The 'Clown Prince' (A short story in homage to the earthquake in Nepal)

Everyone knew the ‘Clown Prince’. He was brave,  there was no doubt about it. He was resilient and everyone knew it.  There were no border he could not conquer and no horizons that he had not driven into.

He was funny because he believed that he was the greatest of them all. He would laugh at people who suggested that there had been men greater than him on earth before.  He would mock at people who challenged him, he grimaced when he sensed a challenger, but it gave him a sadistic pleasure to fight and win, and win he did every time. His confidence turned into contempt for people less able. The frail he detested, the old he disrespected and the sick he ordered thrown to the lion.  People came to know of him as the ‘Clown Prince’.

So large was his ego, that he had scant regard even for the elements.  He would shoot arrows through the fiercest wind,  endure a journey through the hottest desserts. He would climb the highest of the mountains, swim through the fastest currents. There was no beast he had not fought  nor any demon that he had not vanquished. The news of his feats spread far and wide, so did the news of his arrogance. People came to see him, bow before him, kiss his outspread hand and swear allegiance to him.

One day the breeze was blowing gently, the prince was trying to light a candle. Every time he would show flame to the candle, the breeze would blow it out. The prince tried to light the candle thrice, every time with little success. On the fourth attempt he became furious. “Stop you stupid wind” he yelled. But the wind kept blowing gently as it would. By now he was in a rage. He took out his bows and showered a thousand arrows into the walls around. The arrows covered every little opening into the palace, blocking the wind.  The air inside the palace became still and finally the candle was lit. Not content with having stalled the wind, he bellowed at the wind, “ that will teach you a lesson ‘O Wind’, now you cant enter  without my permission”  he gleefully shrieked. Insulted the wind turned away, to blow in another direction.

On a fishing expedition one fine day, he was trying to catch a fish. He was hungry and irritated. After a long wait, there came a school of fish. He was delighted. “At least I wont die of hunger” he said to himself. He picked up his spear and was about to pounce upon a large fish when a sudden gush of the stream carried the fish into safety.”Oh no “ he exclaimed, and targeted another large one he saw nearby, and again a gush of water pushed this one too to safety. The hunger gnawed at his stomach. “O stream” he yelled, “let me catch my food”. But the stream gurgled along happily, unmindfully. The ‘Clown Prince’ grew furious. “Oh idiotic stream”, don’t you know who is out fishing here, have you not heard of my powers, how  dare you disrespect me ! Let me teach you a lesson”, with these words he asked his men to build a large dam to hold the stream some kilometres away. Soon his whole kingdom was put to the task of building the largest of all dams.  The stream was quelled, but its ego hurt. The dam was too large for it to fill up or drown, it gushed and it rushed, but could not fill the dam, leave alone drown it. Subdued it filled up the dam as much as it could.

One by one,  he antagonised all the elements.  “Clouds” you are banished  from my kingdom, he foolishly retorted one day,  when they soaked his new clothes.

In the meanwhile the people of his kingdom became equally arrogant. They were sure that their prince was the greatest of them all, the news about how he commanded the elements became the talk of the town.  Even the kingdoms which united with his, became arrogant of their powers.

 Time passed, the world was tired of the ‘Clown Prince’ but they had no one to turn to.

 By now the elements conspired. The wind called for a meeting. All the elements turned up.

What shall we do friends ? the wind appealed.   We should all go to Mother Earth and ask for a redemption from this funny prince, replied the Cloud.  Yes they all agreed, and so they all went to Mother earth.

Mother Earth was lazily spinning around one bright young morning, when all the elements knocked on her door.

Dear Mother, we are tired of the ‘Clown Prince’, they cried.

What happened ‘O Dear ones’ exclaimed Mother Earth.

Oh Dear Mother!  they wailed in unison, and told her all about the prince.

Mother Earth smiled. ”Don’t you worry dear ones,  no one can disturb the elements without dire consequences”  replied Mother Earth, “be bound by your nature and do what you must do, and leave the rest to me”, she added,  “and  as of this day make sure that you leave that kingdom  and disappear northwards into the mountains beyond”, she whispered.

So the clouds, the steam, the wind and the elements disappeared into the mountains to the north of the kingdom.

The news reached the prince, that all the elements had disappeared from his kingdom and gone into the mountains.  He was furious and took his army against the mountain.  ‘O Mightly mountain’, he yelled,  having reached the foot of the mountain, let me pass, I want to take back all the elements back to my kingdom.   “Sorry prince”,  the mountain replied,  they have come of their choice and they will leave of their choice no one can bind the elements,  said the Mountain.

O Mighty Mountain, you do not know my powers,  I had bound the elements in my kingdom. They do as I please, someone has conspired to take them away from my land, they would not dare defy me”, replied the prince.

“Think again, O Prince”, replied the mountain. “You cant take them against their wishes, the cloud is heavy with sorrow and may burst anytime, the wind is angry and is howling in pain, the stream has swelled with rain and is about to rush down, but all of them are happy being in my land, so return to your kingdom O Prince”, the mountain replied.

“I have thought this through,  you stupid mountain, now don’t waste my time, and let me pass or I will raze you to the ground”,  thundered the prince.

 “ ‘O Prince’’, I am a man of honour, people bow before me, and I do not get ordered around. I think you are in a hurry to get past me,  you only have to ask for my permission and I shall make way for you to pass”  said the mountain.

“I don’t have time to manage your ego, you idiotic mountain, just shift an feet and I will pass through”  saying this the prince kicked the mountain hard.

The moment he did this, he regretted it. “As you wish” the mountain smilingly shifted just a little,  few inches perhaps, not more not less, and the whole earth moved.

The elements who were tied down in the mountains also slipped from their place, the wind gushed out in anger,  the cloud now pregnant to its full term, burst in its fury and in a gush joined the stream, who rushed down the mountain in a trail of destruction. Was it the  fear or the contempt for the prince,  no one knows,  but they rushed straight down to the kingdom below.  Now their inertia was out of control, the earth shook ,  the wind howled, tonnes of snow,  mountains of rocks, all rolled down, taking along all that came in their way, innocents paid the price along with the guilty, and all became one with nature, and nature became innocent in its fury.  No one was a by-stander, they were all party to the crime, the crime of disregarding nature, of thinking that they had overcome the elements, so they had to pay for it.

It was time to purge.  When purging happens, its not just the dirt which gets washed away, the holy purging takes along a lot of sweat,  rivers of blood, and lot of flesh . Pointless it all seems, but just like the stalk which wither after giving birth to the grain, the good must go, to make way for the new, that is the law of nature, a cycle which has been going on for ages.

Nature has a job to do, and it bows before no one.  Human pain as we know it, is only part of the truth, the larger truth remains, ‘The Creation’ is supreme, rest of us are mere specks in the universe.  

The Ujaad ( A short story)

Once upon a time there was a barren land. Every body had written off the land as useless. People used to pass by it daily, but none noticed it. They used to call it ‘Ujaad’ (Barren). The land felt out of place, dejected and depressed. It hated the name ‘Ujaad’. 

One day a mice tried digging a burrow, but the ground was so hard that it abandoned the project midway. Time passed, one day a squirrel brought some fruits from the Peepal tree. It tasted the fruit, did not find it appealing and dropped the fruit which rolled down the burrow dug up by the mice.

Come rains the burrow filled up with water, the Peepal  seeds in the burrow germinated and took roots. Peepal has the habit of surviving in the hardest of conditions. It grew with time into a young tree, casting it's cool shadow on the barren land. People suddenly noticed the tree and started resting under the tree.

Time passed. One day a Mahatma (a sage) passed by and decided to rest under the tree. He was tired and quite liked the place. He meditated under the tree.

Years passed and he stayed transfixed at the place in deep meditation.  People were amazed by his steadfastness. They used to offer food for the Mahatma which remained untouched. Birds and little creatures devoured the food instead. Yet the Mahatma would not open his eyes. People started flocking in great numbers, to have a glimpse of the great man.

One fine day the Mahatma opened his eyes, and cast a glance all around. His aura cast a glow all around, illuminating the ‘Ujaad’ even during night. He spoke great words, gathered a huge following and delivered scriptures after scriptures sitting under the tree.

Finally he became old, one fine day he asked people to dig up hole in the place for him to attain Samadhi (Salvation). In the middle of the night he entered the pit. Thirty one days passed. People got curious and entered the pit. The Mahatma was nowhere to be seen, they found a heap of roses where the Mahatma had rested.

The story spread all over the world, people came from far and near to pay their respects. The area got highlighted on the map and a large city developed around the barren land. The land continued to be called as the '‘Ujaad’'. But the fruits it now bore were the sweetest of them all,  by no stretch of imagination was it barren any more.

Nature's evolution is an unending process. It makes, destroys and rebuilds again. Nothing is constant. Nothing is useless, everything finds it's own utility over a period of time.

Names may be misleading, it may not depict a true picture of that the name denotes. A sure shot reason for people not to go by a name. If the world calls you names don't be affected by it, time proves most things wrong.

Salvation is a guaranteed process, as matter gets converted from one form to the other, salvation is certain.

No single person is responsible for your salvation . The universe orchestrates. The mice brought the seed, the land gave it roots, the rain made it grow, the Mahatma found peace under the tree and finally he rested upon the place to bring glory to the ‘Ujaad’.

Life is a multiple act play, just play your part and keep faith on the provider who shall deliver through his myriad ways.

The Rock - A short Story

A little girl went up the hill on a vacation, accompanied by her  parents. The road trailed  a river flowing  down the hills. Further and further they drove along the narrow road, As they went along, the river became narrower and faster. The traffic became rarer and the gradients steeper.  The naughty gurgling of the river,  replacing the sounds of traffic.  Clear water eagerly seeking it's destination downstream.

As their car stopped for a break the little girl ventured tenaciously, ankle deep into the water. The floor of the river was covered by small pebbles and rocks, all of them rounded perfectly into oval and circular shapes, small and large, some a bit flat, some perfectly round. But all of them rubbed smoother than the little girl’s skin. They lay there uncounted and unrecognised multitudes of them in various shapes. Some of them goaded by the river to continue their roll down the river, others resting firmly on the river bed, only till the time the river again gets impatient and angry to keep them moving downstream.

The rocks came in all colours, pale yellow, snow white, amber, grey and black, contended they lay there in shallow water wet as though from perspiration from their hard journey.

The little girl picked up a few small pebbles and carefully put them her pocket. Then she saw a unique rounded rock. Larger than the others,  this one looked different, looked royal for a stone, part of it translucent, rest of it white as a lily. Rounded like a smiley, it had dimples too.  It was large for her pocket. Something she would have to lift up with both hands. With great effort she lifted it up and carried it back to the car trunk, she knew her father would never allow her to carry home such a large rock, so quietly she hid the rock behind some rags in the boot.

Soon the rock was out of her mind. Back in town, a few days later, her father was driving home through a desolate stretch, when the car got a flat tyre. He started to take out the spare tyre when he discovered the rock. Oh! He exclaimed.  “Where did this come from ?”. Not know for his sensibilities for finer things in life, he could not find anything unique in the rock, he flung the rock into the wasted terrain.

There the rock lay, among other boulders, different from the rest shining in the moonlight, feeling oh! so out of place. It had felt so suffocated sitting in the trunk, and breathed easy now under the moonlit sky. It was about to doze off when a nudge woke it up. Hey wake up! came a voice. The rock opened its eyes, it was the large boulder lying next to it. "Where did you come here from, how come you are so beautiful and fair, shining in the moonlight like no one I have seen doing. You have dimples on your face too, who made you so beautiful, tell us, how can we too become extraordinary like you" exclaimed the boulder.

"Hey large one" replied the rock, the shine that you see in my face is not a shine but a fatigue which has come from years of getting my face rubbed against sand and water, my fairness due to repeated bruises to my face,  the rounded profile that you see is the result of long years of journey from high up in the hills, tumbling down to unknown lands not knowing where the next moment will take me to. I am small because I started out as large as you, but years of giving back to nature, has made me small and shrivelled.  The sheen that you see is something which has come from great turmoil and tempest. The joy you behold is because I know I escaped the stone crusher down stream who collects us all to prepare gravel for the  roads. The contentment is knowing the fact that it can't get worse than this.

Oh! Sighed the boulder. "You mean to say one can succeed only with turmoil? "

No, each one has his own path, exclaimed the rock. "But success comes after great perseverance and entails as much giving away as it denotes acquisition. The journey is defined, successes assured for someone who stays on and believes in oneself. The sheen comes naturally, because it is the sign of the journey. So hey large one, don't lose heart. You look dark, but you are a  strong granite, someone will come to chisel you, convert you into a god figure. People shall worship you, people will repose their faith upon you. They will never realise the tough path you have endured to attain godliness, the pain of being chiselled with an iron, the turmoil of being shaped like the way the world wants to see you.

So bide your time hey large one, such is the journey of Life " whispered the rock.

Brands

Brand,  usually register in our minds for the status enhancement, aspirational  value, or gets into our good books for CSR activities. But there are some brands which get entwined in our life and become part of us, capture our hearts, and give us immense pleasure at nominal cost. Let me cite an personal example.

Cadbury's Milk Chocolate. A bar of chocolate wrapped in a silver foil sliding out effortlessly out of a royal blue sleeve. The mesmerising texture of the blue pack, and the crisp foil unfolding to reveal the rows of chocolate pieces neatly perforated. I used to remember way back in the sixties, as a child my mama ji gifting me one, on pay days every month.  I remember opening the pack excitedly and gasping salivating  at contents unpacked. Eating one whole  was a luxury , all items used to be neatly cut into pieces to be distributed equally in the household.  More than monetary, the reason was of thrift. (a family could in those days sustain for month on what is thrown away in a week nowadays)  hence eating a full bar of chocolate was blasphemy in those days. So as expected we used to get one tiny piece to be relished in leisure. The time taken for the chocolate to melt in the mouth would seem like an eternity, the taste lingering in ones mouth till the next month, awaiting Mamaji's pay check.  That taste still lingers in ones mouth, the brand managers for the chocolate trying hard to capture those moments on film but hardly making it there.

Such is the brand affection if I may call it so,  for cadbury’s . The association so impersonal yet so endearing. Yes there was an aspirational value to the pack of chocolate,  not because they were priced high (used to buy one for Rs.1 if I remember correctly), or one wanted to be counted among the wannabe by using it, but because  FMCG and consumer goods were literally non existent those days, earnings were sparse, and spending even more so, reliance was on home  made stuff, at least for the palate.

The  Brand evokes memories unfathomable Memories, try as they might the brand managers at Cadburry’s can never recreate those emotions in their ads. the association so impersonal yet so endearing

Today when I want to splurge I do so on the likes of Toblerone...but when we think of think of chocolate we come home to Cadbury's Dairy milk.

I wish we could create such brands, horses for long hauls, unaffected by the ups and downs of wall Street, not wanting to scalp you for the pedigree that they proclaim themselves to be, those who remain there for ages to come, and there are examples galore..Bata,(my grandpa used to wear one) Amrutanjan (my grandma used to smell of one) Cherry blossom(i used to polish my dad's shoes as a child) brands part of your life...not fleecing you, not  in a hurry to make a fast buck, but just there as a part of you, .... for life.

Good Morning V Arun Kumar

Garnish your life.

One searches for a word to describe parts of a whole, without which the  whole will never be the same. Even sans any individual identity of its own, the morsel makes such a lasting impact that it overshadows the identity of the larger serving. Puzzled ! don’t be,  knowing my style of writing you would have already guessed that I would be coming to something  crazy.  A large piece of cyber cake with a funny (as in stupid) taste to it.  So let me elaborate.

As I sat savouring a plate of lemon rice, the tangy taste of the lemon, the bright hue of the rice, the overbearing scent of the curry leaves, and of course the culinary skills of the better half. Yet, what I was left relishing at the end of the course was the joy of cracking one by one into the crisp fried Chana dal which went in as part of the garnish into the ’Lemon Rice’. 

Lost was the taste of the rice, and presto !  dawned the importance of the Tadka dal.  When the curd rice followed its place in the next course,  the point was punched in just that harder. The snowy flakes of rice cooked in cream and curd, did little to elevate as did the taste of the little specs of garnished mustard fired deep in pure ghee. One forgot the taste of the rice as the mustard played hide and seek with the exploring tongue, relishing each morsel, gently biting into each mustard, the soft crack of it exploding and leaving behind a sweet taste more lofty than provided by the curd rice. 

The story did not end there,  the Gajar ka halwa which followed would never have been complete without the cashews. The list is endless.. , the sweet taste of the raisin in a hot and spicy Samosa,  the one grain of pepper in the folds of a Mathri, the once strand of saffron adorning a ‘Rasmalai’, the one piece of pumpkin seed perched upon a juicy ‘Moti Chur Laddu’, the spicy South Indian Mixture prepared for Diwali, with the royal peanuts making it just that perky.

   

So what makes this morsel take over the taste of the entire dish. Certainly not the quantity, for in sheer counts these small pieces of matter are totaly out weighed by the larger dish. It is not even because these are exotic items,  the lowly mustard can hardly call itself exotic.

So then what is it that inspite of a lesser identity of their own, these morsels end up making such a quantum change in the experience that they bring forth to the package that they are part of !

Now lets apply this paradigm to our life, the material things that we strive for,  the larger goals for which we end up burning our energies for, years on end,  never measure up to the little experiences that make our life complete.  The sweet smell of rain, the haunting feel of walking though fog and mist, the first rays of sunshine warming the skin on a cold winter morning, the boxing fights with the kids, making your grandchild ride your back, the experience of helping a lesser abled cross the street, the joy of giving, sharing, playing a prank, stopping by to admire a flower stall, to tousle the hair of plump little kid playing in the park.

Little moments that make life larger, the canvas more vibrant, the hues more contrasting, and  tastes that colour your soul permanently, that which the latest generation of gizmo or a career that you chase can never claim to do.

So what are you waiting for ! Go capture the moment,. As they say ‘Carpe Diem’ -  seize the moment.         

Don’t forget, somewhere you would realise that I too find myself being  a small morsel in your life somewhere, no matter how silly a part.

Big Is Beautiful.

Heard of the Hindi adage “Akal Badi ya Bhains“ ?  Literally translated it means, ‘Is the brain bigger  than a Buffalo’.  A pretty straight forward question, depending on where the pointer rests in a sliding scale showing the respondent’s IQ.  Do you agree ?  I have seen buffaloes and they are large enough to outsize some of the pea brains that one comes across, but then even discounting the expanse of the grey matter, I would confirm that Buffaloes are larger than a Brain. But I see a smile on the people’s faces when I profess this view point.

I had the opportunity of meeting Rajni Kanth once in the airport lounge, and asked him the same question. Yenna Rascalla, he exclaimed in typical Bollywood style, “don’t you know nothing can be bigger than Rajnikant “ he roared, and I clapped, more because of being a Rajni fan, than for having been proven right.

Incidentally Laaluji was standing right behind  and he could not but vent out his frustration. “That eez Korect baba, he exclaimed continuing in his typical drawl,  “try telling that to the judge sahib, you peoples do not know that my bhainswa has eaten all the fodder, and nobhady bhelieve me when I tell them that Bhainswa is always bigger than bhrain (sic)”. That were two people on my side now.

Not convinced yet ?  Ask your local butcher ! Am sure he would laugh at your suggestion that a Brain could be larger than a Buffalo.  When I checked, he mentioned a rate of Rs.500 for a goat’s brain, (I don’t know if its a fair value, being a strict vegan myself) and said that as far as a buffalo goes, I would have to deposit around Rs.5000/- to be able to order for a fully dead Buffalo. So definitely a buffalo is larger than a brain

But then for each person whom I could count on my side there were many who would never agree with me, and some of them would dedicatedly start trying to asses my IQ, in the process of proving me wrong.

So it happened that one of my more learned friend was asked the question to dwell upon, and he narrated me a story which goes like this.

Once upon a time, a mustard farmer was into hard times, his crops had been  failing regularly and he had no answers for the reason thereto. He tried doing many things to improve the crop which did little to help his fortunes.

Living right next door to him was his clever cousin who would make a fortune every season.  Tired of being looked down upon by his family for his poor record at farming, he decided to secretly watch what his cousin was upto.  

The first season the cousin planted small black Papaya Seeds,  and harvested huge yellow  papayas. The poor farmer noted down the difference in size between a mustard seed and the papaya seed and said oh so the size of the seed matters.

The next season, again the mustard crop failed, and the poor guy again spied upon his cousin, only to see him planting  Mango seeds and lo and behold soon had a flourishing Mangrove.

Dito!  the third season, this time the cousin planted coconuts. The size of the seed is growing by the year noted the poor farmer,  soon the coconut saplings started reaching for the sky, and the poor farmer continued to rue his luck at mustard farming.

 If the size of the seed is the only factor which matters, then I shall plant the biggest seed that any one can plant,  said the farmer. He started digging 2x2  trenches in his farm, and dug up the whole farm into trenches, as if preparing for a Nazi invasion. Are you crazy, cried his  wife desperately, why are you destroying the farm, she asked.  Shut up! Cant you see, I am going to plant the biggest seed that I can lay my hands on and become the richest farmer in town, he exclaimed.

So saying he set out to the local fair to hunt for the largest seed to plant. No sooner had he reached the fair, his eyes fell on the vendor selling huge pumpkins, green huge ones, larger than any that he had ever seen. ”Oh such large seeds, thank god for giving me directions” he exclaimed. He wasted no time in buying a load of pumpkins from the vendor and stealthily in the darkness of the night, managed to plant a pumpkin each  in the  trenches  that he had dug. Tired and exuberant in anticipation, the farmer decided to take couple of days off, to await a huge bounty that awaited him.

It so happened that next night, a group of hogs were out hunting in the fields,  they lost no time in digging up all trenches and made a meal of the sweet load of pumpkins that were buried underneath.  Finding the load of pumpkins too difficult to finish off in one night, they camped into the trenches they camped on in the trenches.

When the farmer came back after few days, what he saw devastated him. The entire field was in shambles. The trenches were a stink, and  covered in hog excreta.

There ended my friends story,  so you see, he said, size does not matter, brain does he exclaimed.

I smiled sheepishly, you do not  perhaps know the entire story, let me finish it for you I said,  staunchly defending the poor farmer as I continued.

Depressed with the turn of events, the farmer developed a fever, and was bed ridden for a month.  Incidentally it was the sowing season and it started to rain cats and dogs. As the rain drenched soil soaked up the rain water, the hog shit started adding fertility to it, the pumpkin seedlings which were in the hog excreta, took roots, and wonder of wonder, two hundred saplings sprouted in the slushy barren dug up farm. After two months of convalescing, the farmer diffidently  returned to his farm, what he saw was beyond description.  Meters till his eyes could carry he saw the most lush farm that he had ever maintained. Ripe pumpkins were laden on the ground, a fortune appearing as if out of nowhere, Gods finally answering  his call for help. So all’s well that ends well, the poor now rich farmer made a fortune selling his produce in the market and lived happily ever after, always making sure to plant the biggest seed that he could come across.

So you see big is always beautiful. Lot of us go by quality vs quality, what street smart colleagues achieve by cursory manipulation of resources, the lesser sure among us slog it out for longer times. Whereas the manipulator or the super intelligent walk away to the bank faster, the slogers take their own time,  like the proverbial slow and steady tortoise,  find their fortune they do, but with lots of patience and hard work. Bigger the input larger the returns they belive.

 Big is indeed  beautiful, when in doubt always refer to Bollywood.

The awakening of Simba and other stories

It has been such an eventful  week  for the media.  Eventful enough to keep them running around in circles and make  ‘Jack of all trades’ like me feel complete enough to pen a ‘Middle’. Just that the ‘Middle’ has moved on in the scheme of the way newspapers are turned out.  We have now more pages residing  in the vast expanse of cyberspace than perched in the middle of the editorial page.  They say that the pen is mightier than a sword, its that much more lethal in the hands of know it all’s like me. But then its a free world  so I though why not key in my frustration.  So lets have a round-up of the key happenings of this week.

To begin with a little homage to the lives lost, Suchitra Sen,  whose Hindi hit,  ‘Tere bina zinda gi mei’ remains my all time favourite, I never tire of watching Áandhi’ for the nth  time.  Sunanda  the tragedy of Page 3 proportions, the 18 people who lost their lives in Mumbai while paying homage to their religious leader. May these souls rest in peace.

Coming to the high profile UN designate.  When one is confused whether one is in polity on the way to  page 3 or on page 3 because they are in polity, it makes for strange bed fellows. What happened to Shashi was maybe something similar.  To be fair to him he was one of the first to start the trend of ‘Tweeting’ in India. It looks like the Tweets finally ended up drowning all other sane voices in his life. God help him in these difficult times.

  Just a few kilometres away a similar voice made its mark. Finally the Baba spoke, no I do not refer to any god-man. The reference was more towards our own RG baba.  After years of breaking bread with dalits, the king-in-making has woken up and is trying to roar, and what a roar it was.  Reminds me of the lion kink,  oops !  I mean ‘The Lion King’.  Resembling little Simba, on a self realisation mode. A tentative cough followed by a full throated roar. Will it end  waking up the Scars(or should I say comb sellers) of the world is yet to be seen.

On comb sellers and lesser haired people, the little king, did not seem to realise that he himself seems to be fast loosing hair at quite a fast pace and I would not be surprised if he himself finds himself in the custody of one comb too many, before he realises,  that he has no use for one. But right now he has more to worry than about losing his hair, perhaps saving his shirt in the next elections should be a focus. He did paint quite a pretty picture of himself , up there on the podium. 

Not often do you see, a prime-ministerial candidate flaunting a pair of dimples. So what if his face seemed  more paler than a Icelander gone pale. Grimaces, don’t go well with the chocolate faced  and it was showing that he was trying hard to put on one. By the way our prince would be one of few candidates for the PM post to have been blessed with dimples,  the closest someone would have come to competing with the prince on this front  was the venerated PV Naramsimha Rao. Except that PV’s dimples were more like cheeks that  had sunk in to make way for his extended pout.

On dimples, there is no doubt that it would have been more entertaining to have the other king, the King Khan, flaunting his dimples,  up there on the stage instead of RG, and  there is no doubt that the original Khan could have  displayed a  far better IQ that our very own prince

Quite a week I must say,  our own Mani (Shankar Iyer ) put his foot once again where it always finds its place,  right up there in his mouth, when he took a dig at a tea vendor trying to becoming a PM. Whether this quote will keep him in a soup for some more time is yet to be seen. Unfortunately he is one person who seems to do very little introspection on his own behaviour and actions. He behaves neither like a Mani nor a Iyer.    

When these events were  making news, some blocks away there was a mob led by a over zealous minister trying to put an end to robust African women from earning their livelihood. The women did not realise that when wizards come riding their broom-stick,  a la Harry Potter, all hell breaks loose. More so when these guys seems to think that any thing which is commercial or corporate in nature must stink, similar to how electricity must be distributed free, and grocery stores are more convenient than Super Marts, and that Auto rickshaw Unions deserve more sympathy than the general public which remain at the mercy of these drivers.  Its another matter that with the speed with which these first timers are tying themselves in knots on policy matters, it may not be long before the public quite rightly wield  the broom once again to show them their rightful place.

Finally there was this little piece of medical research published in one of the latter pages of the newspaper,  a research proved as to how comedians and satirist are Psychos who are mentally deranged and about to go bonkers. Did not seem too far fetched a idea, given that many friends had already labelled me raving mad, after reading the stuff that I write around in face book and elsewhere.