ulta pulta
Silent mode
Jaspal Bhatti 

Anna Hazare decided to observe a maun vrat. Had Anna been a woman, it would have been next to impossible. Politician Digvijay Singh said that Anna had gone on a maun vrat to avoid responding to uneasy questions, regarding Prashant Bhushan and Yeddiruppa. Whatever the case may be, maun vrat is a powerful tool to ease your own tension and pass it on to others.

Our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh already uses this tool extensively and rarely says anything unless someone crosses the limits of decency. Our late Prime Minister Narasimha Rao also seemed to enjoy the silent mode more than the speech mode. I think everybody should be legally entitled to 20 days of maun vrat in a year.

Imagine what will happen if you go to a complaint centre to complaint about some problem, and the staff asks you to come next week, saying their boss is observing silence. He can listen to your complaint but will not say anything. A thief or a murderer in a police station can always communicate with gestures, "You can’t force me to speak, I am on a maun vrat." A lecturer who hasn’t prepared his lecture will have the legal right to remain silent in classroom.

My wife is so fond of pointing out my faults that she says there are grammatical errors even in my silence.

HOME