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Once upon a time every human was given 24 hours of time every day for consumption. This was free of cost. No, really! Then we humans messed it up. We started selling and spending this time. We sold this time and called it work. We spent this time and called it leisure. Work paid us wages. We earned these wages so that we could buy stuff from other people. Stuff that they produced- as their work- out of their time that they were selling. Soon enough, we set up an economy. We then produced economists who confused first themselves and then all of us as to how we could best sell our time. Now time is not free. Spending of free time is the costliest human activity and leisure is the biggest industry. We also produced Government. Government does not produce anything.

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Everything has a cost. Nothing can be had or produced without cost. You have to either dig it out of the ground, or grow it or make it. You get to have something when you have paid the cost of producing it. How does someone get something for free? It does not mean that the free stuff was produced without cost. It just means that the person getting it did not incur the cost of producing it. And it also means that someone else who did incur the cost of producing it did not get paid for his work. One person cannot get stuff for free without someone else being deprived of what should be rightfully his.

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Now, you are being given food for free. Water for free. TV for free. Cycle for free. Electricity for free. Somebody is paying the cost. Who? Now, nothing is left to be given for free. Hence, it is decided that voters will be given time for free. Every deserving voter will be given six hours every day in addition to the 24 he already has- all free of cost. From where, you ask? From the 1440 minutes he already has, you dummy. Each of the 30 hours the  precious, deserving voter gets comprises 48 minutes.

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See magic. No hands!

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Umesh  Sharraf is an itinerant who is presently a government servant. He has taken up writing recently after having been at the receiving end from other writers all his life.