The election, the results, the new Government are all in and the Liberal Hour is behind us. We are all much like Bertie Wooster asking for the reviver in the morning after. There is no escaping the real world around us. The Other India is there. Chairing a lecture where one of our brightest was laying down the facts and consequences of discrimination, the lights went out in India's fastest growing globally linked metro. My instinctive reaction on the public address system was that the State Electricity Board doesn't discriminate on the blackout got instant sympathetic approval.

Going on a holiday to the backwaters and from god's own country to Goa, I find in railway and bus stations, on highways and even airports some tempers run short as crowds run into limited access and can't afford the available free market price.

It is worse when we want admission. And for god's sake, don't fall sick. But most of my compatriots are used to this and look on amusedly at those who lose tempers. Pampered as I always am on account of some local friend, I feel that that is resignedly resented. My banter on a teacher treated specially is vaguely resented.

It would be nice to get back to reality. The first thing is to eschew the hyperbole. High growth, we are all inclusive now; efficient reform is all great as objectives and nations need to dream. But that we had the worst electricity generation in the last three decades, highways infrastructure remained slowest growing, the predictions of a seven per cent growth last year and five-and-a-half this year have not been achieved, and government investment has collapsed. If we decide to fight back tooth and nail to get back, our share of the global cake are realities. Perish the thought that you can keep on living as if there is no tomorrow.

... contd.