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| | DEAD-END: Ghanta Ghar message! | | | “Hallo dear.”
“Yes Uncle.”
“What’s all that in your room?”
“Good Uncle: Animal skins, animal heads – the latter of cardboard, made myself, painted myself.”
“All that what for but?”
“My programme of protest starting Sunday.”
“What?”
“Yes Uncle. I’ll go to Ghanta Ghar Lal Chowk, wear my bull’s skin, head too, roam there, comfortably, and go on bellowing at regular intervals…”
“What?”
“Uncle, listen my all first…. Two or three days after, I will be there again, at a different time, my elephant’s gear on, trumpeting into dull smoky airs. And…”
“Are you OK?”
“Perfectly OK.”
“But what are you talking?”
“Uncle again half a week after, I’ll appear there again, my donkey’s gear on, braying out into the polluting noise. And my hee-haws will dominate. You know I well vomit animal cries.”
“Please, please…”
“Uncle, listen please. Onwards, I will one day wear my monkey’s gear, cling up and down the whole Ghanta Ghar and go on whooping screeching all the time. Good Uncle, yes all our blessed mammalian brothers shall have their turn of representation.”
“Mind you please, you will be arrested on your very first bull day.”
“But what for?”
“For creating public nuisance.”
“O I’ll plead this was public entertainment…free of cost…and many will come to court to witness. I’ll plead that this was Freedom of Speech. I’ll plead the First Person of the Ruling World President Obama himself has upheld the Universal Freedom of Speech. And freed I will be. And I will honourably appear again in my bear’s gear – growling round and round the Ghanta Ghar.”
“You will be dragged to a mental hospital.”
“Uncle…that is nice.”
“You will be locked up there.”
“That is fine. Meeting the mad makes one wise.”
“But what for all this…what has happened to you?”
“Uncle, now you get me…thanks!”
“Yes say now, please.”
“Good Uncle, you’re very good. Strikes, hunger strikes, marches, pen-downs, dharnas, gheroes, hartals, and all that, here and there and everywhere, today and many a day! What comes out? What problem is solved permanently? Yes, problems get more complex. Uncle, all this has reason only one – and that is, we have been rendered animals just: humans around few if any. Devolution is on. And this is the Ghanta Ghar message I wish to deliver from my animal skins and heads.”
“Famous aside, don’t get notorious.”
“‘Or be famous or be notorious!’ late Khan Chacha used to say. And our Politicians preach it practically! And lo theirs is the world!” |
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