More than half a century ago life moved sedately. Today, we’ve gone into the fast lane and so we need sedatives. Its all about uppers and downers ,since we cannot tell whether we are coming or going.
People had not heard of multi-tasking except for some who we thought were born with a congenital defect. At that time we had not heard of genes or jeans. One of these multi-tasker, go-getter was an unknown quantity in rural Maharashtra called Sushil Kumar Shinde. He went to night-school and financed his studies by working as a peon during the day.
Soon he joined the police force where he learnt that in India one could achieve upward socio-economic mobility either by high academic achievement or on the basis of low birth. However, he was not one to rest on his laurels and become a victim of complacence masquerading as contentment.
Against all advice of neighbours, friends and relations, he quit a cushy government job and jumped into politics. He soon mastered the art of prostituting his principles at the altar of politics. There was no turning back. From then on it was ‘Lakshimi before Saraswati’ in all things that came his way. He never looked back. The rest is history.
Soon he got power in his hands and as usual ,the power addled his brains. But the Italian Machiavelli in the U.P.A. was up to the challenge. Sushil was obviously in need of shock treatment to deal with his delusions of grandeur. So he was given the Power Ministry which he thought was a high-voltage position that would be commensurate with his tall ambitions.
Not being a power engineer, he did not realise that our high-voltage grids suffer from low frequency. The grid collapsed two days in a row. The media called it ‘Monday mayhem’ & ‘Terrible Tuesday’.
He was promoted to Home Minister. But being ambitious, he feels he has been cheated. One more day in his Power portfolio and he could have arranged a ‘Whirlwind Wednesday’!
He would then be due for a double-promotion to become Prime Minister.
