A Joining Juggernaut

The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid’

Art Spander

Winter is on the wane. The sun comes a beckoning earlier and earlier and looks at me curled up cozily under a duvet with a stern eye. “Get up woman”, it admonishes with its rays. “Get up and walk”. When the entire solar system following the sun’s diktats without a murmur of protest, I am really small fry. I haul myself out. Reluctant and rather cross I don the walking shoes and a pullover to ward off the three days of chill which we Thanekars proudly tout as the good weather. For good measure, I also wrap a muffler across the lower part of my face, where it flaps desultorily in response to my brisk step.

“Good morning!”, calls out a pesky and scarily perky person, hustling past. As I think black thoughts about the morning not being so good after all, he jogs past again, even as I huff and puff on my way. This time, he gestures at my muffler. “Are you on your way to join the yatra?”. “What is that?” I wonder peering around blearily for a large crowd to appear on the horizon, because I am never at my best and brightest this early in the morning. Deciding not to cross him for a third time and be bombarded with more questions, I change track and walk away in search of quieter climes. But I seem to be out of luck. I spot three or four other acquaintances and they all ask me if I am joining the yatra and all of them seem to look askance at my muffler.

Deciding that I have appeased the sun enough, I decide to make a bee-line for home and perhaps try and get to the bottom of this yatra affair, when I am accosted by the offspring, no sooner I open the door. She promptly falls about laughing at what she terms my ‘unwittingly hilarious’ appearance. It turns out to be the muffler after all, which I had been suspecting as a culprit for some time now. I pause to take a look at the headlines on my phone, catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror and nearly drop my phone in horror. No wonder people think I am joining in the yatra which is making news. With my muffler, I bear an uncanny (and totally un-necessary) resemblance to a mendicant politician who is following the steps of Adi Shankaracharya in an attempt to traverse the length of the country.

With a gasp of panic, I rip the muffler from my face and feel my cheeks for good measure, to ensure that I have removed every bit of the offending wool and not grown a forest replete with its own ecosystem on my cheeks in the half hour that I have been wrapped in the muffler. Thankfully I have not. A rejuvenating cup of tea later, I am pondering the ‘humongous’ trek meant to join the country, pretty much in the way of a tailor regarding a shredded piece of cloth and putting it together again by a stitch here, a tuck there and a zip somewhere else. Humpty Dumpty MUST be put together again, even though he is not broken.

But the more I ponder, the more baffled I am. What exactly is the purpose of walking, living in an airconditioned container and wasting five months pouring trouble on oiled waters (yes, that spoonerism was intended) is something I absolutely do not understand. What I find even more baffling is the statements issued which range from outrageous to downright silly, when a well-respected and somewhat venerable person, who is a youth leader nonetheless says that he embarked on this journey to heal the nation of hate, but found it brimming with love instead. I beg to ask, did his minions not conduct a proper survey? Was there no ground work done before sending a middle- aged man on a wild goose chase? Maybe the grand old party was looking for a grander party on the road what with several other ‘Junta Sewaks’ playing hooky from day jobs, members of ‘civil society’ getting into the spirit and actors, writers, thinkers, bankers, and not quite a few wankers joining in with gusto.

Of course, Indian politics, right, left or center is filled with gimmicks and if the grand old party were to be involved in anyway, it has to be the grandest gimmick of them all. And this is what precisely happened. Much rhetoric, renaming of roads, a few choice speeches in the dripping rain and whirling snow, a couple of quick flits home and possibly abroad in hired helicopters, a vain attempt at turning into Hagrid with a beard thick enough for birds to nest in and several new sobriquets like ‘Tapasvi’, ‘Sanyasi’ and ‘Awam ki Awaaz’ later, the great Indian joining trip finally ended in Srinagar in the midst of flurries of snow and the nation collectively wanted to know if the several news channels which had hardly covered anything else could now go back to their regular jobs and show the actual happenings around the country and the globe.

According to polls run by several sites, popularity or should we say Pappularity ratings are soaring and we apparently have an old prime-ministerial candidate newly back in the ring, joints all limbered up and well oiled, thanks to the joining exercise, raring to go. The venerable seventy-something Prime Minister apparently does not stand a chance against this bright-eyed and bushy bearded fifty something who can make intelligent conversation on the state of the economy, the roads and how he has killed himself in the same sentence. No wonder that if nothing else, New India has a strong vision as far as joining minds, hearts, souls, houses, businesses, families, and communities goes. If the joining Juggernaut has his way, the golden days of ‘Din- E-Ilahi’ are not far behind. All that remains is for arthrologists to take a few tips from this vision of a perfectly seamless joiner to ensure that none of the joints in the human body ever go wrong again. A tall order, but I am sure a true tapasvi will always be ready to help.

Now that Republic Day is past, the great Indian Juggernaut has finally rolled to a stop in Srinagar where the national flag was hoisted amidst much fanfare and most people who have been walking the talk or talking the walk have returned to their day jobs which are a lot of fun since they involve daily disruptions, much mud-slinging, an appropriate number of allegations, stalling scheduled work and generally thwarting the other denizens of Sansad Marg and South Bloc who are struggling to go about their daily work. Perhaps the citizens are already missing their daily dose of laughter, the best medicine.

In the meanwhile, my joints are feeling disjointed, as if they have been pulverized by the joining Juggernaut. No longer wanting my muffler to be mistaken for Hagrid’s beard, I have decided to resume my swimming schedule in response to the sun’s summons. Also, I am firm in my view that if I need another Juggernaut, I am visiting Jagannath of Puri, the original one who truly does join us all!