The Great Indian Comedy Circus

I have never understood why many Indians believe that the West is the best. I know I’d die of a broken heart if I had to live away from this country for over a month. It’s not the food I’d miss (I could just as well cook it myself if push comes to shove), it’s the live entertainment that even the best comedy acts in the US and UK cannot match.

Take the ‘BJP wallahs’ jumping up and down like cartoon characters, demanding the prime minister’s resignation every other second. They do it over the most foolish things, like, say, if Sushma Swaraj finds a baby cockroach in her samosa in Parliament. They cannot expect us to ever take them seriously, can they? I strongly recommend that they use their time wisely and read the illuminating fable about the boy who cried wolf. The link is attached, in case a scowling BJPwallah is reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

We have to thank the BJP yet again, for putting pronounced sneers and smirks on our faces in May. Remember their self-righteous howls for a Jail Bharo Andolan last month? And how they abruptly shut up when a shocking exposé on Varun Gandhi flashed on our TV screens, revealing how he coerced witnesses to turn hostile in his nasty hate-speech case, among other creepy things. Not a squeak out of them yet, as I type this. They’re scared, I suppose, that we would expect them to do the right thing and put Varun Gandhi (their precious flesh and blood link to the dynasty they pretend to abhor) in jail. Shameless hypocrisy like this can be terribly amusing.

The nation is still giggling over a goat that was discovered in Pawan Kumar Bansal’s garden a week after the jobs-for-sale racket in the railways was exposed. It is alleged that he sacrificed the goat to save his political career, but that very same evening the (now former) Union railways minister was sacrificed. To rephrase TS Eliot, “This is the way his world ends, not with a bang but a baaaaaa.” The only consolation is, he must have had a pretty good dinner that night with biryani and succulent kebabs on the menu.

Not a squeak out of them yet, as I type this. They’re scared, I suppose, that we would expect them to do the right thing and put Varun Gandhi (their precious flesh and blood link to the dynasty they pretend to abhor) in jail. Shameless hypocrisy like this can be terribly amusing

While this spectacle was playing live on our TV screens, an alert citizen remembered that former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa had done a similar black magic thingie a few years ago, and conducted a religious ritual with a donkey to come back to power. Going by his debacle in the recent Karnataka elections, it appears that the ghost of the donkey has taken possession of his soul. He’s been made to look like a complete ass and the nation’s anti-superstition brigade is going hee haw.

I must dwell for a moment on all the cultural trash created by our netas. Godawful paintings by chief ministers sell for crores. Books of ‘sensitive’ poems have been written by the most insensitive netas ever (Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi top the list) that apple-polishers buy and then quickly sell to raddiwallahs for a rupee (yes, raddiwallas know the real value of that poetry). Okay, so all these alleged works of art are rubbish but at least they make us laugh at sycophants and our talent-less netas. 

These days, we’re also grinning like jackasses because judges in the Supreme Court have got into the act too! They’ve astonished us by spouting pretty decent poetry, calling the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) a caged parrot. Thereafter, the CBI chaps have been loudly singing like canaries to prove that they’re anything but parrots. The Indian media’s favourite poet, Prasoon Joshi, must be kicking himself for not writing those memorable lines himself.  

A few days later, the Bengaluru bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) grimly called the Intelligence Bureau (IB) a chicken that can’t fly. They thoughtfully added that the IB is like an Augean Stable as well — not surprising, because with all that chicken poop lying around, it’s bound to be filthy and stinky. As a result of which, the nation is waiting with bated breath for TV anchors to ask a question we’re all dying to know the answer to: Did they mean caged chickens or jungli chickens?

So now you know why I will never ever leave India. Why would I want to give up my seat at the Great Indian Comedy Circus?