1) The author and his friends took the wrong train class in Mumbai and were fined nearly Rs. 1800 for the mistake. They bargained with the stationmaster who reduced the fine. 2) In 2011, the author and friends supported the anti-corruption movement but the author notes the hypocrisy since they participated in small-scale corruption. 3) Corruption is prevalent in India due to a mindset that small instances are acceptable. However, these small instances aggregate to large sums draining public funds, similar to biomagnification in environmental studies. Lasting change requires following ideals of integrity and transparency in both public and personal lives.

1. THE ROT RUNS DEEP
If you folks are not too busy with the mundane matters of your life, let me recount to you a personal
anecdote. I and five of my friends were travelling aboard the ghastly, crowded to the hilt Mumbai
local train. For all of us, it was only our second tryst with the much talked about lifeline of the
Maximum City. Surprisingly, the compartment was not as crowded as we had expected it to be and
two of us even managed to attain a seat for ourselves, nothing short of a miracle in a Mumbai local.
Then one fine station in between, a vociferous fellow, with an urgency in his stride, asked my friend
standing near the door to show him his ticket. And immediately asked him to step down from the
train along with all those who were travelling with him. We mounted down, confused more than
petrified. Then it came to our knowledge that we had purchased a second class ticket and boarded
the first class instead. Mind you sirs, we are not that cheap. It was just that we were new to this
system of local trains and didn’t even know that a distinction of class existed here too. I for a
moment did start getting the ‘Mahatma Gandhi in a South African train’ feel. But then truthful,
agonizing tales of bad luck don’t sell in front of our ruthless government employees. A mistake had
been committed, unknowingly or not, and punitive action was imminent. We were led into a small
office and told by the stationmaster that each one of us had incurred a fine of Rs.291 and after doing
some simple multiplication he asked us to shell out close to 1800 bucks. You don’t get points for
guessing the reaction of college students on a trip being asked to suddenly shell out 300 bucks each,
for an absolutely unintentional fault. A simple way out could have been to pay the requisite fine, ask
the concerned official to cut a receipt and go out scot free. But we Indians are supreme masters at
the art of pleading and making the sorriest emotive faces in times of distress. Please sir, understand
our situation, we are students from another city, unaware of the rules, exempt us one last time,
mistake wont be repeated ever again...blah blah blah. The official, showing a stern exterior at that
moment, actually wanted this to happen. Then, he started his master act. Students in a new city;
from a reputed college; look decent-let’s cut the fine by Rs. 600. Still we plead. Official moved to the
limits of sympathy. Let’s further cut it down by Rs.300. Hand me 900 bucks and go relax. Eh!sorry
but since I am doing a favour for you I cannot cut an official receipt. I suppose you understand my
limitations. We were moved to tears at the benevolence of the great railway official. Truly humanity
was still alive in this cut throat world. Here are 900 rupees. Thank you so much sir. And there go 900
bucks into the fat pocket of the stationmaster.
Rewind to April 2011. The streets of New Delhi. Outrage against corruption at an unprecedented
level. Hazare, Kejriwal and Bedi national icons. Lokpal and ombudsman-words on every tongue. And
amongst the vehement anti corruption supporters were the 6 of us-6 bright graduates of IIT wishing
to make a social impact and change the nation by emancipating it from the biggest social evil of
corruption. Rather the true emancipation this country needs is from the clutches of facades and
hypocrisy.
Counter retaliations begin at my allegations. Bring them on sir, I will answer you simultaneously. You
say this is nothing compared to the 900 Crore 2G, 3G and CWG scams that have tainted our political
class. I say it’s the mindset that matters. We are not provided access to that big a scale of viable
exploitation in our daily lives as the ministers are. Given the stacks of cash at their disposal, most of

2. us would have done the same because the concept of earning easy black money always appears very
attractive to us. Now you say even if the money hadn’t gone in the stationmaster’s pocket it would
have gone elsewhere to another government employee. As it is, how much of the taxpayer’s money
reaching the government is put to use for development purposes? Wow! such enlightened
arguments from Hazare supporters. Alright, Suresh Kalmadi from Tihar responds to that by saying,
accompanied of course by his evil grin, “If I had not taken the CWG money, Sheila Dikshit would have
taken away the loot. The taxpayer’s money would have been eventually misused.” You are very very
persistent I see. Now you argue that tid-bits of corruption are acceptable. It just should not reach
gargantuan levels.” I agree!I agree!” shouts Salman Khurshid from somewhere. “I only played foul
over a sum of 72 lakhs for my NGO and not 72 crores like those DMK money mafias. This much
should be acceptable, na!!” The point remains that it is not our headache to think that someone else
will eventually become a part of the loot even if we discharge our role dutifully.
I know, my dearest Argumentative Indian, that you are still not going to admit any shortcomings in
your case. Today you saved a minor amount of 150 bucks at a local station. Tomorrow you will
misuse 15000 rupees of the institute fund with the justification that it is the fund will be eaten up by
greedy professors. The day after, when you become an IAS officer, you will embezzle 15 Lakhs
arguing that the next IAS officer posted here would definitely accept this bribe, so the corruption
won’t be stopped by this one act of yours. And then when you are laid back on that padded chair of
an MP, you will accept 15 crores as a very minor sum necessary for a sarkari afsar’s chai nashta. And
of course if you don’t get the privileges of becoming the elected representatives of your institute,
state or country, you will come out wearing” I Am Anna” caps and carry on with minor irregularities
in personal lives while protesting against huge scams. I see, sir, you are really simmering with anger.
How dare I throw such baseless allegations at you! I apologize if anything personal was said and will
end your misery shortly, but not before a message of mine.
Corruption as an evil pervades the mindset of the people of this country. They believe a little bit of
upar-neeche doesn’t affect anyone and is an acceptable thing. But people fail to realize that every
personal upar-neeche at different levels of hierarchy, from the clerk outside the office to the Prime
Minister, agglomerates to huge amounts, thereby draining the exchequer. The food chain
effect(biomagnification) if you folks remember some environmental studies from school. And we,
yes sir, you and me, provide fodder to this vicious food chain by taking the easy way out. Yes, it is the
responsibility of the legislature to run a transparent public system and yes, it is the fundamental
right of the masses to protest when the legislature fails to do so, but at the same time it is
imperative that people believe and follow what they are fighting for. And presently, I personally
believe that the ideals of integrity and transparency that the people are raising their voices for are
not followed in their personal lives, in the most case. Time for a reality check, ladies and gentlemen.
The rot runs deep.