Rahul Baba Ka Phone Kidhal Hai...??

Front page headline in The Times of India, June 29th: ‘Rahul Gandhi’s phone stolen at IGI, recovered’. The news item further mentions ‘…..the thief was soon tracked down and the handset restored to its owner after the official machinery swung into top gear’. Dear taxpayer, feel mighty pleased to know that a part of your hard earned money that the government pinches out from your pocket is being used for locating the lost phone of a certain someone. I felt like a castrated creature when I read this on the front page of India’s leading national daily – the fact that my country’s official machinery channels its energies into finding the mobile phone of a 40-year-old certain someone whose only claim to fame under this sun is the surname with which he was born. And also the fact that this unprecedented act of bravado was put on the front page of India’s foremost English daily. (Oddly enough, the news about signing of a nuclear deal between India and Canada was slotted in the much smaller column on the left under ‘News Digest’.)



Let’s get the context more clearly. The official machinery that we are talking about here consisted mainly the people from CISF – the very people responsible for the safety and security at our airports. It is not difficult to imagine that for that duration of time when the machinery was swinging with action, the fate of the hoi polloi present at the airport would have been hanging in thin air, as the shift in focus would have compromised on the routine duties of the CISF. So the next time you prepare yourself to reaffirm your family’s long held tradition and legacy of sucking up to a certain surname, please remind yourself that the very surname is more indispensable than even the lives of your near and dear ones. But you will still suck up nonetheless, because at the end of the day we are a nation of suckers.

And while we are at it – getting the context right – my memory and general awareness fail to inform me what ministry Rahul Baba handles. Actually, it’s not the fault of my memory; Rahul is not a minister, not even a Minister of State. So technically he is not even a part of the ruling government. Thank God for that dear suckers, otherwise they would have shut down the entire airport in the pursuit of certain someone’s mobile phone.

They say ‘power corrupts’. Let’s say, even if it doesn’t corrupt you, it sure does make your life easy – imagine people from country’s one of the topmost paramilitary forces trying to locate your mobile phone for you! Keep sucking-up.

Peace.