In the late 15th century, an anonymous playwright wrote Everyman, widely billed as the world’s greatest morality play of all time, in which the gentle Aam admi, visited by sinister Death, is saved only by his Good Deeds after his Pride, Beauty, Strength, Discretion and Five Wits have all deserted him.  

What Good Deeds do you have against your name over the past twelve months? I could give you a multiple-choice list: (a) electing Narendra Modi as prime minister; (b) paying your taxes in full and on time; (c) using a new broom to clean the street outside your home and, even better, the neighbourhood you live in; (d) paying for all your purchases against ‘pukka’ receipts and not with a surreptitious wad of cash; (e) helping a blind woman cross the street instead of nearly running her over with your brutish SUV; (f) if you are a businessman, paying off your huge bank loans on schedule so you are not labeled a ‘willful defaulter’, thus preventing a host of deserving smaller businesses from borrowing money; (g) practising your religion quietly and privately in your home instead of wondering which god the other 1,251,999,999 Indians are communing with …. I could go on.  

But it is time for a reckoning after a heavy political year. First, we had the run-up, then the campaign, then we were assailed by election after election, opinion polls and exit polls, victors and losers, victims and poseurs, bombast and bandobast, voter turnouts and talking-head burnouts. 

Partly inspired by David Letterman, who is retiring from CBS’s Late Show later in 2015, I decided to draw up my own Top Ten list for the new year. I’m sure you will have your own ideas, and this should hopefully trigger a fun competition. So here goes: 

S.U.T.A .: Our prime minister has an inexhaustible store of acronyms; on Monday he told a ‘Make in India’ workshop the government is caught in ABCD: Avoid, Bypass, Confuse, Delay, and should start driving on a new ROAD: Responsibility, Ownership, Accountability, Discipline. So, SUTA please: Show Us the Action.

Switch on your indicator when you want to change lanes or sides: Driving on new roads is a pleasurable experience. We have been hearing about more muscular policing on the crime and terrorism fronts across the nation, but what about our Alpha driving habits? A recent survey showed 99 per cent of Indian drivers do not believe in signaling a change in lanes, even on super-fast highways. Signaling changes also apply to the turncoats in politics, civil society, and the media -please do give us a signal when you switch to the majoritarian side.

‘Makeover in India’: The prime minister says Make in India has a catchline: Zero Defect, Zero Effect. We know that RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan was not too excited about making in India the other day and was promptly slapped down by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. But Modi has it right: we need a makeover in quality manufacturing if we want to be an export powerhouse, and we need to care about environmental degradation. Every time a foreign brand starts to make in India, quality deteriorates. We should not cut corners or skimp on costs.

A ‘corruption-mukt Bharat’: Lots of talk about good governance, but what about corruption? Last year Modi said the UPA government was ‘addicted’ to corruption and after he took office vowed tough steps to root out graft. So far, we have not seen a single spectacular example of a big head rolling over corruption. Bribe-takers and bribe-givers may have become slightly more cautious, but what we need is evidence that the government is serious about punishing dishonesty.

‘Your problem will be fixed in 24 working hours’: This is usually prefaced by an infuriating Hum aapko bataana chahenge’ (we will have you know, to translate it bluntly) when you have a problem with a service provider, or a product you purchased malfunctions. After-sales service stinks in India. Our skill-set shortage is so acute, chances are the plumber or electrician you summon is untrained, will start work only at noon, take a long lunch break and create a fresh problem. We need thousands of technical training institutes tomorrow.

There’s been a lot of sweeping, now let’s have the reforms: In Greek mythology, Tantalus always had something he desired forever out of reach, which is why rumours of swift, wide-ranging reforms by our government are ‘tantalising’. There are signs that Jaitley wants to give the economy a big booster shot on February 28-without having to author another ordinance, like the government did to bypass parliament on insurance and land acquisition. Our breath is bated.

Make our cities walkable: Nearly no Indian city has wide sidewalks and pleasant boulevards for us citizens to walk down. Our ‘footpaths’ are buried under debris and encroachments or pocked with open manholes or roadwork ditches. This is a shocking situation as we urbanise at breakneck speed. Indians walk very little because there is nowhere to walk, and this shas serious implications for their health. Not that the fumes from ostensibly ‘Eurocompliant’ automobiles leave any air to breathe either.

Build hundreds of thousands of playgrounds for our children: We love to talk about our young nation, but the new government shows few signs of providing minimum recreational facilities in our cities. Playgrounds in New York City sport signs that say, ‘No adults except in the company of a child’. We need to give our young the space and the facilities to play and exercise. And who knows we might even start to win more than the odd Olympic medal.

Introduce compulsory national service for all 18-year-old Indians: This is going to be a controversial one, but one way to channel all the pent-up energy in our vast population of late teens is to channel it into productive activity either in uniform, or in learning new, practical skills that will complement a university education. A ‘gap year’ could even lead to great career decisions and teach our young the value of getting their hands dirty. Remember Modi asking the nation’s mothers to pay more attention to their sons in his Independence Day speech, to rein in crimes against women? National service could drill in some much-needed discipline.

Let’s get a life: It is appalling that the capital of the world’s fourth-largest economy does not have a single world-class concert hall, or a performing-arts centre. The only culture the National Capital Region sees occurs in scattered locations that are decades old. Ditto for most other major cities. Indie musicians rue the fact that corporate sponsorship of events has thinned alarmingly over the past few years, although more than 700 bands of passionate musicians try to survive with day jobs and sporadic gigs. Classical music, were it not for SPIC-MACAY or events like the Margazhi festival in Chennai, would have withered away. This government, with all its zeal for Sanskrit and Indian-ness, could do a lot more for music, theatre and literature. Something for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to debate at its Karyakarta Shibir (workers’ camp) this weekend in Ahmedabad.

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