Who took my beef?

It was a long weekend some years from now. Airline tickets were crazy as usual. The airline counters at Bombay airport snaked around in circles like a satellite image of a threatening cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. It’s been more than an hour and passengers were getting impatient.
     ‘Which city?’, the bald guy ahead of me asked. 
     ‘Cochin,’ I replied rather disinterested to start a conversation. 
     ‘Dying to eat beef, right?,’ he said with a broad smile. I was not surprised at his guess; it was rather an easy guess though. It was common knowledge that Beef was available only in Kerala and banned all over India.

     ‘I am off to Calcutta. Fish is still not banned there’, he revealed his plan. 
     ‘In fact there was an offer from Orissa State Tourism on special packages for unmarried couples to spend weekends in the state without the fear of arrest,’ he said and pulled out a few pamphlets.

     ‘Karnataka Tourism board’s offer tops all others. They target Keralites with liquor coupons and all roads and rail/airport stations are witnessing long queues every weekend,’ he said. 
     By then I had reached the airline counter. The airline staff asked me to sign an undertaking that I was not carrying any liquor or pork to the state. Brochures on restricted items to each state were displayed. Beef, Pork, Liquor, Knee length dress, Unmarried couples – the list was growing every week. 

The Prime Minister continued not to acknowledge any of this in his Radio shows which was now persuasively forced into mobile phones through MKB App. His office has now even started to tweet in Swahili and Aramaic. He continued his Madison Square show in more remote corners of the globe and had by now over taken Aishwarya Rai’s record of consecutive annual appearance at Cannes. 
Life is more complicated these days. I buy genetically modified beef that smells like paneer when cooked, so that my neighbours don’t lynch me to death. 
     ‘Sir, here is your boarding pass. Since you have not preferred your seat based on caste preference, I have tried my best to offer you a seat next to an atheist,’ she smiled and folded her hands.

My phone beeped. It was a tweet. Lalit Modi’s 13006th tweet on the IPL scandal from UK. Life continued for him and others. Swiss banks continued to be gate keepers.