Dramatis personae

Sonia Gandhi, enacting the role of the bereaved widow wronged by the sinister quot;woh logquot;, has played cleverly on the sentiments of the hoi polloi, repeatedly harping on the martyrdom of her mother-in-law and her husband. Her speech at Sriperumbudur bore an uncanny resemblance to Mark Antony8217;s famous quot;Friends, Romans, countrymenquot;, which moved the mob to tears. And isn8217;t her reiteration of quot;woh logquot;without actually naming the bad guys so similar to Antony8217;s barbed digs at the quot;honourable menquot;? She understands, or rather her speechwriter understands, what Mark Antony knew only too well: that with simple, unlettered people, it is far more useful to appeal to the heart than to deliver lofty homilies that they have neither the patience nor the erudition to digest.

Atalji fitted the role of Brutus to a T. His nobility and scholarship were never in question. His rhetoric was compelling. Facts, figures, felicitous formulae for a fresh renaissance were all at his fingertips. It was a matter of time, for the formality of the polls to be undergone, for quot;the man Indian awaitsquot; to take his quot;rightfulquot; place at the helm of affairs. But that was then, in the beginning.

Then Soniaji stepped into the arena to defend the most dynamic dynasty that ever ruled in the tide of times. And it was woe to Atalji, and woe to Murliji, and woe to Advaniji and all the other jis that had the temerity to cross her path. Her heartwas full of pity, of vedana for the tainted image of her late husband. All the Bofors-bashers are still at large and as quot;fire drives out firequot;, so has the pity for the plight of her innocent children Robertji included given way to the loftier pity for the wrong done to Bharat. Soon, Rajiv8217;s spirit, ranging for revenge, shall with a monarch8217;s voice, quot;Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.quot; And only Soniaji can save the nation. Jai Hind!

Kesriji fits the bill as quot;a slight, unmeritable manquot;. Though honours such as the party presidency be heaped upon him, the heavens themselves do conspire against him. Even his aircraft refuses to cooperate. The poor man is but akin to an ass that bears the gold for his mistress. The job done, the quot;divers sland8217;rous loads deliveredquot;, he shall be led or driven as Madam wills into the boonies, quot;to shake his ears and graze in the commonsquot;.

One does not have to seek too far in the political circus to find the twentieth century rendering of the lean and hungry Cassius. Theformidable power that the lumpen command today, the primacy of ends over means, are as much constituents of the human psyche as prodigious courage and sacrifice. With Shakespeare, one learns to laugh at oneself, to question the mighty with a puckish impudence, above all, to accept the chiaroscuro of life in its myriad shades, where a fool can sprout pearls of wisdom and the wise man strut like a pompous prig.

Just as the Ramcharitmanas is splendid literature and the Bible a gem no litterateur dare ignore, so too has Shakespeare immortalised himself, transcending all barriers of space and time. To dispense with him, in our narrow, blinkered zeal for all things swadeshi, would be to discard yet again a microcosm of all that is lofty and noble in the human spirit.