It, you would know from Jaques, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time, like this Seetharaman,  plays many parts.”

Ghālib: You, BhalaHilao, you cannot shake even a dagger. Listen to me, 

Bāzīcha-e-atfāl  hai  duniyā   mire  aage
hotā hai shab-o-roz tamāshā mire aage

(bāzīcha-e-atfāl: children’s play, shab-o-roz: night and day, tamasha: exhibition,  spectacle.  The world is a children's toy, a plaything for the immature young, and all this budget/shudget of the world is, in my view, a mere meaningless spectacle.)

 

Anchor: I cannot deal with these mad poets, back to studio...