''Mayen yahan chaaaon mein kaddi ooo aur aap log doop mein kade o.''
The above was read out from a paper which had the above written not in the Devnagiri, but the English script. After all, Sonia Gandhi was the one delivering the speech. And as Mrs. S. Gandhi sympathised with the poor villagers as they supposedly had to endure the sun, the drops kept falling. It was raining.
Politicians are not the kind of people I would like to invite for my birthday. While half of them are not comfortable with languages I speak, the other half are (in)famous for murders, underworld links, scams, frauds et al. Yet, amongst these criminals, I had grown to respect a certain individual named Atal Behari Vajpayee. Today, Mr. Vajpayee is reduced to being the head of the opposition party and I ponder - what could be the reason that the Congress defeated the NDA.
~ Maybe the illiterates who voted wanted a fellow illiterate i.e. my idol, Laloo Prasad Yadav to be in line for a portfolio.
~ Perhaps, it's a conspiracy by Pizza Hut and Dominoe's to increase the Italian influence in India.
~ Since the entire female population adores Hrithik Roshan, they took his song a little too seriously. 'Keh do na, keh do na, you are my Sonia.'
~ It could be that the voters confused the word 'Congress' with 'Progress'.
~ I strongly believe that voters voted for Govinda instead of Ram Naik hoping that the Virar ka chokra aka Govind Ahuja quits acting when he is elected.
~ The male population fell for Priyanka Gandhi.
As my revered idol, Laloo Prasad Yadav says, ''Sab paalitix hay!''
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No, I am not interested in politics. I am not interested in who threw a chair at whom. But, the news that Sonia Gandhi is most likely to replace Atal Behari Vajpayee as the PM (which incidently does not stand for 'pagal mantri') made me behave like Sachin Tendulkar and squeal ''Ailaa!''
No, I do not care about the fact that our probably future PM would be of foreign origin. Sonia Gandhi's case actually strangely reminds me of Jeffrey Archer's 'The Prodigal Daughter'. Just like the book, Sonia Gandhi, a female outsider goes on to become the Prime Minister without the greatest of political experience. However, the major difference is that Sonia Gandhi comes from an influential political family.
Which is what irks me the most. Indian politics is almost reduced to Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. The only question I have is - in a country of a billion people, aren't there enough worthy candidates that we keep going back to the same old family? I have nothing against the Nehru-Gandhi family, for frankly I do not have much knowledge about their virtues and vices.
But, Sonia Gandhi, for one, does not have the experience of being at the premier post in the country. Her entry in politics was supposedly a forced one and she has been in charge of her party only since the past five years. Does that compare anything to the kind of struggle Vajpayee underwent through the years? Just consider some other politician - will he/she become the PM after merely five years of experience, had his/her surname not been Gandhi?
The lines I opened my review with are a true incident. Somebody who still does not have complete control over the national language, somebody who learnt the language only recently, just because she wanted to enter politics, somebody who would have been a nobody had she not married in the family she did.
Whoever I have spoken to, whether it's friends, relatives, fellow MSians, have expressed shock at the final verdict of the elections. A majority of them have been pro-BJP and the pure fact remains - if the choice of the entire nation would be seen, a majority of them would favour Vajpayee's government. The tragedy though, is that most of them are busy watching Shah Rukh Khan jump onto a helicopter from the roof rather than going and casting their vote.
Voters cards not being issued has been a major grievance. Yet, apart from this unforgivable lapse by the authorities, the general attitude of the middle and upper middle class can be summed up in Pepsi's Saif campaign - 'What's there?'
''Something's there. You will not understand'' might be Shah Rukh Khan's reply to the above question. But, the fact at the end of the day is, that like it or not, Sonia Gandhi has been elected by the Indian voters, the ones who turned up for their right. She may still stun the skeptics by being a good leader, but one must remember that if we ourselves didn't bother to vote, why on earth should we crib?
In my review which I posted on the day of counting, I had suggested that Shah Rukh Khan should become the PM. Shah Rukh nahin, Sonia hi sahi, though I still hope that better sense prevails and Manmohan Singh gets the spot.
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I still suspect that Pizza Hut and Dominoe's have a hand in this, what's your opinion? Comments awaited!
Disclaimer: In the end, this review is not pro or against any party. I frankly do not have much knowledge about politics to root for a particular party. What I do know is that someone like Vajpayee deserved another term, rather than Sonia Gandhi, and if the NDA are not on top, then it should be someone like Manmohan Singh - not because of Sonia's origin but because of other factors which I mentioned in my review.
