Of Peacocks and Feather Dusters

Of Peacocks and Feather Dusters


Peacocks and Rajasthan share a symbiotic relationship, along with partridges that prefer to walk. Peacocks preen and call and are painted and depicted on every medium to hand. Teethers, plump, mud-brown, with little heads and composed, almost totally, of delicious meat; tempt. Aiming slingshots at them, might, I suppose, persuade them to take wing.

I ask my genteel Rajasthani friends, related to the erstwhile Jaipur royal family, why Vasundhara Raje of Gwalior didn’t win a second term. “Infighting in the BJP” said one. “Rajasthan alternates between the BJP and Congress”, said another.

“But didn’t she do good work,” I ask. “She’s been repairing the forts and havelis alright. Amer Fort which is government owned is much improved, like Jodhpur’s Mehrangarh, which is still with the royal family. Nahargarh is saved from tumbling down. The miles of walls and watchtowers too. Tourism would be up if there were tourists now. Congress doesn’t do Heritage. Prefers to let ruins stay ruined. More authentic to them but she’s a royal you see,” says my friend of the first part.

“And still she goes, voted out in what is primarily a tourist state,” says I. “Just like Parikkar in Goa,” I add. “It’s the goonery,” says my friend significantly, “people don’t like the goonery ”. “But Gehlot comes from a family of Magicians,” says his wife mysteriously. “Like John Major,” I say, “except, his was a family of trapeze artists.”

Sounds like so much gossip doesn’t it? But as we enter the run up to the big one, the politically-minded will jostle. The electorate needs swaying. Causes have to resonate. Alliances have to be struck. The arithmetic must work. And these days it is only one part about the voting public. For them, once it was catch the right wind, coin the right slogan, and it would’ve swept you into power.

Think of it. There was “Roti, Kapda aur Makaan,” more celluloid theatrics than politics, and the socialistic bombast of “Garibi Hatao” in an economy growing at two per cent chased by inflation at eighteen percent!

The last rounds witnessed the modern day hypocrisy of “Aam Aadmi” contrasted with the overreaching boomerang of “Shining India”. But, is there a single slogan that can move India this time? And what might that be? Will a new, improved, “Swadeshi,” or “Aam Aadmi II” and “Youth Power” cut the mustard in 2009?

What can you depend on in a regionalised, fractured polity? SP General Secretary Amar Singh says Congress likes to “use and throw” its allies as in use for nuclear power and throw for General Election. Uttar Pradesh and its 80 MPs may be up for grabs. Both SP and rivals BSP may be out there looking for best bids. Thank God Bihar is holding true to existing fault lines. Other states, other slates.

On cue, Mr. S from Hyderabad expostulates at breakfast. He is in Rajasthan to buy a 100,000 sq.ft. of marble for his construction company. “It is a buyer’s market now” he says happily. Mr. S says Chandrababu Naidu has apologised to the peasantry for neglecting them the last time around and they have forgiven him. He says the TDP will win this time. “Naidu and Advani really click,” says Mr. S, snapping his fingers. I start counting 28 MPs from Andhra but wince a bit when I see the newspaper report on Reddy saying Congress will not stand in the way of a new state of Telengana carved out of Andhra.

Then there’s the whole security can of worms. Congress says it will now get tough on security. But this is Rahul Gandhi’s Yuvrajspeak. He can, after all, dare to float any trial balloon he chooses. Besides everyone is still looking for resonance and Congress, no different, is trying to fine-tune Aam Aadmi II.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission is under suspicion. Can they be fair and partisan at the same time? Ditto, the President of the Republic! And the Judges who refuse to declare their assets and begrudge being prosecuted for corruption. The intelligence agencies are busy gathering information on allies and opposition alike. The entire Apparatus of State poses stiff challenges to our lion-headed motto Satyamev Jayate and probably one or two to Jai Ho too for that matter.

But this could be seen through a different prism. After, that is, moaning ineffectually about how disgustingly soft India is; how totally uncaring about the safety and security of its people. And complaining also about how corrupt; inefficient; nepotistic, classist, sexist, casteist, communal, regional, obscurantist, over-crowded, filthy, slow, confused, it is. And after moaning also about red-tape riddled systems that don’t work except for the powerful; about the non-functioning courts and how the political classes and their bureaucratic minions are immune to all harm; one does cross a synapse into a eureka flash about the good side of things.

There is something good to be said for being soft like a pillow. It helps to absorb shocks. And show Gandhian patience in the face of lies and being regularly kissed off. It comforts, even as it creates a masochistic appetite for punishment. It knows that every aggressor eventually runs out of bullets, bombs, missiles, even venom. It jives with big picture ahimsa and maya and karma, and climate crusading Greens. It lets you appreciate that looters, murderers, frauds, rapists and the like have their own compelling reasons. It lets you feel compassion for Kasab!

It tells you all things pass, even for the inefficient. And Things are, for the Newagers and the rest of us, just as they are meant to be. Bobby Ghosh explains the essential difference in Time magazine: “All countries have armies, but in Pakistan, the army has a country”. Oh Har de Har!

Being soft makes you non-reactive, and infuriates the aggressive. Besides it is good for blood pressure and clear thought. One like the next central government will indeed belong to the better alliance builder, never mind the issues.

For the rest, it is as Pat Quinn, the new Illinois Governor who replaced the impeached Rod Blagojevich put it: “One day a peacock, the next day a feather duster”. It shouldn’t surprise a good desi. After all, Martin Luther King learned his non-violence from the Mahatma. So, why shouldn’t the Mighty Quinn rap about maya using a Rajasthani peacock metaphor?


(1,053 words)

Friday, 13th February, 2009
Gautam Mukherjee