Letter to Sonia

Gurgaon, Sunday 21 March, 2010

Concerning: Request to correct erroneous spelling

Dear mam Sonjaji,

I am A humble but Proud citizen of India. My name: A. P. Dalit.

I have a humble request.

Every day I collect 125kgs of old Hindustan Times papers, perhaps you know that one. And each day with the money I earn from that activity, I buy me a fresh Hindustan Times. And because I am illiterate, every day I find myself a good man Arijit willing to tell me what's in the paper.
Because I have only one room in my hut, my six kids gather around us and they also listen to what is written in the paper. I thank you for allowing these papers to be published, as they are the only education I can give my kids.

Unfortunately I have to point you to an error which I think explains a lot which goes wrong in our beloved republic. So I asked the good man Arijitji to write this letter in my name, which is A.P. Dalit.

We often hear about big amounts of money spend to the "BACKWARD CLASSES" in many of the articles in the paper. And you must know, dear Sonjaji, every time I hear this word "BACKWARD" I look at my kids and think by myself: "Who are those 'backwards'? Who can they be talking 'bout?".

Sonjaji mam, when I look at my kids then I always see them being so very clever to be able to survive amidst the stinking sewages and the rich wastebelts that are left by the other peoples. But no mam, I cannot think of those good peoples allowing us to live here as being "backward", since they are far more succesfull in our beloved country than my family is. If it can't be them, who else could it be?

My kids are also intelligent enough to avoid falling in the numerous pits everywhere in our beautiful city. These life-threatening pits are left by the professional people working for you. Those pitwallahs too cannot be called "backward" as they all are earning a better salary than all members in my family together. It can't be them neither.

My kids are surprisingly healthy even when they take a daily bath in the Yamuna or any other waterpool that is available. Don't tell me "backward" refers to the industrywallahs using our rivers as sewage systems. That's impossible. They are too much clever, just as clever as the medical doctors and high profile staffmembers of the hospitals who are always able to cure the few diseases my kids still get from bathing. I just can't belief that you want to address those good healthwallahs.

My last thought was that perhaps you want to send some money to the kids of these pitwallahs, industrywallahs and healthwallahs in our esteemed society? I can understand that this would help the parents in buying them a good diploma in one of the outstanding private schools, so that they could escape being "backward".
I have to tell you, dear Soniaji mam, that I would never dare to call those kids "backwards". I think their parents would not like that. Perhaps even the admission fees to enter the good schools would be raised too high if the school administrations came to know that the kids were "backwards"!

Well, Sonjaji mam, I have thought about it, talked and discussed about it. And I have asked around about this word "backwards" and the people it could refer to. I've looked everywhere but nobody seems to know these peoples. I asked at least a thousands peoples: "Are you backward?". And their answer was indifferently: "How dare you? Go back where you belong." I could not find a single one!
I really have no clue which peoples are referred to with that word.

So very probably the reason why all your good money and intentions to help these "backward" peoples is not reaching them, is due to this sole and simple fact: BACKWARD peoples DON'T EXIST in our beloved Mother India.

With permission but I really think "BACKWARD" must be a typographical error which has lead to wasting a lot of money from the good and caring netas. Probably the typo is caused by the increasing use of computers in the production of our daily papers. And pardon me but I think it is used now unknowingly and unintentionally.

My dear Sonjaji mam -- I feel an urge to call you 'auntie' now, may I? --, I am humbly asking for nothing more than the correction of this word "BACKWARD" and replace it everywhere by what I think was the correct intended word to use: "BACKYARD".

I'm hoping to hear the good man Arijit speak out loud tomorrow: "10.000 crore are assigned to the "backYard peoples".

Dear Sonjaji mam, I'm gathering my kids, leave my hut and I will be waiting for you.

You know where.

Thanks in advance and till tomorrow ?

A.P. Dalit
Citizen of India