I’m often at my wit’s end these days. Who wouldn’t be, dears? The rupee never had less bang for its buck. Poor people are compelled to feast their eyes on carpeted roads and starve their shriveling stomachs. The peace that passes all understanding in the north and east has meant that the war on terror has come home to roost – which is why thuggery by court favorites, violence instigated or ignored by the law, and organized crime sanctioned by unknown high-ups are mainly southern phenomena today. And one never knows when the current cabal of chumps at the board that is electric will pull the plug, so that we can all be shockingly in the dark together. (There, have I suitably brightened up your Sunday? There is no rest for the wicked – even on the Sabbath!)
That’s why I was so happy to get a message from a VVVIP recently which demonstrated just how much the powers that be are in touch with the plight of the common people. Not that I am common, dears; nor that you are of the garden variety: but we must admit that we live in a simply stratified society. The crown and its cronies, and the kos polos. There are the humble simple servants of the people at the top of the ladder, who simply live it up in grand style at our expense. Also there are the simpler minor servants of the major elected representatives who serve themselves (I mean are who are supposed to serve us) but who fancy their perks so much over the privilege of speaking truth to power. And then there’s us, who eat humble pie because bread has been beyond our means for some time now.
But I digress. Back to that message. Quietly, and with supreme confidence, it invited all and sundry – no elitist nonsense with this erstwhile man of the people – to join hands with him in switching off the power for an hour or so on Earth Day. We need you, the subtext suggested, to go silently and without protest into that dark night of our own making. Forget the profligate state of the rest of the nation, folks – being a patriot means conserving electricity.
Never has the willing collusion of the masses in their own suffering been more convincingly solicited – and with such chutzpah at that! Really dears, we have truly enlightened leaders… even if they come before the masses with the less than exhilarating information that due to the rising cost of living, unpaid fuel bills and unserviceable debt, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off. (Which reminds me: a pessimist sees the tunnel, an optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel, and the realist knows that the light at the end of the tunnel is the candle we will have to light when the power is switched off soon!)
Stop me getting carried away next time…
In the meantime, I eagerly await the next set of instructions from the Mikado or the Lords High Poo Bah who sit around their air-conditioned palaces dreaming up productive things for the hoi polloi to do. I can just see it now, in a splinter of my mind’s eye. We will be asked to tighten our belts – again. I hear that the belt is so tight around the wastes (I mean waists) of some mandarins of the state that they have had to sit down rather unexpectedly or be sat upon by their peers. The powers will ask us to cooperate in ridding the nation of crime, corruption, and cronyism. They will wage war on waste, mismanagement, and bureaucracy – and want our help to identify which government bodies are most guilty of these lacunae. Those ministries, departments, committees, commissions, and authorities who do not conform to the state’s austerity measures will be fingered by us. With pleasure, dears! (With pleasure, it will cost you extra.)
In the meanwhile, the powerful and energetic ministry whose enlightened policies are relegating us to the dark ages is running amok. It is quoting Shakespeare to schoolchildren. “Put out the light, and then put out the light.” To which our pretty witty city chits have essayed this reply: “If I quench thee, thou flaming minister/I can again thy former light restore/Should I repent me: but once put out thy light/Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature/I know not where is that Promethean heat/That can thy light relume.” The flaming minister need not be too chuffed. The propaganda (I mean some newspaper reports) intimate that some five billion souls who may not know their right hand from their left have agreed to do their bit part and put out the light. It never ceases to amaze me how some spinmeisters are so successful at willing the masses to participate so cheerfully in their own suffering.
Once upon a time, a Man laid down His Life for His friends because He dared to speak truth to power. Today, too, anyone who dares to do this will also be crucified. For we live in an age when the powers want us to lay down our lives so that they can continue to enjoy the abundant life…
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