Wanted a 'Bharat Ratna'

The office of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is getting flooded with unsolicited recommendations from people all over India on who the next 'Bharat Ratna' should be. If you want, you may as well submit your recommendation!

As you know, 'Bharat Ratna' is our highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order". However, after Lata Mangeshkar and Ustad Bismillah Khan were awarded in 2001, no Indian has been found fit enough for the honor.

Now, each political party is vying for the award for their own hero referring to that last clause "public service of the highest order" (As you know, in India, all political leaders believe they are doing public service of no less than the highest order).

Advani started it for 'Vajpayee' and then Mayawati wants it for Kanshi Ram, Naveen Patnaik wants it for Biju Patnaik, Samajwadi Party for Mulayam Singh Yadav! Some are bringing in Ratan Tata's name presumably for his 'Tata Nano'! Some Bengalis want it for Jyoti Basu and some Tamils want it for Rajnikant!

Some cricket-crazy people are even talking about Tendulkar as a possible candidate (Haven't they seen 'Chak de India')?! ...And once Tendulkar gets it and establishes a claim for cricketers, you bet it, Kolkatans would fight for Ganguly and Bangalureans for Dravid. Thereafter the name of Bhajji aka Harbhajan Singh would arrive for his heroics in Australia! Jharkhand may soon claim the honor for their '20/20' World cup hero Mahendra Singh Dhoni. ..And yes! How can we dishonor the claim of Haryana for our 1983 world cup hero -- Kapil Dev! We can conveniently forget Dhyanchand or so many other Hockey players who gave us Olympic Gold medals and whose names we do not remember anyway....

Religions, Castes, Languages, Geographic barriers, Terrorism -- All failed to divide our nation. Now, it seems, the Nation's highest honor is all poised to succeed in doing just that!