Treasure Trove Of All Wisdom

INDIA THAT IS BHARAT

 Satiricus is deeply disappointed. He knows that India is perpetually in danger of becoming Bharat, but he has taken comfort in the fact that there is always a Gandhi to save it. So he was naturally happy to read in the papers the other day that, to quote, “in perhaps the strongest push yet for bringing Priyanka Gandhi (not Vadra) to the forefront of the Congress” senior party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi has rather suddenly remembered Rajiv Gandhi telling him about daughter Priyanka’s political aptitude even as a teenager. “Rajiv Gandhi told me something about this in 1990”, that is, nearly 25 years ago, said Dwivedi.

But did not everybody know this 25 years ago? Why, Satiricus recalls every Congress courtier of those happy old days praising Priyanka as the teenage treasure trove of all wisdom in the world. Perhaps what then happened was that the said teenager realised she was no more a child, and the child’s play of saving India better be left to little Rahul Baba. After all, that was the family business, and it would safely continue in the family without fear of a hostile takeover. But with the shadow of that hostile takeover looming large and dark, would not two Gandhis have been better than one? Unfortunately and disappointingly, that is not going to be, for it has been clarified for the benefit of confused cusses like yours truly that Priyanka has herself chosen to limit her in-born aptitude for politics plus her acclaimed wisdom to “just managing the family fief of Rae Bareli, Amethi and Rahul’s political affairs.” Pity! Now all we secular Indians can do is to hope that sooner rather than later Priyanka’s children would get interested in this child’s play.

At the same time, despite being a non-Congress nitwit Satiricus cannot help noticing the insidious implications of Dwivedi’s statement, which the mean-minded media has pointedly mentioned. For it wrote: “Any talk of Priyanka’s coming into politics undercuts Rahul’s fledging leadership”. It even wretchedly remarks, “His remarks are seen….as a vote of low confidence in Rahul”. This is preposterous. Has not leader after leader after Congress leader (including the present President of India) vociferously certified that Rahul Baba has all the qualities needed for a leader of the country and its government? Oh well, the Congress party is a delightful democracy in which one general secretary can say one thing, another general secretary can say quite another thing, and the party president can deny both.

Another foul feature of Dwivedi’s observation is the noticeable—even nasty—absence of the ritually fulsome praise of Priyanka. In fact it borders on faint praise, which is the literary equivalent of a left-handed compliment. Does that mean this Congress leader is covertly in cahoots with Minister Jairam Ramesh who said the other day that “performance must replace parikram” in the Congress! Good God! Does the Hon’ble Minister know what he is talking about? In Sanskrit parikramā means going round an idol as a mark of reverence, and in journalese it has been translated as sychofancy. That is terrible translation. For how can a devout Congressman’s hanging around the idolised Trinity be ridiculed as sychofancy? So in the considered opinion of Satiricus Jairam’s profanity calls for a fatwa on his head.

This would indeed be in the fitness of things in view of the splendid surge of Islamic secularism that is currently sweeping across the country. Naturally and rightly it is led by the righteous Rahul, who, after disdainfully thumbing his nose at election-time restraints, charged Modi, RSS & Co. with murdering everybody from Mahatma to Muslims. Then there is Mayavati who said it is up to UP Muslims to stop BJP in what a state minister once called Muslim Pradesh. Even for Kejriwal, the corruption-expert, corruption is not as important as secularism. And now, to cap it all, Shahi Imam Bukhari has called upon Muslims to vote Congress to save secularism. Could there be sweeter signals of the “Idea of India” developing from Darul-Horrid-Hindu-Harab into Darul-Ideal-Islam?

Wowing Species

Satiricus is worried. Is the editor going to replace him? True, Satiricus is bird-brained, but has the editor found a bird branier than Satiricus? This is no joke. There is actually a species of crow on some islands near the coast of Australia that has wowed scientists with its intelligence, and now it is reported that these crows cannot only pass the test set in an Aesop fable but can also solve a puzzle as well as the average seven-year-old child. So now the future of this columnist depends on whether it is okay for the editor if Satiricus is only as bird-brained as a seven-year-old child or whether he should recruit a crow for this column.