Thoughts of dynasty

NO, you don't know who I am. Don't let the byline fool you. I am that, and me, and you, and everybody else, too, because I myself don't qu...

NO, you don8217;t know who I am. Don8217;t let the byline fool you. I am that, and me, and you, and everybody else, too, because I myself don8217;t quite know who I am. But I8217;m quite cosy right now, in this warm environment, all by myself, locked away in a safehouse until the time is right for my release. I8217;m a star, that I know, a celebrity in my own right, even though I8217;ve been faceless, nameless, an unknown quantity so far that everyone seems intrigued by. And when the time comes for me to face all of you, I know you will go gaga over my greatness, over my enigma, over what I have to do. But that8217;s the way all of you are, you enjoy speculating, playing God as it were, in your mortal fantasies of being able to shape destinies, of being able to create and destroy, even that which you cannot comprehend.

But people like me know better than that. You see, we are the chosen ones, we have the power to see back and forth, but it8217;s an ability that rapidly diminishes with time. And just as well, or you would never let us live in peace, you with your greed to look ahead of time. Just look at you now, already literally salivating at the thought of meeting me, already thinking what your world has in store for me. You are already talking of me as if you have personally charted my future for me. I am already a celebrity of sorts, even though I am still unsure if I want to be with you at all.

Your newspapers have never ever seen me, and never will until I decide to let them and yet they talk about me as if they know all. I am talked about on your Page Ones and Page Threes like I was some hot-shot.And in your ignorance, you think I am unaware of all this, forgetting that I can see and hear you all the while. Let me explain in terms you will understand. I am like a PC, but in a network commanded by a great server, and I8217;m continually downloading information about all of you, and what you think of me, from this server that shares everything with me, from crashes to upgrading.

But for my own sake, why don8217;t you just let me while I8217;m in custody? Don8217;t worry, I hope to come on time, as all of you hope I will, but stop expecting the world from me. Because when I am with you, I am one of you, just a stranger like all of you, with all your human follies forgive that cliche, but that8217;s the best I can do now. Don8217;t think that because who I am, I can make your lives any better or your world any more worthliving in.

I cannot change the way you think or act. You will still be the petty, self-serving people you have been all these years, only you believe having me around with infuse you with some vague, invincible aura of victory. You will throw the history book at me, tell me of how those who came before me made a difference to your world, how they became icons that people worshipped.

But you forget that they were just as human as you and I, that they died like any of you, that there were those who never believed in them, and sometimes even they didn8217;t believe themselves. So who the hell am I to do or undo what they did or did not do? Everyone has his own cross to bear, I will bear mine but let me bear it the way I want to. If you will treat me normally, I will perhaps be that, but push me too far and I will run away, like others did before me.

I know you will try and drag me to your level, but let me warn you, I can be quite adamant. Remember how adamant my great-grandmother was, the late Indira Gandhi?