mahabharata revisited-1

Note: Revisiting a part of Mahabharata here, is just an attempt at humour. Probably, a failed one as you might find. But certainly not one to demean the characters or story of Mahabharata - one of the world's greatest epics.

Not too long ago, there were two alliances jointly ruling the country. One was the Pandava Alliance For Democracy and the other, Kaurava Alliance For Progress. Pandava Alliance - consisting of, mainly, five founder brothers Dharmaraj, Arjun, Bhim, Nakul, Sahadev and their collective spouse Draupadi - were fed up with this everyday business of running the country. They decided to take a break and tour the country. They gave the reins of power to their partner alliance - Kaurava Alliance For Progress - a hundred member fraternal conglomeration. They hired Kingfisher airways for their travel. And travel they did, across the length and breadth of the country, for fourteen months. And then they came back.

After having returned, they demanded that the incumbent Prime Minister Dr. Duryodhana should hand over the Government that was always theirs. But Dr. D, as the Prime Minister was called in media circles, was not ready for such a handover. On the contrary, he would not cede even an inch of power. He dared them to withdraw support and go for fresh elections. But chairman of the Pandava Alliance, Mr. Dharmraj (fashionably called DJ), was not for confrontation. "Come on dude, let's talk it over a glass of beer.", he exhorted the PM Dr. D. But sensing that talks would not get them anywhere, PAD Women's Group President and wife of the five member PAD Smt. Draupadi, was not at all happy with this. Smt. Draupadi, who was believed to be the power behind the throne when DJ was the PM, along with Bhima, was strongly in favour of going for polls.

But DJ was not in a hurry to go for polls. He was too busy writing his travelogue. He was confident of winning the Booker for it. He barely had time for his favourite game of casino as a result. That being the case, he could not afford time for matters like elections, that he considered, were for the not so intellectual individuals like Dr. D. So he decided to buy time for himself through talks. He intended to send a negotiator on their behalf for talks with Dr. D. Who better than DJ's cousin Kris, an eminent legal expert and who was also the Chief Minister of Western India, to act as the interlocutor. The tech savvy DJ, had sent a meeting request over email to Dr D, for the talks between Dr. D and Kris. But there was no reply from D for 2 days. DJ got angry. You would have expected him to call a press conference to blast out at Dr. D. But he blogged extensively about it in his cool new site whyisdjangry.com. It became such a huge hit that he hoped to earn a million dollars by text ads alone on his blog. The adamant Dr. D just denied having received any such meeting request. His technical assistant then talked to DJ's assistant and figured out that the mail had not been sent as Outlook had crashed before sending. Now that everything was resolved, the meeting was scheduled for the next day.

Kris arrived at the meeting with a new Thinkpad in his hand. Powerpoint presentations would power his talks. Dr. D didn't look at him even for a moment. Members of KAP, all Dr D's brothers, started shouting slogans at Kris. Half of them walked out. Dhrutarashtra, father of Dr. D, was silently watching Kris's articulation amidst all the acrimony. With his dark sunglasses on, that he had got over his blindness through eye-surgery was somewhat doubtful to believe. Dart, as Dhrutharashtra had come to be known amongst cartoonists, was flanked by Vidura, who was his personal advisor. Vidura was so impressed by the look and feel of Kris's presentation that he abruptly got up and told Dr. D that he should give the PAD their due share of power. The people in that hall, which included D's grandpa Bhishma-the-never-retiring-politician and author of "How to win elections and form Governments" , Drona - the electoral manager and the chief-mentor for both the alliances, former live commentator turned psephologist Sanjaya, best selling fiction and non-fiction writer Vyasa and other non-members of KAP, who were nodding their heads in admiration of Kris's presentation, were distracted by this interruption. But they concurred with him. This angered Dr. D. But being a person who was not intelligent enough to deal with such an emergent situation, he just went out and to the loo only to return after Kris had left. Nothing tangible was achieved, felt Kris. Disappointed, he left for a movie.

Dr. D was a loo-thinker. So he had the face of a man who knew what to do, when he returned from the loo. He, despite the harangue that Vidura resorted to against him, dissolved the Parliament and called for elections.