Of course, I knew it was fake. Five-star resorts deliberately keep their private beaches unclean to attract foreign tourists who are sick and tired of their clean, sanitised surroundings. They love sunbathing in the middle of cracked plastic bottles and dog poop.

Anyhow, this Dr Sarpuriya does not belong to our New India. He keeps a framed picture of Gandhi in his clinic. On his shelves are books by Nehru, Mao Ze Dong and that satanic character called Karl Marx. He calls himself a Gandhian. What a joke!

I was back into the battle in no time before my phone rang. Just as I was about to pick the call, it got disconnected. I checked the ‘missed call’ and it was from my wife. Why was she giving me missed calls? I wondered. But then, I called her back. She said there were some daily rations she needed and if I could pick them up on my way back.

I asked her why she gave me a missed call and she screamed, “You are so busy in following Our Great Leader that you are not aware of what’s going on. Jio is no longer free, dude!”

I kept the phone down as very few of us can antagonise our respective home ministers. Anyway, when I reached the main market, I offloaded another three bags filled with trash at the vat there, before stepping inside the bank.

I pleaded the manager to make an exception for me as I had to buy rations and pay my child’s school fees. The manager also runs the local shakha which I regularly attend for more than six years now. I thought that would make things easy.

The conversation went somewhat like this:

“Sir, how do you expect a family to survive on Rs 25,000 for six months?”

“It’s not just you. Every depositor is facing these issues.”

“Sir, I have been a tax-payer. This is my hard-earned money. I have never faced such a situation before. Okay, once may be, when Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were withdrawn by Our Great Leader. My parents had never faced it even during the reign of the evil opposition party.”

“You have to be patient, man. We have to endure this much hardship to make our country and our future stronger. What is your hardship as compared to that of our jawans who are standing in Siachen?

“Can’t you see, the earlier governments had left the country in such a condition that even Our Great Leader has to go and collect garbage? Look at the bright side. Since you have stopped using your two-wheeler, you have lost quite a bit of weight.”