Paying the women’s bill

The man who entered was a familiar face, arguably the most famous face in the country — after Govinda, that is. Dr Takar rose to his feet in keeping with his patient’s high status and stood bolt upright until the eminent one had settled on the couch.

“May I say PMji, how honoured I am that you seek my services. Now what may the problem be?”began Dr Takar, delicately. His couchside manners were, as usual, faultless, but he still couldn’t help feeling inadequate.

PMji croaked a "namaskar", batted his eyelids several times, cleared his throat, looked at the ceiling, batted his eyelids a few more times, cleared his throat again and kept staring at theceiling.

Years of practice had acquainted Dr Takar with situations like this. Some patients needed to be gently coaxed to deliver their inner burdens. "Take your time, PMji, be at ease," he said gently.

His sympathetic words helped unleash a flood of pent up emotion in his patient. "I can’t bear it anymore," burst out PMji. "I CAN’T BEAR IT ANYMORE."

"What, precisely, is it you can’t bear?" asked Dr Takar, gently probing without being intrusive.

"I see them here, I hear them there…" continued PMji, glancing wildly about the room as if his tormentors were lurking behind the exquisite crystal figurine of Daphne that graced Dr Takar’s table, or hiding in that authentic Swiss cuckoo clock on the wall.

"Who?" asked Dr Takar, barely audible even to himself.

"Them," shuddered PMji, "women, women, women."

Dr Takar sighed again. It was the same old problem every time. Old man Freud had devoted his life studying the issue.

"They haunt me, each of them. I get dreams aboutthem," continued PMji, in a choked voice.

"Ah," said Dr Takar, seizing upon the opportunity to flash some of his legendary scholarship, "The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to knowledge of the unconscious…."

"Forget interpreting dreams," snapped PMji, impatiently. "How do you interpret Soniaji‘s statement that she will continue to offer constructive cooperation but stands prepared to discharge her constitutional obligations? It destabilises me, that statement."

"Ah," said Dr Takar, "that displacement feeling is a familiar complaint."

"Yes, yes, that’s it," agreed PMji. "And I get that same feeling when Jayalalithaji says that if at all anyone can pull the government down, only she can. Or when she states in Chennai that she feels uneasy in this relationship."

"Ah," said Dr Takar, "but Jayalalitha is only exhibiting the classic signs of megalomania, I’d say."

"But is Mamataji, any less?" asked PMji, in despair. "Now she’s busy framing analternative National Agenda for Governance."

"Ah, if I’m not mistaken, that is the lady who tore an MP’s kurta last week. She exhibits definite symptoms of infantilism," nodded Dr Takar, sagely.

"Then there’s Rabariji, in Patna, threatening to break the governor’s good leg," went on PMji, his ghosts chasing after him.

"Ah, a strong case of delusions of grandeur. Just ignore her," commented Dr Takar.

"Then there’s Sushma Swaraj, sulking in one corner of the House. She even got her friends to heckle me, saying that I don’t have a single woman in the Cabinet," continued PMji, his cup of woe clearly running over.

"Ah," said Dr Takar, wondering how he should interpret that. "A case of narcissistic neuroses, no doubt. Get the Women’s Bill passed and no one will be able to accuse you of being against the female sex," advised Dr Takar, smoothly.

But the suggestion only brought on a violent reaction in PMji. He tore at his hair, flayed his arms around, stamped his feet onthe ground. "That’s the problem, that’s the problem," he shouted.

PMji‘s condition was veering to what old Freud would have characterised as hysteria, thought Dr Takar to himself.

"If that Bill is passed, we’ll have 33 per cent of them to contend with. Then where will we be?" sobbed PMji, in clear distress.