Geriatric Grand Slam

I am greatly concerned for our Prime Minister in perennial waiting, the president and most visible face of our oldest and fastest-slipping ...

I am greatly concerned for our Prime Minister in perennial waiting, the president and most visible face of our oldest and fastest-slipping political party. His image has taken such a battering of late that I think it8217;s time the State provided him with special protection 8212; from himself.

Lest I am misunderstood, let me point out that when Bholaram Toofani, an ageing minister in Laloo Yadav8217;s cabinet, announced he would commit suicide if the CBI arrested his darling8217; chief minister, the Bihar police promptly assigned a special team to save the man from himself. In other words, policemen kept an eye on him round the clock lest he hanged himself from the ceiling fan, slashed his wrists, consumed poison, grabbed a live and neutral wire in either hand or took his life in some other cowardly manner.

So many setbacks has the former drum-beater suffering of late, that all his machinations of over a year seem to have come to nought. In fact, they8217;re saying in Mumbai8217;s Bhindi Bazaar: quot;Uska to bad luck hi kharab hai.quot;

It all started in Calcutta when his Veep ganged up against him and his daughter8217; challenged him to step out. The former quot;na khata na bahiquot; treasurer was seeking support for a trot to 5, Race Course Road, but all he got was several non-sahi CWC persons.

This was followed by 22 resounding slaps that his partymen in UP delivered to his tear-stained ego. To rub salt into his sores, not just the mandatory one-third but a humiliating two-thirds of his party moved over to positions of power. And the remaining rump appears to be ready to say: quot;Ram Ram, Sitaram.quot;

As in tennis, so in life. After being ousted like the dreadfully out of form Andre Agassi in the first rounds of the Calcutta and Lucknow Opens, the champion secularist entered the third leg of the Grand Slam, the Jain Open.But there too, the man with the flawed backhand failed to deal with the amateurish lobs that the Union Home Minister was serving up. His failure to smash these lollipops exposed the oldest party8217;s oldest president to the charge that, like Vijay Amritraj, he lacked the killer instinct.

Although the developments in Gujarat provided some life-saving oxygen to the gasping president of the panting party, the match was just a sideshow, like one of those non-slam ATP tourneys.

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That left only the current Grand Slam event 8212; the winter session. The old man in a hurry is moving, but can he do a Jimmy Connors? Can he pump up enough adrenalin to sail through the confines of the Upper House and, like the bearded one, become the leader of the lower House 8212; never mind the fact that like the two G-men before him he, too, did not contest the last Lok Sabha elections?

While it seems highly unlikely that Lady Luck would continue to favour one geriatric after another, perhaps it8217;s time for the gods to wake up and say that enough is enough, that India should be third-time lucky, and that a sitting member of the Lok Sabha should now stand up and take the oath as Prime Minister.

Where will all this leave the self-esteem of the non-nikamma one? In limbo? Well, it probably belongs there anyway. But the fact remains that I am extremely anxious for this eminent son of the soil, this chubby chief of the quot;natural party of governancequot; never mind its tendency to genuflect incessantly before 10, Janpath, to implore an Italian mai to pick up the reins and lead them out of darkness.

Perhaps it is time for India8217;s largest private foundation to step in and grant funds to provide special security to the man playing midwife while the backroom boys prepare to recapture power. Will India8217;s highest-paid columnist lend the weight of his quill to this crying need? For how can a poor poop with a monthly household expenditure of a mere Rs 1,450 afford such expensive Toofani8217; security?