Of late Ramu has been reading and watching a story, not in Goa, but in faraway Bengal, with interest. And it wasn’t a story about football or fish, the two things that are common between the two states.
Well, it may not have been about river fish or sea fish, but about big fish. Since the weather in Goa has been lovely and lazy, Ramu decided to have an afternoon nap on a weekday and slipped into a very deep sleep, and had some dream sequences
Sequence 1; Dream within a dream: In Kolkata, he saw one big fish called Chatterjee swimming with his favourite ladyfish Mukherjee.
and in the far distance, there was one Mama fish Bannerjee. . That sequence was soon broken
Sequence 2: It is mid-morning and Ramu decides to go and visit one of his MLA friends to have a chat about plans for the Ganesh festivities. The MLA calls out to his wife and asks her to make some coffee. Half an hour passes and there’s no coffee. He calls out to his wife who soon arrives, her cheeks red. Instead of a coffee tray, she brandishes a newspaper like a sword and says.
'HAVE YOU READ THIS?'
The MLA and Ramu stand up, in shock and a little worried.
‘Rs 50 crore in cash, Rs 5 lakh worth jewellery, Rs 50 crore cash, Rs 5 crore worth jewellery’, she shouted
What’s the matter, asked the MLA. ‘What about this small amount of Rs 50 crore cash and 5 crores of jewellery’
‘Small amount? She shot back. ‘This was found in the flat of a ….well...a lady FRIEND of a Bengal minister and she says its money kept in a room. Look how successful they are, how promising, how hard working, how popular. And the minister trusts his “friends’, keeping Rs 50 crore cash and Rs 5 crore jewellery in her house.
She then taunted ‘Oooh 5 crores jewellery, and look at you, you really are incapable of doing good politics’
Just then P Chintamani entered and asked what the commotion was all about. Ramu quickly briefed him
The MLA then decided to show he was the boss. He told his wife “Will you calm down, my lady? Don’t embarrass me with such small amounts. It’s well below my standard. And in a place like Bengal, such a big state with so much industry, commerce, and businesses, imagine how many flats I could fill, with photographs of Mahatma Gandhi on paper with my talent. Chintamani, as a man of finance please explain”
Chintamani tightened his veshti, adjusted his spectacles, and smiled “Going by the per capita income, read with the state of the economy and potential growth, in Bengal, the PEP (Political Earning Power) of hardworking MLAs is ten times the GDP of the country. Now if you put our Honourable friend in Bengal, he can profit ten times more than Chatterjee's, Mukherjee's and Banerjee’s. So Madam, don’t be upset with your husband. You can live in a palace of gold”
The MLA was pleased and his much pacified wife finally brought out a tray full of coffee and some fresh Bebinca. Chintamani as usual won the day and Ramu’s dream became nice and pleasant