Lying on my bed pondering over the events of the day, I wondered about the great potential of this concept – ‘With Retrospective Effect’. Though it is used mostly in the government and its various agencies, it has an even greater utility for the world outside.
There have been certain high-profile cases related to taxation laws where this concept was used to settle Government’s rivalries with the Judiciary (and also to increase its revenues – one of them being pretty recent). Such actions though invariably become & remain controversial.
Why should it be a preserve only for taxation
laws? Our constitution bars any ex-post-facto criminal legislation but the
ocean of civil laws is open for us.
So the authorities also grabbed on this Eureka
moment and started exploring their options. The land authorities passed land
acquisition laws to acquire land with retrospective effect for various
projects. Where is the question of any dispute or any compensation if land is
already owned by the authorities (w.r.e.)?
A judge while deciding a divorce case annulled
the marriage and declared the man and the woman unmarried bachelors w.r.e. from
the day before their marriage. There was some confusion, however, on the fate
of the child. But if there was no marriage, there can’t be a child. So the
child simply doesn’t exist. Problem solved.
An enterprising politician suggested that we
should cancel the creation of Pakistan w.r.e. Another quipped that the British
colonization should be abrogated w.r.e. A third was thinking of going back to
the medieval ages and a fourth to the ancient, their specific agenda getting
lost in their own squabbles. But what a wonderful way of changing history;
having a pristine past with a clean slate.
A
philosopher picked up a hole in the story. Something is wrong. How can we
change our past? Won’t it affect our present and our future? And isn’t it the
stuff of sci-fi movies to go back in time and change the past, present &
future? Back to the future? Timer Machine? Have we developed a novel way of
time travel?
A bureaucrat explained that it is a pretty
simple thing, nothing like the time travel. It is all notional. It is all
virtual. It is simply not real. The past remains what it was. It is deemed not
to have existed. Just that. He would have explained in further detail had
somebody not asked what if his appointment in the service is deemed not to have
existed.
When it came to wiping the slate clean, some
people started taking it literally. And if the slate can be cleaned, it can be
re-dirtied also. I love you w.r.e. I don’t know you w.r.e. I changed the alarm
for today morning so that I can get up w.r.e. Beep Beep Beep. Yes that’s how my
alarm rings. You will fail if you don’t study w.r.e. Beep. Beep. Beep. OK again
my alarm rings. I have started dieting w.r.e. Beep Beep Beep. What’s wrong with
my alarm. Beep Beep Beep. Beep Beep Beep. Beep Beep Beep.
Many times I have wondered how I know in my dreams when the alarm will go off. So I get up and reach office. A letter was waiting at my desk. ‘You have been fired w.r.e.’.
