Society for the Care of Political Leaders who've been whipped at the Hustings

I saw this picture recently in a newspaper, and my heart bled.

For a minute I thought that these were refugees running away from the depredations of those evil Bokacho.... Haramza... militants in Nigeria. I was reaching for my wallet for a hefty 10 buck contribution towards their board and lodge, when I looked more closer at the picture.

And my heart bled even more. Here they were, the erstwhile political leaders of our Nation, who'd been kicked out of their cushy jobs by the populace.

And these are not the only ones - the list is pretty long: Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid, Arvind Kejriwal, Farooq Abdullah, Arun Jaitley, Milind Deora, Gurudas Kamath, Priya Dutt, Praful Patel, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Raj Babbar, to name just a few.

No more privileges, no more power - what will they do for their daily bread, since they've stopped earning theirs by honest toil many decades ago? Nobody's going to give them any bribe or hafta any more. No Arnab Goswami will call them to the studio and shout at them "the nation wants to know...." Death, where is thy sting? is the question that most of these leaders are asking themselves. 

I believe that what our country needs is a NGO focused on the care of politicians who've been busted by their electorate. Three square meals totalling 50 bucks a day, unless the fellow stuffing his face happens to be the sardar fellow called Ahluwalia in a blue turban, for whom the ceiling is fixed at 28 bucks a day less 10% TDS and 12.36% Service Tax.

So, here I am, setting up this NGO -  Society for the Care of whipped Political Leaders (aka SCPL - Scalpel - which is a nice mnemonic).

Of course, not all of them will need the services of my NGO. This gentleman thought he'd get a solid job doing what he's good at - this is a service which will never go out of fashion.

But he found there's a smarter way - he quarreled with the judge at the court, and became a guest of the nation for a couple of weeks. The food is better, the housing is superior - all modern conveniences are available, including HDTV, etc. And of course, the neighbours are all upper-class, moneyed types. Great place for networking for future prosperity.

And there's Arun Jaitley, who's got friends in high places. He's already got a job, with the promise of being sneaked into the Lok Sabha in a perfectly legal way, and his appointment will be regularised post facto.

But there will be many takers for my little charity. And come the state elections, there will be many more. I wonder where I'll house them.

I'm looking for like-minded and generous souls who can contribute towards this NGO - we'll have entertainment evenings when the recipients of our charity can reminisce about the great work they've done for our country, how the bureacrats used to quake in their chappals, and how rotten the current government is. I hope that some of their colleagues who've won at the polls will come in and hobnob with the inmates and talk of the ballot boxes they've stuffed together in their callow youth.

We are choosy, though. Not any old leaders whose rear has been kicked can come in - we reserve our charity for the deserving rich and criminal. It will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for Mani Shankar Aiyar to enter the kingdom of Scalpel.

The Case of the Rubber Swords

My contacts in China inform me that Indian political parties have placed large orders for rubber swords, with immediate deliveries. There's no mystery in this - leaders of various political parties who've performed abysmally in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections will fall on their swords, and then hope to bounce back.

Some leaders have taken 'responsibility' for the disastrous performance of their parties and resigned/threatened/promised to resign, and two have actually done so. Imagine their plight if they discover that the swords they are prepared to fall on actually do have sharp edges, and can eviscerate them and end their political careers.

Tarun Gogoi, the CM of Assam, has promised to resign within a week, beginning May 16th. The poor fellow needs good secretarial help - obviously his current staff are not capable of preparing a proper resignation letter for the boss to sign. There is every reason to believe that he is waiting for his rubber sword to fall on. If anybody would like to volunteer for the task of writing a good resignation letter, please get in touch with me - I have an inside line to Shri Gogoi.

Stalin resigned, but then bounced back. He must have got his rubber sword express delivered - he must have ordered wooden swords from amazon.com, though there is a rubber knife available here.

Nitish Kumar, the Bihar CM, has resigned, but is waiting for someone to take out his rubber sword from his dhoti. God forbid if his followers take him at his word, and replace the weapon with one with edges.

The Maharashtra CM is waiting for his bosses in Delhi to send him a sword to fall on. He is a worried man - he has inside info that the bosses have ordered a proper katana, and not a rubber one. I am told that he's ordered a steel body armour which he'll wear when he's told to fall on his sword.

Since Sonia Gandhi and her son have both taken responsibility for the debacle of the Congress Party, there is a strong expectation that they'll also fall on swords. I understand that various flunkies of the 'firstest' family of India are trying out various swords on which mother and son can fall, and then resurrect themselves on demand from said flunkies in the party. I have it from reliable sources that the reason why Rahul Gandhi had gone AWOL from the farewell bash for the exiting PM was not because he wanted to insult Dr MMS, but he wanted to personally try out various swords from a wide variety of soft materials. In an unpublished interview with a very senior correspondent, who shall remain nameless, Rahul said that he wanted to ensure that his mom and he had the softest landing possible - he didn't trust any of his party members, and did not want a Swordgate after the new Government came into power.

And no, the very senior correspondent is NOT the one who screams about the Nation Wanting to Know.