Playing the Card Right

 The royal family and its entourage appointed a prominent event managing company to prepare for the pompous celebrations related to the upcoming festival of lights...The deadly virus had been banished from the kingdom and the occasion called for an extravaganza befitting the victory. So what if the farmers have been on the road protesting for almost a year now? "After all, isn't it easier to protest than to till the land and sweat it out?" the king had reasoned and left them to their lot, shivering in the November cold. And, how about those whose businesses closed down, or the daily wage labourers who lost their jobs, due to the pandemic? They would find ways to trudge on. "They are a resilient race you know. God has been kind to them," is how his highness liked to eulogize the downtrodden of his kingdom. No one disagreed, instead they marveled at his utter humility which could put on a pedestal a hoi polloi. Moreover, the king once annoyed, could simply threaten to step down, as he had done on several instances. And no one desired that of him, for he looked so frail, vulnerable and helpless that the ministers and his subjects shuddered to think of him out there, in the big bad world, all by himself. They relented to his whims to keep him happy and satisfied. 

A makeshift replica of the grand temple was  built to offer oblations to the deity. All the ministers and their families were invited to partake in the grand Pooja. The subjects were advised to remain at home and enjoy the live telecast from the comfort of their living rooms. So while the obedient people of the kingdom feasted on colorful visuals of the ministerial jamboree,  the street-dwellers decided to steal the oil from the clay lamps set in front of the houses of the wealthy, so they too could aspire for a meal on the night of the festival.

The next day, the media went beserk reporting on all the minutest detail of the event, right from the ornated deities in the temple, to the dress code observed by the royal couple as well as by the family of the second and third in command were captured with great flair. The presence of famous musicians and dancers  was described as imparting a cultural edge to the overall ambience.

Some of you might have guessed that the reference here is to the Grand Old Lady of Delhi, the Chief Minister Kejriwal himself and his yet another staged performance revolving around Diwali. To commemorate the festival in style, he  commissioned a 30 ft by 80 ft. temporary replica of Ayodhya temple. Constructed and carved out of plywood and styrofoam, the temple was completed within a week. While the event was vigorously covered by one and all media houses, no one cared to find out what was the total budget for this utter waste of a structure and more importantly, where did all that money come from. Was it collected in the form of contributions from  party members, or was it the tax payers hard-earned dough which was being splurged? Secondly, which event management company was given the contract? And lastly, what would happen to this makeshift temple? Would it be packed, boxed and stored away for next year, or would it go to the already overflowing landfills?

This blogger here, yours truly, did her best to get in touch with the concerned authorities, via several phone calls and emails to the Chief Minister's office, but an answer has not been forthcoming so far.

Funnily, all the reports condescendingly stated that since the Chief Minister Kejriwal has had his eyes on the Uttar Pradesh elections slated for early next year, he had to play the religious card to woo the Hindu majority. In fact, it was considered a politically savvy move and was being applauded as such. It might  remind some of us of Donald Trump, 

on the campaign trail in 2016 telling a crowd  in Nevada, “Nobody reads the Bible more than me.” While the media in the U.S. did not spare Trump his bigotry, Kejriwal escaped unscathed.

So, all said and done, my personal ire at such puerile and pointless activities coupled with the curiosity to dig deeper into the  cost and waste aspect of the CM's profligate theatrics apparently finds me in the minority. And the fact that most people don't care about such statistics makes it a cultural issue, not a political one.