Yatha praja tatha raja !!

BY MANISH ANAND

Yatha praja tatha raja!! It's no more yatha raja tatha praja. It's the refrain when you talk to politicos on questions of ambitious party workers are doling out big booty to get party tickets ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls.

"It's a changed time. Now, people elect goons with 50 and more murder scalps on their heads. Even our security deposits in Lok Sabha elections get forfeited," says a Congress veteran of two decades of active politics and having been in Lok Sabha on a number of occasions from UP.


He recalls the time when it was "yatha raja tatha praja (as the king so the people)". "But, now, it's just "yatha praja tatha raja (as the people so the king)"," he adds with much remorse.



Does it mean that the people at large are also like those having more than 50 murder scalps on their heads ? Probably not! But the nice people in politics in their hinterlands have just lost the power to read the pulse of their audience and have been left behind in the cutting age politics.



But may be the case is different.


"The time was different two decades back. Good people used to be picked up by the high-ups in the politics," says another Congress veteran of three decades of Lok Sabha stint from the Punjab region.


It makes us curious to enquire about their backgrounds. The self-effacing Punjabi politician says he was a Professor, then the pro-Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University and had taught in a top US university. He was picked up by the top Congress leadership when he was in his hey-days.

His colleague's eyes lit, as he too recalls being the student leader in the Banaras Hindu University, then doing his B. Tech in Chemical Engineering and then heading to the US for professorship. He too was "picked up" by the top leadership in his heydays.

But the time has changed for them, as they interview hundreds of rustic party workers with no decent education behind them. They have no other option, as they say they live with the humiliation of losing the political turf like UP to ruffians who should have been behind the bar.


But who will take the blame for the rot and who will take the corrective measures. No answers though big yawns.

No surprises!

By Manish Anand


The hard-nosed observers are hardly getting surprised nowadays. Mayawati now wants to be the Prime Minister, no joke. So what, anyone can become a Prime Minister in India. Delhi's marketplaces are fast becoming stages for catwalk. Girls are now fed up with having mehandi on their palm or back of it and are having it from toes till high up. Men are wearing skinny clothes and walk like women. So what, time is changing and so are the patterns.

Mayawati is a popular politician and the chief minister of the most populous state of India. She came close to staging the coup in bringing down the World bank careerist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. She has almost tasted blood and must be hungry enough to devour the whole delicacy. The next six months are set for exciting political churning.

Did you give hard look to the girls having rolled up their jeans high up for putting up mehandi in delicate designs? The sight is too irresistable. Just heard that tatoos are going out of fashion and probably our desi mehandiwallas sitting on the pavement are redifining the fashion trends in their own ways.

And yes, Mayawati's heir is not from her family. Is it another statement on the family run parties like the Congress. She has enriched the Hindi vocabulary as well with the word "sarvjan (all castes)".

My colleague was stunned when he saw a man in skinny vest doing a catwalk in the marketplace. My commiseration for him "he has biceps, triceps and all the muscles to show off, so why are you getting jealous, anyways you are not his target at least".

The best sight, however, was two love birds getting lip-locked in the crowded market place, with the girl glowing in the irresistable love that she was struggling to shower on his man, while he was all blushing with pride. It's the best thing to happen: the public expression of affection, it ensures that people do live in love.

Last but not the least, the city though is fast maddening it still has resilience to outpace the negative vibes in plenty.

Lotus bloom

By Manish Anand


Finally, the lotus has bloomed south of the Vidhyanchal. After five decades of supplying the hardcore grassroot workers to the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS), its political baby, the BJP, would now form the state government in Karnatka. It's pregnant with significant political implications and it marks paradigm shift to the national politics.

The chattering class on television sets have exhausted much of their analytical skills. However, the political pundits sound too predictible that one can safely mute the news channels now. It's time that the news channels voluntarily shun all exit polls for just two reasons. First, it's not needed at all, and secondly for it prejudicing the electorates.

In another decade, the RSS would hand over the political tonic to the BJP in Kerala too. Just watch out for that, the social churning has been taking place almost for a decade now. The social undercurrents there would crystalise in another decade to hand over the BJP another hunting ground in the South India.

Arrogance is the hallmark of the Congress. For it the price rise of the essential commodities had just been the natural by-product of the high economic growth. It was nver seen being identified with the people bearing the brunt of the price rise. The JD (S) has proved a party which cheats the people's mandate. It's so called maveric patriarch H D Devgowda, who is known to keep the rupees in sacks and for distributing them in the same manner, could not find another way to fool the electorate. Good for the people.

The parliamentary elections would now not be preponed. However, the Congress has too less time for the damage control. It could now bank on its principal opponent the BJP to commit the political suicide in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which it's hell-bent to commit.
The BJP in all likelihood would wrest Delhi Assembly from the Congress and could retain Chattisgarh and Rajsthan while losing Madhya Pradesh to the Congress in the winter this year. The BJP would go to the parliamentary elections with the winning momentum, while praying that the Congress looks at the common man with an impaired eyesight.

L. K. Advani could step into the shoes of A. B. Vajpayee but Bihar and UP could just prove to play the spoiler.

Man & animal conflict

By Manish Anand

Few years ago, giving the Civil Services Examinations, I along with many others were foxed by a short answer question on man and animal conflict. All did the guess works which turned out to be off the mark by quite a margin. In the evening, restless minds searched for the right answer and it turned out to be the Orissa farmers in conflict with elephants raiding their rice fields, as men had destroyed their natural habitat, thus forcing them to go into unknown territory in search of food. Our answers were just rubbish.

Reflecting on the issue, it seems that the phrasing of the question was just incorrect. Why call it man and animal conflict when man is just an animal; no better in any ways and rather far worse.

Few days back at a market place, one man was facing a group of people out to lynch him. His fault was that out of anger, as his vehicle was caught in the parking lot, he probably let his angst go on the window glass of the blocking car and which brought a dozen of people out to lynch him. Nerved at the size of the opposing party, he relished all the abuses and pushes and shoves offered to him. His plea to call the police to settle the issue had no takers. After an hour long ordeal, he was sent away.

But the show was not over, as one of his foe delivered another chaste abuse to him when he came back to the market after sometimes. Fed up with enough abuses, he barged into his foes' office and started abusing all, with even women getting no reprieve.

Take the fight into enemy's camp, you will either emerge victorious or will die with pride. And so he did. His foes had to do the explanings, with the issue looking too trivial for such a grand show. The man walked away having humbled his foes, with even onlookers remarking "bande me dam hai" even if he had committed any mistake. All the whiles, few dogs kept dozzing off and showed no interest at all in the show. Some had mocking smiles on their funny mouth.

In the HT City, which I rarely read, I found a piece which informed that lots of men come to Delhi from Mumbai and also go to Thailand for sex hunting, where they easily catch hold of college and other young girls in pubs and on dance floors for a one night stand. Nothing startling though, it also contradicts the phrasing of the question.

In a party in a five-star hotel, which I had a rare chance to attend, the liquor had made the base animal instincts of the people too explicit to take refuse in the man's dignity. Few were falling on a girl, who had committed the mistake of sitting a bit away from her friends, and were imploring her for dance, though their eyes were demanding much more. Liquor should not be blamed as it makes you just what you are. Though under heavy influence of liquor myself, I could not stop my critical faculties from obesrving people and their behaviour and keeping their records as well. I can not write more on this because of obvious reasons.

Dogs are really intelligent. They know that the UPSC had wrongly phrased the question. They mock at the man with all humility. It's no man, animal conflict, as it's all animals here.