Reality Bites: The pusillanimous CensorJeevi who wished to scare away the Dragon with lions

Fifty-six inch chest, waist, and hips notwithstanding, the Diyar Leader is a timid man. An aside: I’m not fat-shaming him, I merely care about his well-being as much as he cares about RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav’s health. “Lose a little weight,” he told Yadav in his usual pompous old-uncle manner when he visited the Bihar assembly a few days ago. Hypocritical innit?

Now back to the Diyar Leader’s timidness. In 2020 we discovered that he couldn’t even say “Boo!” to China. Also, we have recently spotted his soft, sensitive side.

He so hates it when people criticise him, which is why a fat booklet listing words frequently used to describe him and his government have been deemed to be unparliamentary just before the Monsoon session. Or else Delhi will be flooded again—not by fresh rain water but by his copious tears.

The booklet includes common everyday words to hard-hitting and terribly amusing jibes. Here are just a few: 'ashamed', 'abused’, 'betrayed', 'corrupt', 'drama', 'hypocrisy', 'incompetent', ‘sexual harassment’, ‘Jumlajeevi', 'baal buddhi', 'Covid spreader', 'Snoopgate', ‘ghadiyali ansu', 'kaala din’, ‘taanashahi’, 'daadagiri', 'dohra charitra', 'bechara', 'bobcut', 'lollypop'. Yes, lollypop too, God knows why!

Opposition parties have hit back at the government on social media. Perhaps the best take is by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi who defiantly strung together some of the banned words in a tweet: "Jumlajeevi Tanashah shed Crocodile Tears when his lies and incompetence were exposed.”

Stung by the criticism, smiley Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla became frowny and hastily entered the fray. He said that the Opposition was not banned from using those words in Parliament, but if used, they would be expunged from the records.

This is totally in character—the BJP enjoys editing history textbooks to ensure that children will only know what they want them to know—in short, anything but the truth! And we’re aware just how much the Diyar Leader loves clean chits, don’t we—he would do anything at all for them.

The plan is to ensure that after all of us are dead and gone and biographers consult Parliamentary records to find out more about the Diyar Leader, they would think that he was adored by all, including Opposition parties. Perhaps an exceptionally astute author will call his/her biography of the Diyar Leader ‘The Silence of the Lambs, brought to India by CensorJeevi.’

Oh well, Roget’s Thesaurus to the rescue, I suppose. Though most of us suspect Congress MP Shashi Tharoor could play a better hand than Peter Mark Roget—he knows big, archaic words that will leave fellow parliamentarians discombobulated. Why, take the word discombobulated itself, for example—the smiley Speaker will probably think it’s a reference to an electricity distribution company.

The Diyar Leader has also banned protests within the Parliament complex. He feels hurt when Opposition members say “Hai hai” to his policies and wants them to love him the way his party members do. He could make it easier for them to at least tolerate him if he desisted from toppling their state governments and setting the ED, IT, CBI etc on them, no?

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Meanwhile, another battle is raging over the official state emblem of India: Emperor Ashoka’s Sarnath lions. In the original, the lions look sleek, regal and even-tempered, with neatly brushed fur.

In the copy, the one that was recently hoisted on the new Parliament building, the lions look bad-tempered and unkempt, with fur flying. Sort of how our respected External Affairs Minister looks and behaves when he throws his frequent tantrums. That is the face the Diyar Leader’s “New” India wants to show the world.

And since the Diyar Leader’s “Lal ankh” trick didn’t scare China away, he’s hoping these lions will.

The Diyar Leader’s loyal Central Vista Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, said that the lions in the replica only look savage because we’re viewing them from below.

He seems to be suggesting that if we hop into choppers and view them from above, they will not look like prickly lion-faced hedgehogs with vampire-like fangs. I’m hoping that someone with money (and sense) will hop into a chopper and prove him wrong.

Incidentally, this bronze 6.5-metre inexact replica weighs 9,500 kg and I shudder to think what may happen to the people in the building below during electrical storms.

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