I had sworn I wouldn’t write on politics ever again on my
blog but I’m thrilled to eat my words now that Aam Admi Party has given both the major
political parties a licking they’re unlikely to forget as long as they live, in the Delhi Assembly polls. And
just when you thought it couldn’t get more bizarre, we now have all 3 parties holding
the door open for one another to form the government. If all that the AAP has
managed to do is to civilize the Congress and BJP whose high-pitched snarling
has made this pre-poll season one of the dirtiest ever in living memory, it’s
worth it. Serendipity couldn’t be sweeter. The BJP and Congress are now
referring to each other as (get this!) “friends”, “my good friend”, “my
colleague who I hold in high esteem” (insert joke here) and other such wonderful
sobriquets. On television channels: the same television channels, the same anchors
(who used every ounce of their own lung power to keep the two parties straining
on their leashes, in their corners), the same TV audience whose dinner was
ruined night after night by these same “friends” who behaved like they’d
forgotten to take their anti-psychotic medication before coming out in public.
The most curious outcome of AAP’s win is this new found
romance that is amusing the hell out of news anchors and viewers alike. From
being a warring couple who couldn’t agree on anything, the two parties now can’t
seem to disagree on anything. And they’ve teamed up to try and rush the Lokpal
Bill through as well. All this is rip-roaringly funny of course. But the
funniest of all is the position that the “mango men” find themselves in; when you make your bed, you have to lie in it. They remind
me of a stunned guy with the deer-caught-in-headlights look, suddenly pushed
out on stage from behind the curtain before the actual play starts. And the
newly married couple (Congress and BJP) are like the real actors who can’t go
out there and pull him back. But they can’t come out on stage and begin their
play either. The guy who is on stage has gone into deep freeze. The spotlight
is on him. The audience is cheering wildly. But the audience is equally
confused and scratching its collective head (“Tell me again, what exactly is the guy doing?”) So, nobody knows
what to do. Everyone is waiting to see who blinks first. There has been an election but nobody wants to rule, everyone wants
to sit on the bench, so there’s no one in the driver’s seat.
This has to be the best make-it-up-as-you-go
story.
