Reality Bites: Confused between Maps, Apps and Bihar ‘strike’?

Last night, the Supreme Leader puffed out his chest like a very brave pigeon, and banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok (the only one I’d heard of) ostensibly to teach China a stern lesson for grabbing parts of our country and murdering twenty soldiers. I have no idea if Eleven Jinping slept well at all after that, but I certainly didn’t, because the jungle toms toms proclaimed that the Supreme Leader would address the nation the next day at 4 pm.

I tossed and turned all night, wondering if he would order us to gather all the china crockery we owned and break it on our balconies at some auspicious day and hour. Would I, could I, voluntarily destroy and throw away the stunning, 80-piece dinner set my grandparents gave me as a wedding present? Also, would the Supreme Leader order his cabinet ministers to visit every housing complex with brooms and dustpans to sweep the dangerous shards into Swach Bharat branded bins while cameras were rolling or would we have to do it ourselves without cameras? I finally fell asleep at 4 am with the hope that the Supreme Leader would not urge us to break our precious china because he has been far too discreet to even utter the word China since the “clash” at Galwan. I finally persuaded myself that all he would grandly tell us is that helicopters owned by his corporate cronies would shower rose petals on Chinese troops in Galwan to win them over with love and keep trade agreements intact.

I woke up feeling anxious, and the first thing I did was to lock up my china dinner set. Then I went to my balcony and threw away the key—just in case. I clock-watched till 4 pm and broke my usual rule of never watching him on TV. I was that anxious, and now I’m feeling relieved, but cheated too!

Dear Reader, Surender Modi is still very discreet to even mention China—We thought he’d speak about China, but he spoke about Bihar instead! He bragged that he was giving more Covid aid than other nations to make fools love him till the Bihar elections, said he would extend free rations to the poor till November (the Bihar elections), gave us a list of Hindu festivals till the Bihar elections, told us how much he loved farmers (not a squeak on soldiers) and will continue to say so till the Bihar elections, and said something or the other about “one nashun, one rashun card”.

In short, he is still in denial that China has entered seven places inside India’s “claimed territory” in Ladakh and Sikkim, and is now stepping on the gas near Arunachal Pradesh as well.

What is even more worrying is that apart from the Congress, all the other Opposition parties are a write off. Till the day before the Supreme Leader’s statement of no intrusion at the all party meeting, NCP chief Sharad Pawar had been proudly reminding us on Twitter that he was a former Defence Minister, and telling us all the marvellous and terribly clever things he would have done during this border crisis. At the meeting, however, he shyly refused to ask the BJP a single intelligent question.

Left parties were parodies of themselves, sadly: they did not advocate war against their beloved communist China of course, and (yawn) criticised India’s alliance with the US instead.

Naveen Patnaik’s BJD was represented by Pinaki Mishra, who said this fabulous government must not be criticised (with just as much fervour as a BJP member). After which he appeared on TV channels and shed copious amounts of glycerine for our soldiers. Not that I’m remotely astonished. Anyone with half a brain can predict that when Patnaik goes to that great gig in the sky, Mishra and the rest of the BJD will probably do an AIADMK and call Modi “Daddy”.

The chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana were as ridiculously servile as ever (oh how they love presents!). Jagan Mohan Reddy shamed himself further by massaging Surender Modi’s bruised ego. Bah!

I think we should use this ‘Work From Home’ period wisely and learn Mandarin, because Surender Modi won’t warn us if Chinese troops march into Delhi!