The white elephant in the room

This country hasn’t got a single elephant in the room. It has, in fact, got whole herds of trumpeting pachyderms – which we choose to ignore for various reasons.

But first, let me be telling you about me myself, and all and all. Please be forgiving me for speaking not the English language full of correctlyness; I still am learning the vocalities of your good-looking verbal communication form. Sometimes I am still making Himalayan blunders when vernacularising my thoughts on paper also.

(There are plentiful of vagaries of the English written spelling, as we say in Hindi.)

I am *Knotta Gupta, a direct descendent of Roshan Mistari, son of Kadur Mistari Bakhsh, native of the village of Chajanlat, Dakhli, Post Office Domli, district of Jhelum.

Roshan Mistari, my forefather, who is now incomprehensible because of his departure from the land of the living, was helping the English Sahib Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson, D.S.O. when he was shooting the lions of Tsavo till they all died from it.

At that particular time, they were building a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya in 1898–99 also. As I am understanding it.

In this account of my veritable narrative, I shall be employing some of the words from the very literal translation of the Hindustani poem referred to on page 104 of Sahib Patterson’s book: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo (1907).

My incomprehensible forefather, Roshan Mistari, wrote:

“I, Roshan, came to this country of Africa, and did find it indeed a strange land; many rocks, mountains, and dense forests abounding in lions and leopards; also buffaloes, wolves, deer, rhinoceroses, elephants, camels, and all enemies of man; gorillas, ferocious monkeys that attack men, black baboons of giant size, spirits, and thousands of varieties of birds; wild horses, wild dogs, black snakes, and all animals that a hunter or sportsman could desire. The forests are so dark and dreadful that even the boldest warriors shrink from their awful depths.”

The above-standing is a paragraph, full of the goodliness, of what my incomprehensible forefather, Roshan Mistari, found in Africa.

But that is all in the bygone. Fortunately and providentially, my superlative relative, Roshan Mistari, did not populate this world long enough to be experiencing the overabundance of elephants that we have been having in South Africa at the present auspicious time.

There are numerous scores of lots of elephants in the room called the Republic of South Africa. I am telling you of one such.

The biggest killing machines on our roads are, without a doubt of its shadow, the taxis. Thousands of people are getting injured, maimed, killed, or worse, by taxis every year.

And they are allowed to drive like badmashes with no regard for the law. They do not pay taxes. They are a law unto themselves. I have yet to hear of just one case where an injured passenger from a taxi smash-up has been compensated for medical costs. Or has been paid for their funeral.

The passengers use the taxis – notwithstanding if the diver is drunk, drives recklessly, overloads the taxi, or if the taxi is unroadworthy.

But one of the biggest pachyderms in the room we are calling a rainbow country is this: There are no white taxi drivers. Why do we not be talk on the subject of the nonexistence of the white elephant in the room? Why?

I leave you with these perplexing thoughts from my incomprehensible forefather, Roshan Mistari:

Imagine if there were white elephants as taxi drivers. Imagine what would happen if a white elephant crashed his taxi, and injured or killed his passengers. Just this: He would be arrested immediately for murder, if not sooner. It would be world news. The politicians and unions would be up in arms. The white elephant would be accused of racism and non-compliance with the BEE and AA policies. The passengers would sue the skin off the white elephant’s back. He would have to pay all the medical and funeral costs. He would have to pay compensation to the families of the passengers. He would have to pay.

He would be a ruined white elephant for life. In a room where no one notices him. Or talks about this travesty of justice…

*Knotta Gupta – No relation to the skelms who landed a passenger plane chartered from India’s Jet Airways at South Africa’s high-security, main military base, Waterkloof Air Base. Also Knotta friend of that other embarrassing skelm, Zuma.