Skip to main content

Narendra meets Ashoka

Satire

“Why did you write this?” Narendra questioned Ashoka.

They had just walked by one of the many rock edicts erected by Ashoka.  It said:

But the Beloved of the Gods does not consider gifts of honour to be as important as the essential advancement of all sects. Its basis is the control of one’s speech, so as not to extol one’s own sect or disparage that of another on unsuitable occasions... On each occasion one should honour the sect of another, for by doing so one increases the influence of one’s own sect and benefits that of the other, while, by doing otherwise, one diminishes the influence of one’s own sect and harms the other... therefore concord is to be commended so that men may hear one another’s principles.*

“Conquest is imposing one’s ideas on others.  One gets sick of that eventually,” said Ashoka with a weary smile.

“You used religion to make your mark in history.  I’m doing the same.  How can you blame me?”  Narendra asked.

“History is a series of blames and claims.  When you put forward claims, you’re sure to face blames.”

“But I’m doing it all for the development of Hindustan.  See what the Muslims are doing.  They are using religious terrorism.  See what the Christians are doing.  They are using economic terrorism....”

“And you’re combining both.”  Ashoka laughed.  It was a faint, ghostly laugh.

“It’s very easy for you to admonish me.  You’ve already made your mark in history.  And you changed Hindustan into Buddhastan.  Then came the Iblis and made it Muslimstan.  And then came the British and made it Isaistan....”

“Did you ever take a look at the Census of your country, Narendra?  Do you know how many Muslims are there in your kingdom?  How many Isais?”

“I can’t read all that stuff.  I am a chaiwallah, don’t you know that, and a proud one at that?”

“No problem in being a chaiwallah, my dear.  Only chaiwallahs possessing ambition can be a conqueror.  Intellectuals like my Vikramaditya or your Manmohan can only depend on Vetalas or Sonias and send the money of the country to Swiss Banks.”

The mention of Swiss Banks made Narendra’s beard bristle.

“I’m trying to get all that money back.”

“The day you get that back you will cease to be a king, Narendra.  Black money is a Trojan horse.  Don’t ever deal with it.”

Narendra looked at another Rock Edict which said, “Don’t give or receive bribes.”

“Black money, bribes, corruption, sin... Can you get rid of them?  What are you?  An incarnation of God or a Conqueror?”

“I’m a simple chaiwallah.”

“Stop thinking that you’re a chaiwallah.  Understand that you are the Emperor, the Rajadhiraja of Hindustan.  Shed your complex.  Then you will understand life from  a different perspective.  Perspectives make all the difference, you know.  Now come and have lunch with me.  The best chicken and mutton are waiting for us.  Even beef from the sacrificial offering in the temple is likely to be there.”  They were approaching Ashoka’s palace.

Narendra’s stubbly beard stood as fully erect as it possibly could. 

“I am a vegetarian.”

“Don’t make a religion of even your food, my dear man.  Stop carrying your cooks around wherever you go.  Learn to appreciate the diversity in the world.”

“No, no, I can’t do that.  I have some principles.”

“You should let go some of them.  Principles are meant for intellectuals and saints.  You are a conqueror.  You can kill people and yet be a vegetarian.  You can eat chicken and still be a vegetarian.”

Narendra didn’t know what to say in spite of his eloquence of which he was very proud.

“You know what your problem is, Narendra?”  Ashoka looked into his eyes with a naughty grin.  “You never knew love.  You could not even hug a woman close to your bosom.  You knew only conquests.  Every conqueror worth his salt is also a lover.  You never learnt that.”

“My predecessor, Atal, was a bachelor too,” protested Narendra.

“Oh, Atal,” Ashoka sneered.  “He was an intellectual.  Worse still, a poet.  Poets and intellectuals don’t leave footprints in history.  They leave words.  We leave footprints.  Made in blood.  Human blood.”

The smell of chicken tikka and mutton korma wafted in the air.

Narendra’s nose turned upward. 

“Swachch Bharat,  I have to do much more for Swachch Bharat,” he muttered to himself.  Then he shook hands with Ashoka.  “Good bye,” he said.  

As he walked toward the flock of Black Commandos waiting for him with a fleet of bulletproof vehicles he took out his mobile phone and clicked a selfie.  Having posted the selfie on Facebook, he called his confidante, “Amit, go ahead and offer the lakhs to all infidels for converting to our side.  I don’t want another Kalinga in history.  Let money do the business.”

He felt elated.  He felt converted.


* Ashoka’s Major Rock Edict XII, Translated by Romila Thapar in Ashoka and the Decline of the Maurya

Comments

  1. Dear Sir,

    Please see this link for “Meat consumption in Veda” :
    http://truthabouthinduism.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/beef-eating-in-vedas-and-other-hindu-texts/

    Thanks,
    DMR Sekhar

    ReplyDelete
  2. good one! pun intended.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for both the appreciation and the pun. Pun is an integral part of satire.

      Delete
  3. Every century and millenium is a repeat of its past with full measure of its intensity outdoing past just as we have aped the west in its worst characteristics in direct proportional to the level of globalization that is taking place..It is a cycle of accelerated follies and we call it history.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mankind doesn't seem to learn anything much from history. We claim to be becoming more civilized whereas in fact wre are as savage as, if not more so than, our predecessors.

      Delete
  4. Sir, it is true that Ashoka's history can never be rewritten by any of the leaders (rulers) today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The world has become far more complex, to be fair to the present day leaders. Mr Modi would have been an Ashoka had he lived in those days, perhaps.

      Delete
  5. Yes. Even in Kalinga war, there would have been a sense of righteousness, sacrifice and bravery; but not in Godra riots. So the Chanda Ashoka can become Dhamma Ashoka; not a heartless CM, a custodian of the rights of ordinary people to lead a safe life. It was a coward's political drama.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's only when he is out of power, his real personality will be subjected to honest scrutiny. Even then how many people would like to accept the truth is a question worth raising. People love heroes. If there are no heroes, they will create them.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Face of the Faceless

“When you choose to fight for truth and justice, you will have to face serious threats.” Sister Rani Maria, the protagonist of the movie, is counselled by her mother in a letter. Face of the Faceless is a movie that shows how serious those threats are. This movie is a biopic. It shows us the life of a Catholic nun who dedicated her life to serve some Adivasis of Madhya Pradesh [MP] and ended up as a martyr. If it were not a real story, this movie would have been an absolute flop. Since it is the real story of not only a nun but also the impoverished and terribly exploited Adivasis in a particular village of MP, it keeps you engrossed. It is a sad movie, right from the beginning to the end. It is a story of the good versus evil, the powerless versus the powerful, the heroic versus the villainous, the divine versus the diabolic. Having said that, I must hasten to add one conspicuous fact: the movie does not ever present Christianity or its religious practices as the only right way

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart

All the light we cannot see

Book Review Title: All the light we cannot see Author: Anthony Doerr Publisher: Fourth Estate, London, 2014 Pages: 531 What we call light is just a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most part of the electromagnetic spectrum remains beyond ordinary human perception. Such is human life too: so many of its shades remain beyond our ordinary perception and understanding. Anthony Doerr’s novel, All the light we cannot see , unravels for us some of the mysterious shades of human life. Marie-Laure LeBlanc leaves Paris with her father Daniel who is entrusted with the task of carrying a rare diamond, Sea of Flames , to safe custody when the second world war breaks out. The National Museum of Natural History, Paris, has made three counterfeit diamonds of the Sea of Flames. Four men are assigned the task of carrying each of these diamonds to four different destinations. None of them knows whether they are carrying the original diamond or the counterfeit. Marie-Laure a