My first dart of 2021!

The year has begun, and I have not soaked my pen into the inkpot. The fewer likes for 500-words-posts, lengthy by today’s standards could be boring for most, though, I disregard the numbers game. Should I turn my sharp pen to play dart on my most disfavoured political faces on the board? The faces were too many, and a small dart may not match my degree of angst. I may need a Brahmos missile. How about acquiring one? When sedition laws are slapped for even stepping on an egg, my thoughts are enough to banish me to Mars. No, Pluto perhaps.

The news of the day is Sourav Ganguly suffering three blocks. I wish him a speedy recovery. No, the three blocks are not BJP, TMC and the CPM. I am talking about a heart attack and the blocks in arteries. Sourav is hospitalized, and under responsible doctors, one stent placed today and the rest two likely on Monday. Sourav is my idol, for his agility, fitness and ability. I wish and pray he recovers speedily. The doctors pushed outside the camera frames, it is over to the  Governor and the ministers to issue Sourav’s regular health-bulletins.

I have left all my desire to get into politics anytime soon after the speed with which famous personalities and new entrant to politics succumb to mental pressure and anxiety, a few days ago, Rajinikanth and now Dada; not me! The world is spared from another mental doppelganger of Modi.

I met a friend over breakfast the other day. He was donning a blue kurta and pyjama and the trademark walking shoes. He was meeting a few from the opposition an hour later. By lunch, he had discarded the blue and donned the saffron and changed over his party as well. By the hi-teatime, he realized that he had lotus allergy and ran back to the snicker camp. The jumps could be the speediest switch-over. Could the anti-conversion laws be applied on these politicians?

Bengal seems changed. The traditional symbol of the slightest chill is no more seen. The Tibetans who spread their woollens before each winter is in for a shock, stocking tons of monkey-caps remaining unsold. Some mistook them as Chinese. One more knowledgeable whispered that the monkey is now deified in Bengal, and many who may have changed their political allegiance may consider it a sacrilege wearing it.

The vaccines are here today, and the Government has spread out the blueprint for the shots. Just after the demonetization, a few diehards defended the move, stating that the Rs.2000 notes carry a nano-microchip that will reveal the place of their hoarding to the hovering satellites. One such novel intellectual whispered of hearing that the shots could also make one do all at the bidding of the Government. My efforts to dismiss the stupid theories make me look older and redundant than what my grey hair might show me as one.

Five months of action-filled and thrilling times are ahead when each citizen in a few states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu will think they are the trigger to world intelligentsia, prosperity and peace. 

Let us enjoy the year ahead in peace. I shall not give up writing!

Sampath Kumar

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