Raju Ganapathy

Comedy

4  

Raju Ganapathy

Comedy

The Rat Who Stole The Cheese

The Rat Who Stole The Cheese

5 mins
305



The little rat was hungry, and it got a smell of cheese somewhere. The smell made the rat drool. It looked for the cheese. The little did the rat realize that it was in a maze, and it would be really fortuitous if it would find the cheese. As I was thinking about the situation of the rat, I realized I am that rat caught up in the maze of life and the cheese was nothing but a metaphor for ambitions in life be it wealth, fame and power. In our own country only 1% get the cheese and some others get close to it. The vast majority tire and finally die in trying to find the cheese. 

The majority religion has evolved a clever super structure to make this all appear as karma, God given. Prayer to God was supposed to get you the cheese. If you don’t you are not perhaps praying hard enough or that God has a different plan for you. If you were born as a Dalit, you find your cheese in the sewerage. Of course, the odd one might become the President of the country for the majority to celebrate how fair is the country to its people. The society is highly stratified and given the name caste which has a ring of legitimacy for it finds mention in classics like Manusmriti or even Bhagwad Githa. The defenders would of course say it was not meant to be that way. 

To prove my theory, I am giving an example of Bani and Dhani foremost among the rats who now own a megacorporation. They have all the cheese and eat it too. Some would call it hard work and inspiration. Many people would support the idea of this corporate honcho with a ratan in his name to get a Bharat Ratna award. He also gets to eat too many cheeses. As long as I get my share of cheese I am not going to get cheesed off if they get to eat one too many cheeses. 

The state wants to bring in national registration to identify which all rats belong to this country and which don’t. Some say it was inconsiderate of the state to do so. Some cases are pending at the supreme court who hopefully would bring out a rational judgement. 

I now understand why some want the name change to Bharat. The other baraat is part of the tradition in north India where the bridal rat gets into marriage and breeds like rat herself. No wonder the population growth rate where baraat is predominant is still high. South of Bharat has had enough of this tradition of breeding and perhaps feel saturated. More in south get the cheese than the northern cousins. But they have a weakness for gold which they measure in terms of carat.

A second point proves my theory. Eighty crores of our population are still subsisting on government given ration. Our PM is proud of this benevolence and his welfare policies bring enough dividend at the hustle for him to think otherwise. Election after election proves that rats are hungry in this country. People still vote for him without any rationale.

The third point is that we are a country of rats controlled by other rats who have a powerful lobby in our country going by the name bureaucrats. I hope you get the pun intended.

In our neighbourhood there is a bandicoot bigger than our rats. These bandicoots have a Xing thing in that they get the goat of our PM who considers himself to be the GOAT of all PMs in India thus far. He often gets rattled by the manoeuvres of the bandicoots. He talks about make in India which is essential a move against the bandicoot. 

Apart from the bandicoot the rating by foreign agencies gets his goat. He asks why we do need a foreign certificate? He said Bharat was the mother of all democratic rulers when a rating agency put Bharat very low in the index for democracy. He defied time itself when the TIME magazine reported in cover of him as the greatest divider in chief. He takes recourse to yoga to defy time itself. Now he is considering running for a third term as he considers himself first rate in fitness and all else. He frustrates opposition itself as they cannot come out with a winning candidate with as good a rating as he himself is. Now a leader is doing a marathon walks to unify the Bha-rats.

There are some things in our Bharat that cannot be exterminated. Politicians, religion, gods, caste and rats being one among them. I can invite any one of the readers to challenge me for a bet. If I lose, I would migrate to a neighbouring country. 

If Gandhiji had liked cheese he would have said this to the rats: in the earth there is enough cheese for everyone’s need but not for even one person’s greed. And now we are facing climate change disaster as a result of this greed.

I am now at the phase of a writer trying to find the cheese: readership, publisher or fame. If readers ratify my writing, I get gratification but I still remain the quintessential rat. This piece I have specially curated and you can read it gratis. If you didn’t get it now please tell me how many rats did you find in this piece?



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