Wednesday, January 22, 2014

DearChief Minister, you are not Batman!!!!

For some reason, the song that has been stuck in my head all of today is Taylor Swift's 'I knew you were trouble when you walked in'. I kept wondering why, and it is now that I realized that that song is exactly what Delhi is singing to it's current chief minister! Don't believe me? Here is why!

Once upon a time a few mistakes ago
I was in your sights, you got me alone
You found me, you found me, you found me
I guess you didn't care, and I guess I liked that
And when I fell hard you took a step back
Without me, without me, without me

Which is sooooo true. Mr. IIT IRS decided he had had enough being a babu and so decided to go where everyone goes to serve the people while making a little money on the side. And therefore, he set his sights on the city, while always acting like he didn't  care about floating a party, let alone being a CM. So when the city as always goes through the crap it has always been going through, he does take a step back and do what he does best! Faux satyagraha!

So, at the outset, he started off being the man of the moment. Well actually Anna Hazare, a true Gandhian started off the whole concept of having a Lokpal, to bring in some kind of an overseeing entity to curb rampant corruption in the government. Mr IIT IRS joined in and decided to take it to an all new level. At first he presented himself as being a selfless educated government servant out to do good for the people of Delhi, while explicitly claiming he had no political ambitions. But as time wore on, and seeing that he had indeed managed to grab enough mindspace amongst the voting public (of course! whoever would have remembered his name otherwise? But everyone also remembers Rakhi Sawant's name! never mind), he decided to help the people constitutionally. Ah! so he did know that India had a constitution!!!! Which is surprising, since his subsequent governance methods really made me wonder whether the UPSC (civil service examinations) have changed their curriculum to include only Nolan's Batman series!!

Seeing the promise he brought, in the wake of the lack of governance, given the long list of scams and scandals against our elected politicians, people unwittingly voted for him. Well let's face it, every educated voter wishes for a good candidate, one who really comes into politics with marksheets and not chargesheets. So here was a man, a potential 'none of these' option to the ruling dynasty and the new pretender. And they voted.

Alas! Who was to know that the new dude would take his role as Batman so seriously. So much so, that even when he became the ruler, taking support of the same guys he dissed, he stayed a vigilante. Only now, he became the Joker. Seriously, what does he mean when he looks into a swanky new house and says 'People are upset, but I am only living in a house given by the government'? Isn't he the government? He took offense when people said that he wasn't a man of his words. Well, he wasn't. He said he won't run for office, he did. He said he would bring the corrupt in the then ruling Congress Goverment to book, only to later ask for 'proof' that they were indeed corrupt. 

Now, in the recent drama that goes on to show that the whole ruse had been engineered with a view to holding on to peoples' imagination in the wake of national polls, there was an unconstitutional protest against a crime against women. Honestly, the slew of comments has me confused over the motive behind the 'strike'. BY THE GOVERNMENT!!! So was it to protest the rape of the Danish tourist? Or was it to protest a Dowry death? Or was it to protest the fact that a certain cop refused to give in to high handed, non-rulebook behavior of a vigilante sidekick, who decided to barge into a few peoples' houses claiming they were prostitutes, This same Law minister, in another occasion decided to manhandle and trouble store employees of a 24/7 shop at midnight under the pretext of asking for the store registration details. Or was the 'dharna' another ruse to usurp more power? Again, he is the government. What on earth does he mean by saying that if a crime were to be committed against a woman in Delhi, his Government will raise a protest? YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT MR. AAP. You are there to be the solution. Not an error log. Not the class snitch. Please understand that.

But then again, like Ms. Swift has rightly said in one of her lines - 'I reeeealize, the joke is on me, yeah'. The joke is really on the true Aam Aadmi. The common man who voted for someone who portrayed an image of being one from amongst them, the pack of lies notwithstanding.The common man, who was sick of his hard earned money being taxed to fill corrupt coffers. The common man, who suffered in the wake of this lame 'dharna' that had been engineered to fill home TV screens, give Barkha Dutt a reason to scream about and serve as a flashcard to the voter in the coming Lok Sabha polls. I guess by now the common man does realize that Mr. Kejriwal is not really one of the commoners, since he has explicitly stated that he is a chief minister and he can sit where he wants; he cannot be asked to move his protest to another place so that common people who WORK for a living won't be inconvenienced. He is a chief minister who had the nerve to question the legitimacy of Republic Day celebrations, that have been going on in the capital for the past 64 years!! Imagine a real aam aadmi doing any of the above!

A few months ago, this same person had taken offense at a comment by another known, blatant politically connected 'businessman' who had referred to him as a mango man in a banana republic. Ironic that the actions of Mr. CM have done nothing but prove the politically connected son-in-law right!

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