Approximately 4 years back, the picture of a smug Sonia Gandhi, outside the Parliament and a shy demure Manmohan Singh with a two-step behind, making the grand 'sacrifice' and appointing the sardar as the Prime Minister must be still vivid in one's memory. Lengthy editorials were written about the sacrifice Sonia G made and the junta went into raptures and compared her to the typical 'sacrifices'[ugh, puke and all that shiit] a Indian stri makes in her daily life. Sonia G became the embodiment of all that is ideal in a bahu and she was acclaimed to be as Indian as the woman next door. I was laughing then at the discomfiture of all the doddering spunk-spine less males who were stars in the political firmament then ion all the parties. What must have shocked them even more, I am very sure, was this daily enactment of pulling the rug from under their feet was the stuff of every day life in their homes!! And for it to be done to them on the floor of the Parliament, which is why they are still sitting on the 33% reservation for women bill with their collective bumms[note the last 3 letters in the previous word They bided their time, as all good men do. And the past week has given us the best Reality Show that we could ever ask for. It had everything that any mind-numbing Ekta Kapoor serial has and more. The amazing twists in the unwinding political soap-opera is leaving every other show behind in the TRP ratings. You have a sulking hero in the form of Manmohan Singh and the genial yet inscrutable family matriarch by way of Sonia G and of course the naughty country cousins who swing both ways by way of the BJP and their distant married relatives by way of regional parties like, hmmm, AIADMK etc and of course the perenially "poor" step brothers from an ancient branch of Shakuni and Narada's illegitimate offspring, the Commies who can be trusted to behave like the proverbial bull  in the china shop just when its close to shuttering down time. They quibble about non-existent legitimacy of their genealogy when their other cousins have gone about quietly embracing a more capitalistically socialist model in their compounds.

Thanks to them, the matriarch is in a fix and in a meeting last night[27/06/2008], let the bad blood flow within her immediate family; more like draining the pus out. And trust her faceless family to discuss openly of packing the reluctant and sulking hero to a Banvaas..back to Assam where his humble origins are as per the records. Perhaps he could bring the various Liberation Fronts operating in 'that' part of the country to join the First Family in their compound where in the first year of their acceptance they may be ignored by the matriarch at the annual family dinner just like how the 'Hutch' follower of Amitabh Bachchan's family, Amar Singh found out much to his chagrin while he expected to be fawned upon as the new bridegroom of the family. Which is why the scheming Mulayam, who must have been Kaikeyi in his poorva janma, is being seen with everyone else but India' First Family and Party these days.

Perhaps, he is too shy to wear the crown. The newspapers are having a field day. The elected representatives of the citizens of India are busy counting their gains and losses and calculating the right permutation and combination at a speed that will make any professional statiscian go green with eny. Theres a common refrain in everyone's mind and mouth..When are the elections? Sorry to bust the bubble, even Sonia G has no clue this time. The very Gods who midwifed the birth of this country during midnight on August 15th 1947 must also be having no clue. The new strain of political rats have boots on their feet made of calf-leather soles and the noise of their traipsing down the sinking ship of the UPA is like the zephyr on the condemned man's[thats us]brow as he is led to the gallows...

Stay tuned. Tomorrow is another day when we could bring you the latest on our destiny from the lawns of the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.