I’m fed up with all the blame game going on. Why is L.K. Advani being held responsible for everything that goes wrong? First, it was my ‘friends’ in the BJP. Then the RSS jumped on the bandwagon. Now even ordinary folk have caught the bug. Why, an elderly gentleman from Tonk, Rajasthan, has blamed me for the drought. Reason: on several occasions he has seen me wringing my hands and look angrily at the sky! Really, could that have angered the rain gods more than Jaswant’s baritone which challenges natural forces like thunder? One can’t tell, but given the weak monsoon, my humble plea is, “My dear Jaswantji, for the good of the nation stay off TV and stick to writing fiction.”
Now, I can understand the nation going berserk over all the accusations being hurled at me. But now the ‘LK virus’ has gone international. The other day some unidentified “source” belonging to my shrinking camp attacked my detractors in a British tabloid. Crucially, he raised one valid point—‘Who is Jaswant Singh?’ But it got printed minus the question mark. This, in turn, led to someone going by the name of Pete Townshend issuing a rather terse clarification. To quote: “I’d like to put it on record that Mr Jaswant Singh never sang, performed or managed The Who. Who was never Jaswant Singh, Jaswant Singh was never Who.” Mr Townshend’s statement created such a stir here that TV anchors hosted several talk shows and played songs by The Who while Prabhu Deva danced and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat twirled his moustache. Really, what is our television coming to!
Now, I admit I’ve never heard of Mr Townshend but my old contact in RAW (after considerable research) informs me that The Who was some kind of a noisy musical group from the ’70s and that Jaswantji never ever performed with them. Incidentally, their records (Who Are You and Who’s Next) are on Rahul Gandhi’s playlist and I’ve been advised to listen to the last mentioned record since it might yield some clues on who the RSS has in mind as my replacement. Well, I did put on the CD with the volume at zero but I drew a blank. However, the title of the first song (Baba O’ Riley) was revealing. Could Riley, an Englishman, be the RSS’s choice as the next BJP top boss? Surely, the Sangh would not choose a firangi! Finally, it was my daughter, Pratibha, who cracked it. Baba O’ Riley could be a reference to Rae Bareli. Suddenly it struck me—will Mohan Bhagwatji induct the baba of Sonia Gandhi (the MP from Rae Bareli) to take over the BJP? I admit I would be astounded if Rahul was the choice. But then stranger things have happened in the last few months....
Before I sign off, let me share a bit of news which has just come in: the World Health Organisation (WHO) has also issued a statement that it is in no way linked to Jaswant Singh....
(As imagined by Ajith Pillai)
