His given name is Chintamani. From his adulthood onwards, he started exhibiting a trait of worrying and thinking about many things. After gaining some field experience, he became a globe trotter (literally), scouting for things to worry about. In this pursuit, he was like a satellite placed in a polar orbit. Wherever convenient, he co-opted Science & technology to keep track of his fields of worries. I happened to hear his outpourings on some outlandish worries. To his credit, it should be said that he had a vibrant imaginative track to come out with novel concepts in worrying- such as snow mountains on fire, sand waves in the oceans, tsunami in the deserts, clouds belting the earth with micro metals and plastics, so on and so forth. For all these terrifying worries, he was earned a nickname - ChintaMany.
To allow us to continue living in peace, I have chosen not to bring out the dreadful ones, into the public domain and scare the daylights out of our collective lives. However, to do him some honours, I hasten to leak a selection of his benign worries.
ChintaMany has a dairy filled up with issues that bothered him a lot, but eluded logic and resolution. Unable to make any progress, he spent many sleepless nights in his quest, by sifting through such benchmark instances - experienced or heard or read, that could help. After many sleepless nights, and out of the blue (out of sheer frustration) a vivid picture of his childhood visits to a nearby stream roiled in his memory. He fondly remembered that spending time there used to be fun and thrill, though a heavy dose of admonishment always awaited at home for wasting valuable time.
At that age, his particular fascination used to be to watch a weak stream of water trying to flow around conjoined boulders, which was happily sitting in the middle, to prevent it. The trickling flow had its own trick - paused to gather enough water to flow around the boulders. A vagrant slim branch of a tree, coming along for the free ride, was not lucky and stood defeated at the trap. He sensed that the stream was trying to tell him something but in his befuddled mind, the message appeared garbled and unreadable like on a piece of wet, crimped paper.
He forcefully put a stop to the time travel and came back to the present. Failing to decipher the message, he went back to his diary and made a fresh entry - What the stream was telling me, at that time? As soon as the entry was made - presto, his worry about the common man and politics literally jumped out of the page, crying for a resolution. Though this issue tried to barge through the queue in his listing, he decided to ignore the transgression. Simultaneously, his hindsight took a swipe at him, " You could have written down the question to the stream, at the beginning of the page itself!" Shutting off the broadcast of hindsight, he sat down to ponder.
Who is the common man or woman? Is it the man or woman who is thrust upon the center stage to take a pot-shot at the government? Or over whom politicians peel loads of onion, shed crocodile tears to claim friendship, loyalty and support? He grudgingly admired the political maneuvering in wooing the common peoples, with promises/guarantees like free breath, free sweating, free day and night every day, to the rest of their lives - opening new avenues for fiction writers to make further explorations. But this guarantee comes with terms and conditions-if and if only the common folks elect him, his wife or son or daughter and along with the party he is associated with, to power.
Politicos never forget to point out that, this will ensure a whole family of them will be standing by. A serious doubt reared its head in ChinataMany's mind, which the common folks never dared to ask, " To standby and serve whom?" The politicos know and the common folks also know, it is a hollow pipe dream, without smoke. While selling these dreams to commons folk, the politico is ever hopeful of fulfilling his own personal dream of retaining the reins of power. Of course, for the benefit of only the common folk.
As an elected/defeated individual, the politico embarks on a quick, made to order hunger strikes lasting a few minutes to few hours, chosen at his convenience. This is to agitate for the rights and entitlements of common folks. The ever present friendly and 'vested interest' media at the venue ensures this historic and abridged version of the hunger strike gets into 24/7 telecast loop. This is a ploy to leave his detractors red-faced and hyperventilating and to shore up his diminishing popularity. For added measure, a medical team with an ambulance is in attendance to rush the politico to a premium ICU care.
Hold your breath! The fight is not over yet. From the bed, hooked up with snaking tubes, the politico assures the common folk and urges them to stand united, cautioning them to be aware of troubling foreign influence. ChintaMany hit a roadblock with these doubts, " For how long? till an election is won or till the politico comes out of ICU or to crowd-fund the hospital expenses? And why a foreign influence on the matter of a hunger strike? Will any of common folk will question these? "
Unable to stand the melodrama anymore, he politely asked one of the common folks for a clarification and the cryptic answer left him stunned -"Just came for the fun, nothing serious about it!" Hesitantly, ChintaMany asked the bystander if he has been voting for this politico? The bystander abruptly left the scene with this parting remark, " I am not an enrolled voter."
The typical politico keeps his/her agenda well-hidden and close to the chest. In case, the politico is forced to spend time in custody, the propped-up kith or kin in position will hold the flag, light torches and run marathons. They gently ease into the public arena, minute by minute health bulletins with BP, Sugar and weight loss graphs to create a ground swell of sympathy and support. Friendly media again comes forward to lend electronic helping hands. The common folks afflicted by more severe swings, spare a dismissive nod and move on and away from the media doses, till another high-profile BP and Sugar swings comes online.
The good old Edison's bulb starts to blink, and the common folks try to understand the foresight with which the politico has lined up the kith and kin (with a shade of distrust on his own siblings) to step into his shoes, if things go south! For the common folks, the bulb came on a little late as the elections have concluded a few months back! ChintaMany had to split his hairs, a few of them are left over after many such splitting episodes, to come to grips with the duality in the politico's persona and the taking for a ride feeling about the common folks.
Politico is very sportive; versatile in performing high & long jumps, hopping & skipping, play musical chairs, and go in merry go rounds etc. ChintaMany grudgingly admired and wondered why such an accomplished person did not compete in the Olympics. Is it not advantageous - games are held once in 4 years and generally elections are held once in 5 years? At the physiological level, falling sick at the blink of an eye - though not an Olympic game, they can claim amnesia, heart attack and other ICU rated excuses to ward off political and economic heat. They have the best business acumen to sell temporary illusions as permanent solutions. Now and then, they part take in the game of monopoly, closeted in luxurious resort settings. Thinking about the common folks, against their conscience, they reluctantly travel, in chartered flights.
ChintaMany understood the philosophy - "Why the allure of power should be resisted, when it is expense-free?"
It is not uncommon - a politico lambasting a particular faith as a regressive agent, in a fiery and strident speech only to motivate his shrinking constituency. How can he serve, if unable to emote to that constituency? When cornered, this flip-flop artist disowns the statement and blames it on "quoted out of context routine." All the rabble rousing is to decide which constituency to woo - a minor or a major one! Hitting this crossroad, the politico suddenly discovers faith too pays, becomes an expert marathon runner. The chosen circuit revolves around holy places dotted with temples.
As the itch to get back on the saddle of power becomes unbearable, inventing novel freebie schemes, flogging the overworked horse to gallop, at the drop of an election announcement becomes the norm. After swearing in, they wonder why they won and scramble to place white paper, black paper or another attractive coloured paper to decry the state of financial health, left by the outgoing regime. In desperation, they fail to recollect (selective amnesia), the outgoing regime brought out similar coloured papers on the current paper writers.
ChintaMany understood a fundamental fact, the saga of a politico never ends. When unable to digest policy, the politico suddenly suffers indigestion and hops to another party without thinking whether the indigestion will strike back again. The party had used outdated mathematical equations (of political variety) to compute election outcome, suitably buttressed with opinions of 'strategists' and favourable 'internal' assessment. This miscalculation throws up the lot of lost politicos. With nothing to do, they start crystal-ball gazing, come up with predictions on collapse of government in power. It is trying time to retain political relevance amidst the landslide defeat. They rue the lack of horse sense for having placed the bet on a poll strategist, who quietly disappeared, with the advisory fee taken in advance?
ChintaMany mentally thanked the common folks for wisely refraining from demanding a colour paper on the role of strategists in an election and how dare they take us for granted!
Wait listed and refusing to retire from playing politics, some of them start basking in the past glory of bygone career. In the heydays, they could even conjure up such profound discoveries such as ‘fishes are hydrophobic, birds suffer aviophobia in their left wings and aerophobia in their right wings'. When political future turns bleak and beyond redemption, they hear start to the call of conscience (Akash Vani), have a new futuristic vision (Door Darshan). If none of this works out, they reluctantly prepare to embrace a miffed political vanvas. ChintaMany had another doubt, "Will this be the end?"
To wind up his worries, he focused attention on the common folks- the king makers. He tried to guess what the common folks would do in the next round of elections, after hearing, seeing and with belied hopes?
ChintaMany felt like being air-dropped from 30 or 40 thousand feet and getting suddenly stuck midway - neither going up nor coming down. Frantically searching in his pockets, he found the notes he had made for this write up and dropped it like a bag of hot coal. An ever so gentle downward drop started, and after an interminable wait settled down like a feather on a meadow. He had reached the solid ground and labelled it as a miracle, in escaping unhurt and getting the political cobwebs cleared. "To dispose of the diary or to keep it." This is now, his newborn worry!
So Chinamani was finally rid of his chinta( worry) as he realized that it was no more worthy of rueing over political animals ! As Bernard Shaw said the politics is the last resort of a scoundrel , it might have finally dawned on Chinamani that to worry and keep a diary on such a tribe would have the potential to make him also look like a scoundrel or atleast make him a companion of scoundrels! A riddance for good of chintamani and end of worries though temporarily! Cannot tell unless I sail to second part of his worries! Very good reading of present day politicians with sufficient barbs and witticism !
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