Honestly, this is a realization that has dawned on me very recently. I must admit that every time I heard someone claiming that the Governments in power were neglecting minorities or giving them a raw deal, I used to smirk.

I mean come on, at the cost of being labeled a minority, thousands of people, sorry hundreds of thousands of people were walking away with ridiculous sops and bonuses. And this was true of religion, caste and creed. In business, in industry, anything. In fact it is common knowledge that being branded one of the majority groups was a disadvantage. No perks. No tax write offs. No reservations. No relaxations. No nothing. You were privileged to be in the majority and therefore you had to pay the price…the distribution of your hard earned wealth to the so called impoverished minorities.

But what happened in the last few days made me take a fresh look at the concept of Minorities and the reality involved. You see, by a simple mathematical process or statistic called electoral calculations, we, the Urban Affluent have been reduced to a minority.

We don’t matter to a politician. We don’t count for a Government. Simply because we can’t do anything that can shake them from their position. So we are good to be exploited but not found deserving of being rewarded.

Free Power…not for us. It’s the farmers who deserve it. But sorry, we have to pay for the facility. Both in terms of the cost of power and the shortage of the supply. Subsidized rice, price controlled groceries, sorry, you are in wrong line. That’s only for the ‘poor’…who maintain their status at our cost.

And by convincing many of us that this was a benign thing to do, we have been subjected to this injustice for years. Perhaps there was some truth in the concept too. Let’s give a few seats in the colleges to the minorities at reduced costs. Fine. But then after college, after technically they have passed the same examination, do we have a level playing field? Oh no! Reservations continue till the end. Maybe even up to funeral formalities. Sorry Sir…you will have to wait for your turn…a minority member has to be cremated first!

We took all this in bovine servitude. But guys, don’t you think this has gone on for too long? And we have been taken too much for granted? Haven’t we become the Minority that is being ignored and insulted, and isn’t it time for some good old ‘Minority’ Perks?

And I am reacting to the recent outbursts of administrative insanity. The Urban Affluent have rules that are applicable only to them. The Rural Majority can drink and drive, can smoke and sing, can stay out till the wee hours of the morning and so on, but we of the Urban Affluent Minority are being shackled in chains of control.

We can’t smoke inside a covered area. We can’t drink and drive back home. Our children have age bars when it comes to everything from drinking, to smoking to marriages and even to sex. The Majority on the other hand is rife with teenagers who drink, who conceive, and children who marry, with no one to complain. And if there is some amount of exploitation, is it us the Urban Affluent who is the perpetrator…No! Not always. The Rural Majority is as guilty of the crimes of Rapes, Murders and so on as their Urban Minority counterparts.

Similarly of course the people subjecting the Urban Affluent to mindless torture are also members of the same tribe. So you have a Police Chief who lives in Jubilee Hills and forces his way into exclusive club memberships coming down heavily on say, speeding youngsters…until it’s one of his progeny that is involved. Or the Excise Commissioner who thinks nothing of a foreign junket for a petty favor suddenly deciding that his contribution to society can be a tying down of women. By branding them as loose, moral deficient hussies who need their hormones to be kept in check.

Oh come on, there is a limit to what the Urban Affluent can take. For too long, we have ben impoverished in the name of democracy. For too long have we been made to offer our necks at the guillotine of sacrifices. For too long have we been made to shut up.

Wake up my friends. And let’s shake these idiots out of their reverie. Because if we don’t…my God! Even to think of the consequences, frightens me…but alas! I am part of a silent, deemed impotent minority!