Tit For Tat

It was not the best of times in the capital. The grey clouds hanged heavily and the mood was sombre in the meeting hall. The best of minds had gathered. They were also true patriots. The agenda weighed heavily on every one’s mind. The great leader walked in at the stroke of ten in the morning. He was always known for his master stroke. A hush fell as soon as he walked in. He started with an invocation “Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya.” May he lead us from darkness unto light. Then after a moment of silence he looked at his deputy and indicated that the meeting shall begin.

The deputy ran his hand over his bald head and began talking. He said there has been a spate of incidents indicating that many citizens are losing their sleep and balance over media postings. When we thought COVID was over social media seems to have caught it in another form.

We all know that we have been ranked first in the Global Frustration Index indicating that our citizens are highly frustrated and it is natural they take to social media for venting out their frustrations. But this phenomenon seems to have spilt over to the real society as well with many FIRs being filed all over the country. So much so that police have started protesting that lot of their time is being taken up in filing FIRs. The other day CJI also let out his frustration stating that the court is dealing with a lot of frivolous cases arising out of social media epidemic. He paused and looked at the Director of the Institute of One Nation-Thought (ION-T). Sankriti cleared her throat and began her intervention. Readers must know that Ms Sanskriti had done her PhD in Sanskrit Classics and by that she claims that she is an expert on everything under the Sun. As she rightly claimed that Sanskrit classics had somethings to say on each and every subject known and unknown to human kind be it about God or quantum physics. For example, the Karnataka education committee has recently discovered that Pythagoras theorem may have originated in our classics.

She said the deputy to our great leader had telephoned her in advance and she has been doing some research on the phenomenon. Essentially there are two parties involved. One she would call the Orange Brigade and the other the Green Rebels. Orange Brigade has been in the psyche of our citizens from her origin where as the GRs came in by invasion some five hundred years ago. In that sense there is a debate going on “Are they a contaminant in the pure-bred orange society?” she continued if you see history, there was this past glory. Then came the invasion of Green Rebels and then by White Burden. The White Burden further deepened the wedge between OBs and GRs. The leader then cleared his throat. Taking a cue Sanskrit paused.

The leader stroked his beard and said some seventy plus years ago a trio of Jawahar, Mohandas and their Ally plotted the creation of the two nation which has taken this nation to a point of no return. But the leader was already choking with pain and sorrow. Ah! Neelkanth, the deputy exclaimed and gave him warm honey with water for the leader to sip. Leader signalled to Sanskriti to continue.

We have this essentially two incompatible parties vying for this oneness. And of late have started playing the tit -for-tat game. Yet again, the orange brigade being a big group have several sub-groups with diverse origin. They have started biting at each other too. It is like an auto-immune disease when cells attach each other thinking it is of an enemy origin. Funny thing is that the green rebels have a single origin which is considered as the Big One and they say no one but Him. In the Orange group it is all encompassing: origins and sub-origins are considered nature and beings as divine and includes animals like monkeys and bovines too. Then there are different values about utility items as we traverse in the country in different directions: meat, alcohol, marijuana is also considered offer-able items to divinity. It could be seen that the leader and his deputy were getting a head-ache. The deputy called for a tea break. The leader said “good idea. We can have charcha after tea break.”

Leader thought that Sanskriti would solve their problem easily. But as she has been explaining the charcha was about diverse-tea. One of the members of this elite committee agreed with her stating that he owns a tea estate: all teas he sells are single origin yet he supplies diverse-teas. In the neighbouring estate it is of a different origin but can sell the same teas. The connoisseur would consider the taste and the flavour to be different but for the masses it may be just tea.

The leader was seen to be losing his patience. 2024 was fast approaching and he was thinking of a third-term. He needed to do something different this time. So, he thundered “what is the solution, then?

Sanskriti demurred that the solution is to shun a single solution but look at unity in diversity. One size doesn’t fit all. We need to encourage regional parties so that they can best represent their constituency. Some constituency may prefer plants to meat. Some prefer the simians and others like the Miyans. Others like a bit of alcohol and weed. Who can question their need? Some would see divinity in bovinity. For others it may be appetising to think of bovinity. Some have directional fixation. Some believe in magic; others think it to be tragic. Some love the goat met but others it gets their goat. Some slaughter the lambs to eat, others would like to slaughter the lamb eaters. Some want to ban things but other raise a banner of revolt to these things. The tit for tat goes on with no winners. Police go on a spree of arrest and such news arrest the attention of the social media. ED keeps on raiding and in the social media it causes ‘epic disturbance’ creating a tsunami of sorts. 

The leader heaved a sigh of relief as the meeting ended but without any conclusion. He has a constituency outside too. Movers and shakers have to be pleased too, especially the shakers. He cannot afford a ‘gulf’ in the relations to be developed. He realized that he was now riding a tiger and cannot afford to get down. He prayed to Ma Durga whose vehicle is the tiger to give him the strength to tame the tiger.