Democracy
is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it
good and hard. - H.L. Mencken
There’s
another election around the corner. It is an interesting time and I was
planning not to endorse anyone. Not that it matters. In the USA, influential
people will endorse one of the candidates, which could get the candidate some
votes. Given my influence, or lack thereof, I usually decide to sit tight and enjoy
the show.
Things
suddenly changed a few days ago. The rant gods smiled at me slyly. And I bowed
and crawled and did the complex hand movements involving middle fingers to
appease them. Because…
The Big
Jumbo Party of all decided to bring in a guy boasting the most slap-worthy
cheek south of the Vindhyas as their candidate in Trivandrum. As you all know,
the Big Jumbo Party, led by the Grand Poobah, is the biggest party of all in
the universe. If you have a mobile phone and you look at its keypad at a
particular angle, you get enrolled as a member of that party. They had built up
a humongous fan base in Trivandrum through that technique and has been planning
to enter the legislature leveraging that base.
Until now,
what was preventing them from capturing the State was the fact that “they party
with a difference”. Unlike the other parties in Kerala who party with booze,
babes and beef, they party with milk (A2 milk from vedic cows), banana and
honey. This never went down well with the locals, who enjoy their tipple with
onion fry garnished with beef shreds.
It was all
going to be different this time around. Many people had finally ploughed deep
into their heart and found the latent bigotry buried in there, and were slowly
getting comfortable with it - justifying it, defending it and at times ready to
kill for it. This was going to be the coming out party (with A2 milk and all, of
course).
Then
Sreesanth happened. After meticulously going through their huge fan base in
Trivandrum, the Big Jumbo Party found that none of their local payalukal stood a
chance. In fact, not many from the erstwhile Travancore state (also called
Pappanavan’s land) stood a frikkin chance, as they are commonly considered as
scoundrels. So, cocksure of themselves, they have decided to import good, decent
people, mainly from Kochi and beyond, to represent us poor suckers.
Now, this
is not new and you shouldn’t blame them for taking a cue from the other groupings
who have tried and succeeded with outsiders for long. The old, used-to-be-grand
party brought an UN super commando all the way from New York and we all fell
for it. Before that, the left had the long-haired dude from the north, and recently
another guy (who miserably lost) who, though technically from Trivandrum, could’ve
been from Mars.
To be sure,
the pickings are slim for all parties. There is a sickening parade of jaded
celebrities on all sides. You really don’t want to endorse any one. Maybe, we deserve to get it good and hard. Still, I
had to rant against this man-boy, who brings only one image to mind - of a
crying face -, and the sound of a slap that reverberated from Kasaragod to
Kaliyikkavila. For #$%’s sake, he is not even the best cricketer the state has
produced. That is going to be Sanju Samson (OK, I'm obviously biased here). So, at the polling booth, look at
the other options, a NOTA perhaps, or a name that sounds like the person can
say, “Woaa, thanna, thanna”.
P.S. He, the Kochi lad, is
going to make Kerala into a Gujarat apparently. A quick google study threw up
the following numbers.
Kerala Gujarat
Poverty rate 7.05 16.63
Literacy rate (female) 93.91
(91) 79.31
(70)
Sex ratio 1084 918
HDI 0.825
0.599
GDP $58bn
$110bn
Pop. 3.3cr
6.0cr
Households w/o toilets 5% 43%
Infant mortality 12% 44%
Life expectancy 74 64.1
:) Always worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteWell said!Couldn't agree more...it's simply the case of trespassers are fielded as candidates
DeleteThanks Jyothi
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