Imagine Mahabharata without jua? Impossible. No jua, no Mahabharat, no politics, no palace intrigue, not even Bhagwat Gita, damn it!
Without jua, what are we left with? The insipid black and white perfectionism of a Ramayana. How boring would that be? I guarantee if that had been the case, none of the 24X7 spiritainment channels like Aastha, Sanskaar, etc. would be operationally viable even for a day. (No frown, haan. You have accepted infotainment then what is the problem with spiritainment? You even accept Rupa underwear- banian ad between two bhajans!)
Check any of these channels and you will find 90% content revolving around Krishna… What happened to Ram, Shiv, Devi and millions of other Hindu Gods and Goddesses? Simple. None of them have the sex appeal of a Krishna. Krishna is poorna avatar for a reason. Krishna mein love hai, sex hai, romance hai, drama hai, violence hai, humor hai… Krishna is good for TRP. Period.
Anyway, I love jua. I and a group of my cousins always play jua (flash, teen-patti) on Diwali night. What fascinates me about jua is that there is not only an uncertainty about winning and losing but, more importantly, about how much you win or lose. There are times I remember when, for no apparent reason, a hand will swell upto an abnormally huge amount. Maybe someone will get rush of blood and raise stakes, or two persons may cross their egos and none would know when to back-off, or sometimes merely in jest. Whatever the reasons, very difficult to pin point… (And then there are times, like last year, when yours truly got a trail for the first time in his entire life and yet ended up with a measly hand!)
Many times, jua has a mind of its own and before you realize, you are not playing jua but jua is playing you. The game becomes much bigger than what you thought, strategized or planned for and you realize only too late that you played far above your league…
I am sure messer Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Prashant Bhushan are now realizing this simple phenomenon which every kindergarten juari knows.
They planned a campaign, alright. But let them cross their hearts and say that they ever imagined that it will become this big. I mean who would have imagined the stupid and high-handed reaction of the government (much too shocking even for their own low standards) and the kind of rage and outpouring of emotion it brought out in teeming masses (surprising, given the general sense of apathy and indifference which characterizes our society). Who would have imagined such exclusive and free 10 days coverage by an increasingly commercial media? Who would have imagined this kind of political El Nino where a fart in Ralegaon Siddhi would trigger a tornado in Delhi?
Anna Hazare was smuggled out secretly in the night by Medanta Hospital and deposited in his village, still a frail and recuperating man. Apparently, the hospital did not want to risk bad press should something happened to a 74 year old national lolli-pop who was fasting for 12 days and who the whole country was licking up to!
Anna attaining siddhi and back to Ralegaon… TV channels resting their senior anchors and the junior guys trying their best to seize the moment and make historical events out of petty stories… Anna’s crusade brigade against corruption, the awakened upper Hindu educated pre-modern post-liberal middle-class (and of course, Muslims and Christians and dalits and kisans and landless and uneducated and rural poor…) back to their old selfish, unscrupulous, struggling, seething, bribing, smiling, triumphant ways…
All spent. Orgy over!
Now is the time. The seasoned khiladis are back. Never mind the over-confidence and error of judgment in the past. The reality check has just strengthened their resolve. Get the message messer Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan and gang?
The notices are just the beginning. Whether they are right or wrong, it does not matter. I think the ‘gali ka kutta’ remark will come back to haunt you, for you got carried away and played far above your league. Guys, you are rogered big time. You will be cornered, hunted and devoured and no one will come to your rescue, for-
1. The media won’t care because you are not half the story Anna was. The old man, modest rural background, the brilliant Gandhi packaging, a capitulating government, etc. was simply too irresistible.
2. The ‘civil society’, the millions who you thought were rallying behind you won’t bother. Your ‘massiahfication’ quotient is too inconsequential… the hand too small to interest anyone even if you have a trail!
Bottomline is that you guys are fu@#$%d.
And you deserve it… For you made the mistake of being stupid… for playing much above your league… for being delusional and feeling people have woken to fight corruption… While all we want is some emotional titillation and some novel partying (on Ramlila ground or elsewhere) without disturbing our convenient cocoons and selfish interests!
:) Brilliant Nitin. Reading this piece reminds me of a Swiss Author Friedrich Dürrenmatt, a playwright basically. Much of his work engages with crime. His theory is, you can plan a crime to its perfection, but there is one small element of divine interference that you can never foresee...You can calculate to hit a billiard ball on the table and execute it in away that it hits another ball...but if the second and the third or fourth ball that are hit in consequent to your first action is something, one often does not foresee....What you see in case of AK, KB and PB is the action of the third and fourth ball that the initial hit never planned or foresaw...:)
ReplyDeleteWOW!! Hardhitting, succinct, and bang on accurate!! They were searching for temporary solutions to permanent problems!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mahesh. I thought it was a great campaign in so far as bringing corruption on the table. But beyond that it just got ridiculously out of control... I think the art of backing off is a great thing... Incidently, Gandhiji was a master of this and the sense of timing it required!
ReplyDeleteThanks Deepika. The sad part is that, though fight against corruption is a great cause, they tried to win all the territory in one single frontal attack. That's rank bad strategy... Pity that little of any consequence might come out of this otherwise remarkable movement (going by the sheer number of people who rallied, if nothing else)...
ReplyDeleteYour comment, dear Nitin, reminds me of a number from a great of country music, Kenny Rogers, "Gambler"..."you got to know, when to walk away, know when to run..."
ReplyDelete