“What is it?” asks the pilot, as the airhostess enters the cockpit.

“Sir, a passenger has reported that he saw a flame of fire spurt out from the starboard engine!”

“Nonsense!” says the bearded pilot, “Come here, just look at all the instruments, none of them report anything amiss! Ask Amit, the copilot here! Any fire copilot?”

“None at all! None at all!” says the bald copilot, shaking his head then telling the airhostess to leave.

Well the passenger sees another flame of fire, and another, soon the other passengers notice, and very soon, despite the pilot and co-pilot objecting to these reactions by the passengers, the plane is seen from inside, engulfed in fire.

Not too dissimilar are the reactions of a government in a country when foreign agencies report or draw attention to disturbances in their country. The European Union Parliament on Wednesday adopted at its plenary session in France’s Strasbourg a joint motion by six political groups seeking decisive steps to end the ‘ethnic and religious violence’ in Manipur!

“Interference not acceptable!” shouts the government.

“Any fire in the engine Amit?” asks the pilot.

“No fire!” smiles the copilot as the plane cruises with its engine on fire.  

External checks and balances are needed to govern a country, because those checks and balances are the only way to keep a country above water and flying high.

And these glances at the engine can only be done by outside observers. Pilots looking at their instrument panel may see nothing amiss, but cannot disregard a call from a flight controller in an airport saying, ’your wheels haven’t descended for landing’ or from a passenger at the window who says, “I saw spouts of fire!”

These are warnings that tell us that all is not well in the state of Denmark as Shakespeare would say through Hamlet.

We don’t need a Hamlet here to tell us that an engine is on fire!

“Sir,” says the airhostess, entering the cockpit again, her face pale with fright, “The passengers are screaming for you to land the plane and put the fire out!”

“Which passengers?” asks Amit, the copilot.

“The ones near the window!”

“Remove them from their seats and strap them to the ground!” he shouts as the pilot grins.

“After that pull the blinds down in all the windows!” says the pilot, and the pilot and copilot guffaw and pat each other on the back as to the easy and clever way they feel they have solved the problem of the fire in the engine!

And then suddenly the plane begins it’s nosedive as passengers scream and airhostesses hold each other in fright, while the pilot and copilot shake their heads and realize too late, they have no idea what to do now..!

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