Mahabharata Revisited- VI

The sun dawned on the horizon on the polling day. Astute readers might criticise that this is a blatant attempt at dramatization. Even if it was not a polling day, the sun would indeed have dawned.(By doing so, he too proves his existence. In these rational times, this act of proving your existence is very important.) Dramatization or not, the fact was that he rose as usual in the east that day to brighten up the skies under which people would exercise their franchise. People did come out and exercise their franchise. So did they on all the eighteen days of polling.
On each polling day, there were exit polls too on news channels. Their results were discussed threadbare. Some tried to be sensible and said both parties had equal chance and it was difficult to predict and hence didn't predict. Some were bizarre. They ruled that people did not vote at all. Others tried to make a virtue out of their madness by sounding politically abstruse. They predicted that a realignment of political forces would cause a midway unification of votes that would swing the result in favour of a third political pole. Remarkable was their ignorance of the absence of any such third formation.

And finally the polling ended. It was time for counting. As the story writer, I feel enormously powerful at this point. Singlehandedly(or atleast using both hands, since I am typing this using both the hands) I can determine the outcome of an election. I can, atleast in this narrative, dictate which direction the country's politics takes. In a matter of a few words, I can play with the fortunes of political parties. Feels like God.

Ok ok. Enough of these distractions in a narrative as important as this. I am surely coming back to the story. The counting happened at various counting centers across the country. In a matter of few hours the results were as clear as crystal. Dr. D had won the elections.

PS 1: This story, if you can call it that, has thus come to an unanticipated climax.

PS 2: This was an attempt at imagining how the final stages in the story of Mahabharatha would have played out in our time. And that story of Mahabharatha was Vedavyasa's work(non-fiction-magnum-opus) penned by Lord Ganapati. Since he steadfastly declined my request to write this series, I typed it with my own hands.

Mahabharata Revisited- V

The campaigning began. Nakula and Sahdeva hit the road for a door-to-door campaign. They distributed campaign brochures to every household in important constituencies. Where they could not go, mails were dispatched. Being shrewd businessmen, they decided to promote their second-hand-keyboards venture too. They distributed a second-hand-keyboard for free along with the campaign leaflet. This they did despite fervent pleas to the contrary by the people to whom they gave. Those people's minds were filled with memories of keyboards from Nakula-Sahadeva Inc going to flames when the typing speed exceeded a predefined limit. Their kith and kin had been rendered fingerless. But Nakula and Sahadeva didn't recognize the seething anger against them in people's minds.

While Nakula and Sahadeva were thus a liability to PAD, Bhima was their asset. Not exactly Bhima, but the allegations against him. An Olympic medalist boxer facing a ban due to allegations of taking performance enhancement drugs. There was sympathy for him. The allegations against him were a neo-imperialist conspiracy by America, thought a large majority of people. Consequently, countless number of effigies of American President George Bush were burnt. An American President had never been a target in an Indian election before. Also boxing matches were held at campaign locations to fund Bhima's electioneering. Needless to say Bhima was confident of victory.

Arjuna's campaign was more of analysis than anything substantial. He watched videos of successful campaigns of various leaders in the past. He watched it in speeds that varied from ultra-slow-motion to ultra-high-speed. He practiced whatever he saw. He decided, strangely, to campaign only on the last day of campaigning.

DJ was everywhere; On his blog, on the road, on various public fora, on YouTube and many more. He promised tax exemption for blog revenue. He promised to pay more attention to travelogue writers. But he failed to recognize that bloggers and writers alone can't win him even a single seat.

Dr. D - the angry middle aged man of Indian politics - promised toilets for every home. This, he opined, would give some space to think. He also promised to abolish taxes and regularize corruption. The money obtained through corruption, he suggested, would be divided between the person taking it and the Government. This, he said, would overcompensate the money lost due to tax abolition. In this way, he hoped to kill two birds in one stroke.

Karna also campaigned. It was widely reported to be laconic and incomprehensible. Those who did understand, found it very acerbic. And the other grand old men of KAP too campaigned. So did the rest of the KAP fraternal conglomeration.

And Arjuna's grand campaign day arrived. Krish had come to his house to accompany him. With barely couple of hours left for the public rally, Arjuna suddenly developed a fear for public speaking. Krish immediately gave him a copy of the book How to Develop Self-Confidence And Influence People By Public Speaking. Arjuna read it. Developed self-confidence. And speak he did. And influencing people? Results were going to be the only indicator of that.

Preview of final episode: Election results - Will KAP retain power? Or will PAD regain lost power? Watch out for the final installment of this mega series by GuruWrites.

Mahabharata Revisited- IV

Kunti-Karna meeting happened at an undisclosed location. Kunti told Karna about the circumstances that led to his birth. "So you too are my son and thereby the eldest brother among the Pandavas. If DJ knows this, he would be more than willing to accept you as a consensus Prime Ministerial candidate of both the alliances. Thus, we can avoid an avoidable election. What says you?"
"Ï shall not be party to this betrayal of my friend Dr. D. You may leave now", thus spoke Karna.
What did Kunti do?
She left.

The three electorally disinclined brothers were sad to know that the elections were an inevitability. In his immeasurable joy, Bhima didn't know what to do. He simply ordered a large Veg Pizza along with garlic bread and ate it all alone. Draupadi too was delighted but she did not like Pizza and hence didn't eat it. She instead ate Idli. These acts of gourmandise of both Draupadi and Bhima shall in no way affect the course of the story.

Election dates were announced. It was set to be a long drawn out election spread over 18 days. 'Bloggers Collective' came en masse to accompany DJ when he went to file his nomination papers.DJ asked them all to click more times on the ads on his blog so that the ad-revenues in itself could fund his electioneering. "Weightlifter's Association Of India" members carried huge boulders along with Bhima on their shoulders as they barged their way into the election commission's office for Bhima's nomination. Arjuna called her girlfriend. But she didn't turn up. So he went alone. Nakula and Sahadeva filed their digitally signed nominations online. Krish was their non-playing captain being the key strategist.

Dr. D and his hundred member strong fraternal conglomeration filed their nominations too alongwith Karna. Superannuated Bhishma, the reluctant politician Drona and Krupa, being the key Kaurava-electoral-strategists, too entered the fray although unwillingly.

Opinion polls predicted that both alliances would lose. They concluded that it was difficult to predict who else would win in this eventuality. Dr. Yadav, a noted psephologist with a funny beard, blamed this on stray dog menace. But all opinion polls were confident that it would be democracy that would ultimately win.

Back in the Kaurava camp, there was a bitter fight between chief-electoral-strategist Bhishma and Karna who had been annoyed at not having been appointed as the key strategist. He accused Bhishma of caste prejudice but was careful enough to not anger Dr. D. He also blamed Bhishma for stray dog menace and the mysterious death of ants in south India. Bhishma remained silent so that he could get some publicity ahead of the release of his next would-be-award-winning-autobiographical-book, 'How I got may father married'. Provoked by an unresponsive Bhishma, Karna started a 'Hate Bhishma' community on Orkut. DJ's new blog post on this topic, "Why is DJ happy" became a hit. Ad revenues crossed record margins in two days. Meanwhile, Karna removed the Hate Bhishma community so as to not to hurt his friend Dr. D's electoral ambition of getting re-elected as PM. And then there was some peace in the Kaurava camp.

[Rest of this exciting run-up to polls, poll-day drama, and the results - Watch out for the next episode in this Mahabharatha series]