As I stood on the curb for my ride to work this morning, I could see the man sitting inside his Fortuner on the other side of the road, haggling with a street vendor selling flowers. I wasn't privy to their conversation (disagreements rather) of course, but whatever transpired between the two left the florist visibly upset, as he shouted after the SUV, fast disappearing into the oncoming flow of the Monday morning traffic.

The man got his flowers, but something about the exchange had left the vendor with a sullen face. I want to believe it was to do with the money, I might be wrong to make that assumption, but on the other hand, I might be more than right too.

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The incident left a bad taste in my mouth, and it got me thinking, “well, SUV dude, whatever that was, you're gonna have to pay for it elsewhere...you see, karma is a bitch”, but even as I said that to myself, I wasn't quite convinced by it.

You see, the man in the swanky SUV still got his flowers, and he'll put them to use for whatever purpose he bought them. By the end of it he'll be a happy man, but the poor vendor will have to make do with his share of money and (bad)luck for the day, and that seemed pretty unfair, presuming that the guy in the SUV could have easily spared a few more bucks to strike a fair deal.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that, I wasn't convinced (or ready) to wait for karma to take its own sweet time and bring the rich guy to justice. After all, we're a generation constantly petitioning for all things “instant”, so justice must also be meted out instantly in this case, right? Wrong. I had just witnessed the universe prove me wrong.

So, moral of the story, good things will still happen to bad people, and more often than not, karma will terribly fail to don the bitch face, when you most passionately want to see it unfurl.

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Did I just hear some protesting squirms coming from you? But hold your horses for a bit, I have a point to make here.

Have you heard of the maxim, “justice delayed is justice denied”? Well, I happen to come from that school of thought. Which means, I want to see justice get served ASAP. But this is India, the land of Gods, and it's also the land of the rich and the powerful. Most of all, it's a land ruled by the ever mighty patriarchy, which has a definite soft spot for the rich and powerful.

You know where that leads us, right? Take the ongoing Tanushree Dutta-Nana Patekar row that's got all the gossip mills across the country churning out updates day in and day out. That's one of the most recent examples to lead you to my point. 

While it's not proven whether Patekar is guilty or not, it cannot be denied that the reported incident obviously didn't cost him anything over the years, whereas Tanushree had to abandon her dreams and career, under the alleged threats and harassment being meted out to her by Patekar and his “powerful” friends.

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The same trope can be found in Salman Khan's (in)famous hit-and-run case, and we're all well aware of where the case led, and the outcome it bore for the actor. Nothing happened to him, obviously, his popularity, power or career! 

Be it Salman's charitable venture with 'Being Human' or Patekar's goodwill towards the farmers of Maharashtra, they seem to be able to hide their misdeeds well behind these moves. No, I am not disregarding the good they may have done for the needy, but I am saying that this sure does the job of covering up the mess they leave in their wake. For most people, it becomes enough to forgive and forget these men's bad deeds.

And this is the point their fans and defendants step in yapping about the “good” they have been doing for the people. For some strange (read stupid) reason, their outwardly “good deeds” seem to be enough for the lesser endowed people to believe in their “goodness”. 

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You may be interested to know that there's an entire research done on the psychology behind this move, and how people feel that by investing in good deeds, one is actually investing in good karma. You can check out the findings of the research here.

So, basically, whether I am looking at the guy in the SUV or Salman, or more recently Patekar and his antics, it seems more believable that even though karma is a bitch, good things will continue to happen to bad people, because apparently in the 21st century, you can't even trust karma to get its act right.