Nation Celebrates as Parliament passes Garbage Bill

November 8th, 2008
from our New Delhi correspondent

Diwali came again to India this year, when, hardly a fortnight after the capital New Delhi was deluged with the debris from the record amount of firecrackers burst this year, the Parliament passed, with miraculous speed, what has been termed as the Garbage Bill. Under the provisions of this landmark legislative move, every citizen can now pay for their regular ration of Roti, Kapda and Makaan (literally - Indian breads, Cloth and Building) with the garbage accumulated during the month. This prompted patriotic citizens from all over the country to quickly turn off their T.V. sets and start bursting firecrackers again and then sweeping the streets in a frantic bid to accumulate garbage. It is expected that about 50 kiloquintals (approx. 50,000 kgs) of paper collected from firecrackers burst in the last one month will be used to pay for groceries in the state of Madhya Pradesh alone, thus giving the term paper money a whole new definition.

Little Chintu happily lights a sparkler to collect "galbej"

Speaking at a hastily misorganized press conference where members of major news networks like NDTV, Aaj Tak and BBC were not included, the newly appointed Minister for Public Excretory Affairs, Mr. Ramnivas Baaswan beamed into non-existent cameras and vowed to bring accountability to the nation's garbage disposal systems. He said that it was sad that in the 125 years of India's independence (sic) we had lost such a huge quantity of domestic waste. He believes that the average Indian household will be able to save around Rs. 3000 (roughly US $ 60) per month by using garbage instead of other acceptable currency. He hoped that this saving would be fed back into the system by creating more garbage.

Meanwhile, members of the not-so-extreme Left parties staged a rally outside the press conference to protest this move. Their spokeswoman, Samta Sukhijee, was quick to mention that while the members of the Left had not voted against the bill, the rally was to underscore the fact that the Left believes in maintaining tradition. "Cholbe nai" was her response to whether such rallies would impede democratic process, thus establishing her fluent command of Bangla. There was no comment from the Home Ministry on whether a legal injunction was being sought on the rally.

In an related incident, our parliamentary statistician was admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital following a paroxysm brought on by observing that this was the first time since Independence more than 500 members were present in the Lok Sabha at the time of the vote, and also the first time that more than 500 members passed a bill in the very first hearing.