UP yours!

What is the product of a 6 hour drive on national highways laden with potholes, mixed with insensitive truck drivers and lack of street lamps? A grumpy author who is forced to contemplate on the mecca of Indian politics, and more importantly, the sorry state of affairs resulting from a desire to anglicize while the ground realities are quite de-anglicized. For example, it is well known that the monsoons arrive at this time of the year every time, yet the PWD will sit on their hands till the public comes out and raises a hue over the dug up roads or tardy water supply. I am just getting started.

Firstly, major props to the UP government for letting me know that is is doing all it can to further the cause of Sarvjana hitaye, sarvajana sukhaye. At least on paper (and giant hoarding the size of famished fields in big cities). While the maxim translates to "For the welfare and good of all", it is a mere facade to the real maxim when one reads between the lines. That crime was inbred in UP's bloodline was well established before the recent wave of rape, abduction, and killings started making national headlines. Though the government has been crying foul over the timing of the crime wave merely a year before the all important state assembly elections next year, the signs have been obvious for the last 10 years. As UP slipped from one form of ill-governance to the other under craftily sewn coalitions and a single party rule under the mask of an unified social experiment, the state moved from one form of shoddy bureaucracy to the other. The results are obvious.

It is telling that an English medium school still compounds a high premium on the masses of the hinterland. Education has gone down the drain while the number of colleges have sprouted up like fungi all over the state. UP boasts of a large number of engineering colleges, all private in nature of course since the central government still considers higher education in this country as a step child, with lack of basic infrastructure leaving the fate of the unfortunate students of these institutions hanging in balance. The obfuscation over the motives of the government couldn't have been any more obvious when, on one hand, farmers are being targeted in the name of development, and on the other, primary schools in villages also function as temporary resting places for baraats. A drive up the road would present generic pretty faces trying to figure out how to work a computer, inviting you to become a part of their confused fraternity. Of all the people in this world, a vegetable shop owner proudly presented his Eddie Guerrerro T-shirt (VIVA LA RAZZA). Indeed, the world has caught up with UP, but UP hasn't caught up with the world yet. Migration to the urban centers has resulted in an overwhelming majority of people residing in slums, while villages are getting deserted for the lack of workforce and improved irrigation facilities. MNREGA has clearly not benefited the large section of our workforce which is neither technically challenged nor educated enough to land a decent job. Other social schemes will amount to nothing unless government hiring speed up keeping pace with the expanding youth population.

Perhaps this is true for most states in our country. Educational levels are not where a country pushing for superpower status would hope them to be. Still, that smiling face on billboards and a T-shirt commemorating a great wrestler from Mexico gives me some hope. Hope that the desire of matching steps with the developed world would not remain an improbable dream for the residents of UP. That inward migration would be a reality somewhere down the line. Well, at least songs with English lyrics are becoming popular, and as many people want to watch Delhi Belly as those who raved to Dabangg. Huzzah!

Can somebody translate the spanish lyrics of this song for me?