Yeti visited army camp during election season; Are the BJP leaders scared? 

The ‘Yeti’ did a recce of an Indian Army mountaineering expedition’s base camp at Makalu and then without disturbing the sleep of the olive-uniformed climbers went away silent as a snowfall in the dead of night leaving behind for proof of its night-time incursion and evidence of existence only a footprint of massive size, 32x15”.

The Army tweeted the ‘Yeti visit’, terming the Yeti as ‘beast’, and erstwhile BJP Member of Parliament Tarun Vijay took objection to the ‘beast’ in the tweet. Call ‘him’, the Yeti, ‘Snowman’, Vijay chided our brave soldiers. Twitterati promptly took Tarun Vijay to task by adding a lot of fun to his ‘Snowman’, quite a few linking Tarun Vijay’s intervention as standard BJP practice that gives myths the lore they shouldn’t get.

The Yeti is a mythical beast of vast proportions and if ever any human being actually set eyes on a Yeti that human never lived to tell the story, likely made a meal of there and then by the elusive Yeti. For all that, we (the mighty human race, top of the food chain) do not know if the Yeti is flesh-eater or lives only on snow and the odd vegetation that survive freezing winter.

The Chinese believe in Yeti and there have been reports of many Yeti-sightings in the forbidden kingdom. Of late there are fewer Chinese reports and that could be because of several reasons including the fact that Global Times has more concrete things to report though some of GT’s reports are still based on myths that it invents on its own.

A second reason could be that Xi Jinping is now President for Life of China. A similar promotion to Narendra Modi could end all reports of Yeti sightings by Indians of all walks of life. But that may not be happening if the voter takes note of Navjot Singh Sidhu’s advice and does not cast the “wrong vote” that could turn his/her children into ‘chaiwala, pakorawala and chowkidar’.

Sidhu has drawn flak for his “elitist” frame of mind though at least one BJP-supporter has said that “elitist” is the wrong word, that it should be “entitled” as ‘elitist’ includes a whole range of people including Nobel Prize winners and the stinking rich like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

The Congress supports Navjot all the way though the party would have liked it more if Sidhu, with all his uncommon command of language gymnastics, could somehow have extended the tweet to include ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai!’. If the BJP believes the Yeti exists, then surely ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ must also be true. In today’s myth-busting world, everything is possible – Yeti taking a stroll through an army camp or Chowkidar turning to Chori.

In the West, the Yeti has another name – Big Foot. And Big Foot has had many sightings to his credit. It’s massive. Shaggy. And definitely, a beast! Tarun Vijay shouldn’t jump his gun. He talks as if he was brought up playing among Yeti children; who, of course, do not get the advantage of education, the sort the human being gets, and therefore is likely to shoot off the mouth.

Sidhu is also of that make but Sidhu is talking of a reality while Tarun Vijay is giving advice on a myth. Big Foot or Yeti, call it whatever, trespassed into an Indian Army camp, this one that of army mountaineers, and that should worry the Army top-brass. Were there no army guards or did the sentries doze off when the enemy took a stroll through the camp?

These are valid questions. What if it was a Chinese PLA masquerading as Yeti or a Pakistani BAT wearing a Big Foot? Remember Uri happened and so did Pathankot and Pulwama. Reports apart, investigations so far haven’t caught one live perpetrator. They’ve like the Yeti come and gone.

And now, there is also this whole thing about Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship issue. Yeti-like it has been introduced into the election season with BJP MP Subramanian Swamy claiming that there’s Big Foot spoor to trace Rahul Gandhi to his British home. Rahul Gandhi’s British company BackOps Ltd., no longer exists but Rahul Gandhi’s links with it cannot be dismissed as a myth like the existence of the Yeti can be.