Reality Bites: Bigger not always better as Ms Bandaged Foot scores a knock out

I know a man who is so large that he has a 56-inch chest, so you can imagine how much larger his waist and hips are (no, he hasn’t got a V-shaped body though he dreams about it in much the same way as he fantasises about a V-shaped economy).

It’s not just super large clothes that have to be specially ordered for him, it’s huge airplanes too. A new house and Parliament building are also being built for him because the poor chap can’t fit into the existing ones!

And yet, Mr. Big Fat Man is terrified of tiny cartoonists, sensitive poets, students and ordinary people who don’t worship him. So terrified he is that he wants them silenced and/or locked up, or else he’s scared to step out of his bedroom. It is the job of his henchman, the Smaller Round Man, to get their friends in high places to stamp on critics with hob-nailed boots.

The Gujarati lady who wrote a searing poem on Covid corpses flowing down the Ganga was once one of his biggest fans. Today she is being rubbished as a ‘Literary Naxal’ by the Gujarat Sahitya Akademi. The cartoonist who is currently in trouble was once Mr. Big Fat Man’s fan too. Why, he even donated his hard-earned money to the PM Cares Fund to fight Covid. When it finally dawned on him that the fund was being used for other things (like elections or an orange sofa set for Mr. Big Fat Man’s new house, perhaps), he grew disenchanted and his cartoons showed that. Early this month, he received a notice from Twitter stating that Indian authorities had instructed it to take action against his page because his Twitter content (mainly cartoons) violates Indian law. Fortunately, Twitter did not suspend his account.

The Crony Capitalist whom Mr. Big Fat Man works for also employed the cartoonist, so after a brief phone call and a spot of delicious back-scratching, the cartoonist was sacked. Don’t be surprised if Mr. Crony Capitalist gets media houses to cover and air yet another video call with Zark Muckerberg. The nation will watch agog as he weeps, “Zark, oh Zark, people are laughing at Mr. Big Fat Man, Zark! You and I owe him so much, Zark! He invented the Internet in 2014, never forget that Zark, and without him we would be poor nobodies selling hankies at traffic signals, Zark.”

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t wait for this video call! Also, I’m wondering why the cartoonist isn’t asking for his donation to that shady PM Cares Fund back—I would.

However, the one person both Mr. Big Fat Man and Mr. Smaller Round Man are truly frightened of is alive and kicking them where it hurts. Ms. Bandaged Foot made them lose West Bengal. Now they seem to be losing some of their assets and asses in West Bengal too. BJP National VP Mukul Roy and his son have run back into Ms. Bandaged Foot’s arms, and there are many more TMC turncoats like them who are begging to return.

One woman has even written a steamy letter, saying, “Just like a fish curry is no curry without the fish, I will not be able to live without you. Didi, I seek your forgiveness and if you don't forgive me, I won’t be able to live...” Am now weeping into my pillow—why has nobody ever written such a passionate love letter like that to me?

As I type this, I’m waiting for Mr. Smaller Round Man to send the CBI, ED and IT chaps to knock at Mr. Roy’s door, scale his compound walls, and perform other circus tricks. I’m also waiting for Ms. Bandaged Foot to work out what to do with the rest of the turncoats who want to come back.

Part of me says those rats should never be reinstated. Another part of me, the part that screams “Save India from the BJP”, says she should take them back. The BJP always exults when it buys politicians from rival parties—to them it’s a sign of humiliation. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if Ms. Bandaged Foot paid them back in the same coin without parting with a single coin—now what can be more humiliating for the BJP than that?

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