Reality Bites: Clingy Kejri and the fun of being Punjab CM’s sticky note

I’ve been sniggering a lot lately. It began when Charanjit Singh Channi was CM of Punjab and his vocal rival for the throne, Navjot Singh Sidhu, tried every trick in the book to undermine him.

It’s not the things he said about Channi that made me snigger, but the way he doggedly followed him around, lurking like the grisly shadow of death with a metaphorical dagger in his hand.

If you look at press photographs during that period, you will see Sidhu glaring defiantly and extending his neck like a swan at yoga class while sitting/standing behind Channi to ensure that the cameras didn’t miss him.

I wonder how many bottles of Iodex Sidhu went through during Channi’s tenure: Neck strains can be very painful.

We’re witnessing snigger-inducing scenes like that again, but this time it’s Arvind Kejriwal doing a Sidhu to the new Punjab CM Bhagwant Singh Mann.

It must irk Kejriwal no end that Mann, his junior, is chief minister of a big state and not an iddle widdle Union Territory like him. Punjab must know that Kejriwal the Awesome is really the power behind the throne, so he sticks to Mann as tenaciously as chewing gum on a shoe sole.

Whenever Mann has any announcements to make, Kejriwal rushes to Punjab and stands next to him, making faces at the camera a la Sidhu.

Sometimes, he even does an Emperor Modi act and lounges on a throne-like chair, looking on magnanimously as Mann speaks. I expect during sweaty summers, the likes of Raghav Chadha will fan Kejriwal with peacock feathers.

Kejriwal, however, is not Mann’s only problem. Sidhu has been making noises that he now loves the AAP—the unsaid part is that he would love to be chief minister of any party in power, of course.

It’s doubtful that Kejriwal will ever let him in, because even my hamster knows by now that Sidhu is a troublemaker and not a team player. Anyway, the sooner Mann mans up, the better.

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The crony Mukesbhai is in the news again for becoming even richer, and for funding NEWJ, a media firm that promoted the BJP and attacked opposition parties on Facebook. Of course, it was an international media company, Al Jazeera, that broke the story.

It’s a pity that journalists who work in India’s mainstream media didn’t suspect a thing. I mean, the minute you see NEWS misspelt as NEWJ, even my hamster (who is very clever now, I can tell you) would have smelt a Sanghi rat.

But life isn’t only sunshine for Mukesbhai. That other crony capitalist, Gautam Addmoney is catching up with him wealth-wise, and it’s only a matter of time before we start reading charming articles in India’s leading financial papers about his grandchildren too.

We should be scared, very scared. India’s crony capitalists now expect to be treated like royalty. I cannot imagine why else Mukesbhai’s grandson got so much attention on mainstream and social media on his first day at kindergarten. It’s not as if he’s Prince George, third in the line of succession to the British throne, is he? Gosh— is he?

Tell me again, who is actually running India please? Are we going to see the Dear Leader fanning one of these two crony capitalists with peacock feathers soon?

Till that question is settled (that is, who really is India’s boss), the Dear Leader is living like a king. Even more hagiographies are being written on him. A collection of gushy essays by sycophants will be launched by Rupa Publications soon (nothing to do with me, promise!). I’ve forgotten the title of the book, but I think it’s called something like, ‘How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count The Ways’.

I hope the Dear Leader doesn’t shamelessly promote books on himself the way he pushed a movie on Kashmir that is nothing but Sanghi propaganda and lies, but nothing appears to be beneath him.

Rest assured that the PMO will do its usual thing, though: Send goons to every bookshop in the nation and ensure that the book is given pride of place, or else.

I’m sniggering again as I remember what someone once told me about a sensible bookshop owner: The chap dumped the Dear Leader’s books in a bin after the goons left.

(Any resemblance to real people or events is a coincidence)