Reality Bites: Why not eat in villages across the border and in Naxal affected areas?

Karma has kicked in for the chap who calls many of us termites: He has now turned into a locust, to be precise. He is determinedly eating his way through as many homes in West Bengal as he can manage. I’m surprised that the BJP’s PR agencies haven’t got a catchy slogan for this like, “Ghar ghar mein ghus ke khaayenge.”

When they show him on TV these days, if he’s not shouting his usual Hindu-Muslim nonsense at a rally, he’s in a stranger’s home with a feast laid out. I’m terrified that he will order the Election Commission to extend the unusually long elections in West Bengal by a hundred or more phases—there are strong rumours that his party will lose the elections, after all. And if that happens, a devastating famine could follow.

This appears to be standard BJP procedure. If they can’t win a state, they try to destroy it. They’re experimenting with different ways. Like the vicious pogrom in Delhi after they lost the elections. And take Maharashtra—the BJP has been attacking the government for well over a year. Many attempts to topple it have been made, and the latest is a ridiculous Ripley’s-like plot to bomb the house of a Crony Capitalist. This spun into an accusation against one of the ministers after a cop was jailed and another was transferred. It will now spin into something even more astounding, and Times Cow anchors will soon start reading out WhatsApp messages during Prime Time, yawn. So very Rhea Chakraborty, so very Disha Ravi, and so very déjà vu!

I have a question: shouldn’t the minister spend his days and nights eating at the Indo-Pakistan border, Indo-China borders, and Naxal affected areas instead? If he cannot do his job and prefers to be his party’s Election Minister, the sooner he resigns as Home Minister the better. I’ve had it up to here with incompetent people who fail to protect the nation from real enemies!

Meanwhile his boss, the Dear Leader, is on his own trip while Covid cases are rising at an alarming pace, a dangerous double mutant is spreading like wildfire, and there is a severe shortage of vaccines in India. States have been shutting down vaccination centres and pleading for more vaccines, but the dear old man appears to be deaf. Clinically deaf at that—he’s still giving vaccines away to foreign nations and posting modest tweets on his warm, generous nature.

Apart from popping up frequently on TV like spam, he’s been terribly busy spreading propaganda and targeting children once again with his “Pareeksha pe Charcha”. This was an online event where his government forced principals to force teachers to force students to participate, or else. A few parents on Twitter revealed that teachers had ordered their children to send them screenshots of the event to prove that they were watching it—oh the joys of fascism! I won’t go into the foolish advice he gave them, because it makes me cry that a man with a suspect degree in a suspect subject is unleashed on innocent students. Frankly, the only advice he can give them on exams is this: Look at the question paper, blanch, ask the invigilator for a glass of water, take a sip, and walk out.

And now for some good news. It seems that someone with a conscience at the PMO brought his granny’s ear horn to work and bellowed a vaccine SOS in the Dear Leader’s ear. Even worse, he told him that people were criticising him! This made the Dear Leader hijack every Indian news channel. First, he thumped his chest and told us what a great job he was doing to fight Covid, then he whined that leaders in non-BJP states were saying mean things about him and lying about vaccine shortages, and finally he announced a Tika Utsav (vaccination festival) because the frivolous man cannot work without a festive atmosphere and shiny new party frocks for himself!

I have no idea how this “festival” will pan out considering that there are barely any vaccines left, but hey, they can always fill syringes with potent tequila shots—that will be the only reason we have to say “Cheers” for a long, long time.

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