World's Coolest Speech Writer

It was an elocution competition with a difference. The winner would not only be awarded a cash prize but his speech would be the one to be made by no less than the PM on the forthcoming Republic Day. The two finalist’s speech would be televised country wide with the facility of simultaneous translation in the respective state’s languages, so that language politics does not come into play. Considering the recent debacle, no teleprompt facility would be provided to the two finalists. There were no judges for the event but the winner would be announced based on the votes pooled in his favour from the viewership. After all the nation is a mother of democracy and the viewers gets to vote the winner. Once the speeches are made, extra 30-minutes were to be provided for the viewers to decide whom to vote for. The two finalists’ names were also not announced in advance lest they both start campaign in the social media. Many in the nation this was a fair competition. Even the rules didn’t provide for adding caste names. It was only first names that was displayed. The broad theme of the topic was anything connected with India.

I had decided to participate in the month-long event and now I have made it to the finals. I got informed one-hour in advance so was the other finalists. Both had been given one hour time to prepare for a 5-minute speech. Neither of us finalists knew who the other one was.

When the time for the competition came, I got surprised to know that my competitor was one Ms Nirmal Raman who introduced herself as a JNU post-graduate in economics discipline. She made a fiery speech rattling on the economic virtues. She said India was on the cusp of reaping the demographic dividend. With policies like Atmanirbharta and Make in India we were on the right track to double our economy and become the third biggest in the world. We already have two of the Asia’s richest and they have informed given the right backing they can become world beaters. We as a nation has progressed since 2014 considering much of the mis-rule since our independence. She talked about how many house-holds have toilets; how many house-holds have taps and water does come; how we have added over 40 billionaires during the pandemic vouching that the nation is on the right track.

I knew that I had a real chance of winning the competition. I am a satirist and been following PM’s speeches and seen what makes him ticks. We have the trait of hero worship; we as a nation are deeply religious and believe in mythologies and gods like no one’s business. Not for us rational arguments; facts and figures; what was needed was imageries evoking grandeur. We also believe in our past glory. I had tailored my speech keeping all this in mind.

I started with the now famous address “Mitron.” I went on to say that our desh is called a Bharat Mata not for nothing. As a mother she believes in procreation. She is the mother of our 1.4 billion people. Not only that she is the mother of democracy. I referred to the competition itself. You listeners are going to vote for the winner. We don’t any democracy index more practical than this. I said world over there is a move to taint our Bharat Mata. They talk of hunger index. Do they know that we deeply believe in fasting? This is part of our ethos. Bulk of our people lead a still life. My heart gladdens when I see people walking on bare foot directly connected with the mother earth. We don’t have the western problem of obesity. We are a nation of spiritualists. Which other nation can boast of so many gods and godmen? Which other nation can boast of few temples in every street in our city? Now we will have the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. It will become the mother of all temples. Kasi Viswanath is also there, in case people prefer Shiva to Rama.

We have numerous istri fellows who have the freedom to press to earn a livelihood. What is with the people who talk of press freedom index? Even the cows have the freedom to stroll on the roads and block the traffic. Nobody gives a damn because we worship cows. We think of Kamdhenu, the mother. While others think of a cow in terms of a beef: rare, medium and so on. For the first time in the history that I can recollect Hindus are rising. We are collectively dreaming of a Hindu Rashtra. We will learn from the scientific aspects of the Hindu religion but practice at large the non-scientific principles such as the caste system. The caste system ensures that we don’t have an open rat race in the country. This is just to illustrate our glory in under 5 -minutes. If you give me one-hour imagine what I can tell you. Jai Hind; Jai Bharat.

I don’t need to tell you that I was the winner by a margin of 1 million votes. The PM was moved to crocodile tears in reading out my speech. I got an offer from the PMO to become consultant speech writer for PM. I gleefully accepted considering it was election season and make some fast bucks. What was required was spinning the word wheel and make people smile if not laugh. Who ever cared for any meaningful content when they are listening to our PM?