Kejriwal’s #Odds-Even formula is meant to trap only you, everybody else in Delhi is a VVIP or knows one

Now that everyone has stopped rolling on the carpet with mirth over the odds-even concept of culling traffic, let’s see why it is destined to being stillborn. At the very outset, there are too many of us who are far too important to worry about ‘common man rules’, so that means 30 percent of the cars will be exempt from the order because someone knows someone else. Between politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, CEOs and their families, and the rich and powerful, they will get a green sticker and no one will stop them. All those who belong to political party cadres and fly random flags will naturally not be affected in this category. Neither will sarpanches, panches, semi-panches and other sundry Khap types. Farmers with families perched on tractors will also be exempted. [caption id=“attachment_2491896” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] The police will be delighted at this windfall and money will be made faster than the clicking of the turnstile at an India-Pakistan T20 match, which, incidentally, it is not happening either. Cops giving challans and defaulters fighting with the cops, and making calls to ‘you-know-who’ (jaanta nahin hain hum kaun hain?) will block traffic every few feet and make the whole free-flow exercise academic. Getting the challans cancelled will grow into a cottage industry. We will soon have offices in every locality and people going to pay fines will be permitted to break the ‘not-your-day’ rule in a delightful contradiction. Cancellation of fines on recommendations from the PMO, CMO, commissioner of police and chief secretary etc. will become such a major activity that it will be included as a career option under the UPSC. The IAS will become a second choice. As a result, the number of defaulters who will get away under this new employment initiative will account for another 20 percent of those not supposed to be on the road. Since everyone in Delhi is world famous and has urgent business this sense of urgency will manifest itself in thousands of emergencies each day for which special dispensation will be granted. Between weddings, funerals, illnesses, genuine hassles and cooked up  dire situations we can easily eliminate another 15 percent from the list. To show we are a modern hi-tech nation there will be an online form for obtaining the permission. Those who have more than one car but all are either evens or odds in number will register a Public Interest Litigation in court and get a stay order. Pretty daft you look with three cars thumbing a lift. Of the 35 press left on a given day, with Delhi having more drivers on ‘dooty’ than cars a minimum of 10 percent will blame their drivers as they do for murder, hit and run and other such mundane chores. ‘Told him not to take the car, the man cannot read, what can we do, not our fault. Is it Tuesday, oh I thought it was Monday,silly me?’ Like with greasepaint smeared on number plates to avoid radar detection everyone with clout (who hasn’t got it) will summon their ‘Mr Fix its’ to go obtain a false number plate so both odds and evens are available to them  and the underground ‘False Number Plate Depot’ (FNPD) will flourish and sell shares on the stock market. The media will write ‘PRESS’ on its vehicles (front and back) and who the hell will stop them? So will their mommies, daddies, wives, chachas and mamus. Since everyone is ‘media’ these days even if they are not, that will knock off another 15 percent, leaving us with a paltry 10 percent of the traffic for the given day. Of these, all necessary vehicles like ambulances, school buses, usual toxic passenger fleets, delivery vans, fire engines, military and para military personnel, public support services and cabbies who have connections and union protection that is politically-backed will reduce the ‘off-roaders’ by another five percent. Of the four percent left, 3.9 percent will be balanced out by the increase in police patrol vehicles needed to implement the scheme and of the 0.1 percent remaining a fresh allocation will be given to those who are empowered to do the checking and maintain the CCTV grid that will monitor defaulters because if the system goes down ha ha that will be fun. So that will leave around 500 cars that are not exempt from the rule. This will make a huge difference to our dirty capital and Arvind Kejriwal will put up massive posters celebrating the success of the scheme and become a hero. Uh-oh, error noticed. Of these, 499 cars will make up the entourage of VIP cavalcades ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ from airport to office to save the world. That will leave only your car. Dammit, if you don’t have clout, no party affiliation and no relatives in the press, you deserve to be caught.