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I woke up to full page advertisement of a larger than life picture of Amma splashed on the frontpage of news papers. My half-awake mind was trying to figure out why I was being subjected to her full frontal in Mumbai, maybe I had not really woken up. To be dreaming of her seemed even more alarming and that jolted me fully awake. It was a 15-25Cr splash done by her party in newspapers across India to celebrate it being in power for one year. It spoke of her achievements and promised people free rice, gold, mixer-grinders, laptops, cows, tigers etc. I read the list again to see if she was also giving out a 70-200mm Nikon lense that I have been thinking of buying. Clearly this government had no vision, imagine how good eveyones photographs would have been with it.

After solving all issues of hungry children, destitute farmers, poor roads, etc this amazing leader had now decided to focus on mixie-grinder, that last remaining thing on the agenda of any 3rd world Government. People seemed to have voted for her because she promised handing out gold to get their daughters married. No wonder her finance minister in his budget presentation referred to her as – “…embodiment of all the four virtues of an ideal ruler viz., courage, generosity, sagacity and zeal as enshrined in Thirukkural, the universal doctrine”. The leadership of North-Korea seems to have read the same chapter too. The thought of my tax money going as someone’s dowry seemes to make me partner in crime.

To be fair, this self destructive streak isnt just limited to the Sambhar-idli states, even the cowbelt chose the Behenji. She has outdone all that came before her and will come after her. Like a cruel joke, her favourate childhood toy, the elephant, now dot the landscape of the most impoverished land of India. These stone sculptures have seemingly been infused with the spirit of Dalit Pride, and thus have become untouchable, politically I mean – is there an irony there somewhere? So I guess we shouldn’t really care whether it costed us 60 Cr or 40,000 Cr (depending on whose version you hear), as long as the symbol of Dalit pride is intact. Seems like pride can substitute a meal in the cow belt.

But the best of the lot is the Didi of the east, the greatest embarrassment to the Bengali pride I am sure. Who in his or her right mind jails a poor humourless obscure professor for forwarding moronic cartoons (she claims that the word ‘vanish’ in the cartoon was a conspiracy to kill her… dafaq?!)? Who walks out of a live news show accusing a young girl of being a Maoist ? Or accuses a woman who has probably been raped, as a maoist conspiracy too ? Or on slightest provocation squeezes the neither regions of our old PM so hard that he seems to have lost his voice totally? The self destructive streak seems to be a common trait that WB shares with rest of India too – first they lived with the CPI(M) for the longest time, and then chose her over them.

I am not sure what to say to the guy who said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Democracy is a lot more entertaining than all others for sure. But when the whole democratic promise is reduced to one mixie grinder, we know that joke has gone a bit too far.