A Netizen's review

IT is said that you begin the New Year determined to bring into practice the resolutions that remained on paper the last year. The end of the year is never considered a good time to start anything new because it doesn't have the momentum to last.

Interestingly but thankfully, the same did not apply to the daily dose which Mr. Vijay Kumar began on the 1st of December ten years ago. It continues to grow, prosper and at times go off track a bit but nonetheless manages to chug along.

As the writer always mentions every time he crosses a landmark episode he is thankful to the government for keeping him in circulation and readers for lapping his writings which is so very true. If it is not a notification that any of the ministries of the government then the tribunals and courts that provide the dope for DDT. Over the years DDT has crossed the milestones of 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 episodes and in another fortnight would also cross another level of 2500. Also thanks to the almighty for bestowing the author with the energy and the health to dish out the DDT dish day in and day out. A cold, cough, viral fever and a few broken bones, some bent, some extra sweetness in the blood did not deter him from coming out with his usual plate of DDT.

I remember my school canteen fellow Murugan who kept on feeding me all those years, some days with an idli wada sambar, dosa chutney and other south indian delicacies, vada pav and days when he was unwell with toast butter or an omelet bread. Never did it happen that the food that I devoured did not tickle my taste buds – for after all it was Murugan who prepared it.

The point is that the reader never ever knew or was made to know that he was ill or suffering from a severe backache or anything more terrible for he was after all concerned with his daily dose. Concerned is that oft repeated word in bold which never misses to make a mark in DDT. A study by me threw up interesting figures – the word ‘concerned' was the star attraction in nearly 33% of DDTs that have come out till date, out of which on 31% occasions it was placed incorrectly by the powers that be and only on the other 2% occasions they got it right – that is the officers concerned!

DDT also was the author's space and we could get an insight into the author's family; the influential with whom he had had a photo-op session in the past; amongst them the late PV Narasimha Rao, the late Khushwant Singh, to name a few. Because the photos were presented as evidence I never had a reason to doubt the authenticity of the claims made because photoshop those days was unheard of! We could also know what the author's wife had to say about the budget, the budget dream of the author and many other interesting anecdotes from his life. What did all this have to do with the daily dose of taxation, one may say, but then taxation is a boring subject and making it interesting is his forte. Those mails received from some real netizens (I always think some are imaginary) add flavor to the episodes and were as if I had this question and the netizen asked it and I got an answer. The cartoons which appeared in DDT brought a smile on our faces and we hope that they will come back after a sabbatical.

Getting an entry into the Limca book of records thrice is only the beginning for there is no award as yet born which can measure the service that DDT renders to its fans.

DDT has evolved from being what I thought was self-centric on the rarest occasions to an all-encompassing one in the years that have gone by.

I know that there are many out there in the virtual world who take a peekaboo at DDT before they visit any other column on the portal simply because they are too lazy to dig out all the information by visiting hundreds of other sites or publications but have something polished and edible for consumption and ruminate. And one more thing, it is free!

Perhaps this is the reason that DDT which was once upon a time on the RHS side of the home page panel now occupies the prime slot on the home page.

That apart, I learnt a bit of English grammar, interesting and useful sentence construction techniques, the plane that refused to respect the runway and ran away with 160 lives, Latin terms, legal jargon, court rulings from India and around the world, bit of taxation in other countries, leading legal luminaries and miscellany like what is the meaning of obscene, the Australian case where the employee sought deduction from his income on the money spent on the call girl, Kautilya quotes, whether having a prostitute for a client be allowed as business expenditure; quote by investment guru Marc Faber that the only way to keep money in US is to spend on prostitutes and beer since those were the only products still produced in US and he was doing his part!

For me DDT is like my blackberry hub, all things at one place and I am ever so grateful for the same.

What astonishes me even after ten years is the razor sharp memory of the author who takes me back to the DDT episodes which were written many many years ago and I know that no google search can outmatch this grey cell memory search.

I am told that many Chefs who dish out the notifications, Circulars, instructions from the North block kitchen are unhappy at times with the criticism that DDT serves but isn't it a learning experience for all of us. We learn from our mistakes but relish others mistakes! Let them remember that DDT is no Tax god and they too can criticize, lambast or serve a volley of abuses, through mails, of course, and I remember DDT having corrected itself at times and also carrying these mails to set the record straight. We were never born perfect for if we were that perfect we would not be on this planet called Earth but in the other universe.

I too am not always happy with what is mentioned in DDT, I have a difference of opinion, some days the dish is bland, some days I think it is insensitive but that does not make me dump it altogether.

It's like the R K Laxman's cartoon in TOI that appeared for many decades, now it is not, for he is 93 now and GOD wanted him to stop. I miss the common man but I remember him always.

My prayer to the Lord is to let him do a few more thousand DDTs till I grow older.