Getting to know Him better

The Man from Madras Musings has been watching with considerable amusement. People who had thus far dismissed Him as a mere actor have now decided that He is perhaps worth cultivating after all. MMM understands that the scramble has begun for getting to know better Him, His nine apostles and those other 108 followers who have been elected along with Him. The question that is most often asked these days in the social circles in which MMM moves is: who knows Him better and whether there can be any access to someone – one who knows someone who in turn knows someone else who knows someone who may be close to the one worth knowing!

After decades of cozying up to familiar faces in power, namely pater familias, mater dei, the eternal youth leader and his son, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee, those who do the cozying up are now a puzzled lot. They do not know whom to approach and so they have begun to approach all and sundry which includes MMM as well. Thus, it was that MMM suddenly received a breathless call from a leading media house in the national capital. The person at the end of the line seemed to be someone with bronchial trouble given the number of whistles and gasps that were proceeding from the phone. It transpired that the lady was under a tremendous amount of pressure to identify someone from the new party in power and she knew none. She therefore decided that it was MMM uncle who would be able to help. To this, all that uncle MMM could do was to wish her well in avuncular fashion and tell her that he specialized in matters of the past and not that of the future.

That however did not end the matter. Within a day of the announcement that the swearing in would take place after all, came a call saying that they had a series of questions for which they sought MMM’s sage responses. The queries and answers were as follows —

Sir, is he the first Christian to take oath as chief minister of your state?

MMM agreed.

Sir, will he be the first chief minister both of whose parents will be alive at the time of his taking the oath of office and secrecy?

To this MMM replied that this may well be true, but he could not answer with certainty about chief ministers of the 1940s of whose parents’ longevity he had no idea.

Sir, will he be the tallest chief minister?

MMM decided that it was time he had some fun. “Not really” he replied, for in his, MMM’s view, a certain freedom fighter turned chief minister who led the industrialization of the state and pioneered the noon meal scheme would always remain the tallest.

There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the phone.

Ohh Sir! came the exclamation. Can you tell us what that person’s height was? MMM decided that it was time to disconnect the call.

Time to breathe!

Did you know that there is a certain rule when elections are in progress that all statues, plaques, portraits, monuments, and other markers unveiled by those in power and who are contesting the ongoing election have to be covered? This is certainly one of those laws which must come under what is known as the daft category. Consider the facts – when the whole state is wallowing in election symbols and campaigns and messages by way of posters, hoardings, reels on social media and public events, what are a few memorial tablets and statues capable of influencing? Has anybody ever thought about this?

This bit of bureaucratic goofiness came to the attention of The Man from Madras Musings when he was traveling around in the textile city of our state. He came to a particular park where he saw the statues of People’s Crest aka Revolutionary Leader, his older brother, and Mater Dei, all standing in line. What was intriguing was that the right hand of all the three leaders, which in the statues were in uplifted position, were wrapped up as though they had suffered an injury of some kind. Inquiries revealed that all three statues had their fingers in the V symbol indicating victory, which could also be interpreted to mean the two leaves symbol of that party and so the hands had been bandaged!

Likewise, there is a series of statues of dancers under one of our city flyovers, each of which has been trussed up securely because they had been unveiled by the former chief minister. And then there is a statue to Older Brother who gave us the slogan Duty, Dignity and Discipline, which has been standing at a street intersection in the city for over 40 years. Consider MMM’s surprise when walking by it he found that the pedestal had all the memorial plaques on it securely taped over so that nobody could read the name of the person who is memorialised or those who were involved in the unveiling of the statue. It obviously did not occur to those who did the taping that not one of those persons is alive. And so what possible damage can they do?

Even worse are the entrance arches at various public buildings with names of political leaders on them. These have all cloth or tarpaulin draped over them just sufficient to cover the name in question. The shabbiness of the entire arrangement is to be seen to be believed and makes you wonder as to what kind of an image these institutions are portraying to the public!

Now that the elections are over and we have a government in office, it is high time these bandages and covers are removed. Let our dead political leaders breathe. And let us also hope that when elections happen, in the fullness of time, when the moment is ripe, we will see such outmoded rules being done away with. If statues and plaques are such a social ill as to affect the behaviour of people, then they should not be there at all in the first place, should they? And what a waste of government employees’ time – given the effort in first covering everything up and then opening them all up again!

– MMM