Eyes
Wide Shut!
Asma Khan, a social reformer, analyses the excessive love of politicians for their subjects, during elections.
The great Indian Election Tamasha running house full in the largest state of India, is something we can ill afford to miss. It is undoubtedly a Theatre of the Absurd unmatched in its unreasonableness and perhaps also the biggest flop show of democracy, in the largest state of India, Uttar Pradesh which is larger in area and population to Great Britain.
The din of canvassing for the different candidates, across party lines is indeed deafening. We, the voters as well as the onlookers, have been here before and done that too, what with Mayas, Mulayams, the Rahuls and Priyankas and never to forget, the quintessential fundoos.
Coming back to theatre of the Absurd or the irrational, the idea behind it, is the sense that, the human condition is essentially absurd, and that this condition can be adequately represented only in works of literature that are themselves absurd. Same is the case here in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Its quite a bewildering task to be able to comment adequately on the absurdism/irrationality that is, found here.
The Queen Maya Memsaab, who, according to Wikileaks, kept tasters before she munches anything and for whose convenience, a chartered plane is sent from Lucknow to Bombay, for fetching her favourite shoes, reminds me of my childhood hero, Cinderella, sort of or nothing short of it. This former primary teacher was first spotted by Kanshi Ram almost by an accident. The place was the Constitution Club, Delhi; time, September 1977, and the occasion was Abolish Caste Conference and the speaker was Raj Narayan, the then cabinet minister who was talking about saving the, ’Harijans’. This word was repeated often and the discomfort it caused in the air was palpable, but most preferred a diplomatic silence. But not so, for the twenty –one year old Primary teacher, her voice rose above all; Didn’t the honorable Minister know how Dr.Ambedkar had referred to these people as Scheduled Castes, in the constitution? The term, Harijan, was insulting, she insisted. Her voice was lonesome and quite a daredevilry act for an unmarried woman, Dalit at that, to be speaking so vociferously and openly against a cabinet minister. Kanshi Ram never could forget her after that and became her mentor, till his end. He was twenty-two years, her senior. Women politicians, in those times were rare to spot, more so from Dalits. The Maya story seems almost Cinderelleseque, a rise from ashes to the echelons of high power within no time.
From 1977 to the present 2012 The Maya story seems, unbelievable. That feisty courageous woman has now come to cry ‘foul’ frequently. The climax is reached when she is said to have employed tasters, before munching anything. Paranoid!
![Satish Acharya [Mayawati's growth]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHBXUBLgR8xXDPP2MuhsArd5IApqfy7CHhXeEZLEpswFdu4xlK7DzgmzrvELOhv-KCOCrmxOvVxZFiTKb82IX5mN6T5Eo5keMODUGHCEcLXr17j37FcOeE2DNobSciUnU9P75nHx8xmiI/s1600/280510.jpg)
Afraid of the demons, some her own creations and some imagined, she operates as a shadow of her former fiery self. The absurdism reaches its height when huge elephantine ambitions take the form of those crude outsized structures that seek to dwarf everyone around them, a phantasmagoria kind of thing. Ironically enough the disease by which thousands [Yes, thousands!] of young children die in Maya’s state is also known as Encephalitis! Its hard to miss the bleak resemblance in nomenclature. It’s unbelievably irrational to see that when thousands are dying regularly and on an annual basis, these phantoms of elephants compete with the innocents to crop up, as they continue to die. The Cinderella of the yore has transformed sadly to become our own Hosni Mubarak, no less a dictator herself. How else can one explain this dichotomy of events which stand so starkly opposite to each other? A weird twist, in the story comes, when the Election Commission ‘orders’ all the phantasmagorias to be covered till we are over with the elections!
... By
Asma Khan (asmaanjum.khan@gmail.com)
Asma Khan, a social reformer, analyses the excessive love of politicians for their subjects, during elections.
The great Indian Election Tamasha running house full in the largest state of India, is something we can ill afford to miss. It is undoubtedly a Theatre of the Absurd unmatched in its unreasonableness and perhaps also the biggest flop show of democracy, in the largest state of India, Uttar Pradesh which is larger in area and population to Great Britain.
The din of canvassing for the different candidates, across party lines is indeed deafening. We, the voters as well as the onlookers, have been here before and done that too, what with Mayas, Mulayams, the Rahuls and Priyankas and never to forget, the quintessential fundoos.
Coming back to theatre of the Absurd or the irrational, the idea behind it, is the sense that, the human condition is essentially absurd, and that this condition can be adequately represented only in works of literature that are themselves absurd. Same is the case here in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Its quite a bewildering task to be able to comment adequately on the absurdism/irrationality that is, found here.
The Queen Maya Memsaab, who, according to Wikileaks, kept tasters before she munches anything and for whose convenience, a chartered plane is sent from Lucknow to Bombay, for fetching her favourite shoes, reminds me of my childhood hero, Cinderella, sort of or nothing short of it. This former primary teacher was first spotted by Kanshi Ram almost by an accident. The place was the Constitution Club, Delhi; time, September 1977, and the occasion was Abolish Caste Conference and the speaker was Raj Narayan, the then cabinet minister who was talking about saving the, ’Harijans’. This word was repeated often and the discomfort it caused in the air was palpable, but most preferred a diplomatic silence. But not so, for the twenty –one year old Primary teacher, her voice rose above all; Didn’t the honorable Minister know how Dr.Ambedkar had referred to these people as Scheduled Castes, in the constitution? The term, Harijan, was insulting, she insisted. Her voice was lonesome and quite a daredevilry act for an unmarried woman, Dalit at that, to be speaking so vociferously and openly against a cabinet minister. Kanshi Ram never could forget her after that and became her mentor, till his end. He was twenty-two years, her senior. Women politicians, in those times were rare to spot, more so from Dalits. The Maya story seems almost Cinderelleseque, a rise from ashes to the echelons of high power within no time.
From 1977 to the present 2012 The Maya story seems, unbelievable. That feisty courageous woman has now come to cry ‘foul’ frequently. The climax is reached when she is said to have employed tasters, before munching anything. Paranoid!
Afraid of the demons, some her own creations and some imagined, she operates as a shadow of her former fiery self. The absurdism reaches its height when huge elephantine ambitions take the form of those crude outsized structures that seek to dwarf everyone around them, a phantasmagoria kind of thing. Ironically enough the disease by which thousands [Yes, thousands!] of young children die in Maya’s state is also known as Encephalitis! Its hard to miss the bleak resemblance in nomenclature. It’s unbelievably irrational to see that when thousands are dying regularly and on an annual basis, these phantoms of elephants compete with the innocents to crop up, as they continue to die. The Cinderella of the yore has transformed sadly to become our own Hosni Mubarak, no less a dictator herself. How else can one explain this dichotomy of events which stand so starkly opposite to each other? A weird twist, in the story comes, when the Election Commission ‘orders’ all the phantasmagorias to be covered till we are over with the elections!
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