Skip to main content

Country without politicians



CBSE’s class eleven English course has a poem by Vikram Seth titled The Tale of Melon City.  The essence of the poem is that people will live in “Peace and Liberty” as long as there are no foolish politicians around.

The king in that poem is the quintessential politician who tries to please everybody.  He is also a narcissist who hates obstacles on his way.  When his crown is knocked down, while he takes a victorious ride on his chariot, by the arch that he was inaugurating to show off himself, his narcissistic pride is hurt.  He orders someone to be hanged in order to assuage his hurt pride. 

The accused passes the blame to another person as self-defence. The king has to guard his reputation for being just and honest.  So he orders that newly accused person to be hanged.  And the blame continues to be passed from one to another. 

I teach this poem in my class where the blame passes on from the Mughals to the British to Christian missionaries to Dalits to just any nobody.  But that’s just an aside.  Let’s get back to the poem.

Finally, in Seth’s poem, the blame comes back to the king himself.  The king orders his own hanging, being “just and honest”.  And the people of the country are happy to hang the king.  According to the cultural tradition of the country, the new king is to be chosen by the person who crosses the city gate after the election is proclaimed.  Very simple, inexpensive form of election.  The person who dares to pass the gate in such a troubled time obviously is an idiot. Who else will take upon himself such a responsibility as choosing the king? 

“Who will be the next king?” the kingpin asks the idiot.

“Melon,” answers the idiot.  The idiot loved melons, says the poet.

And a melon became the king of Melon City.  People lived in “Peace and Liberty” because a melon doesn’t require taxes for anything – not for foreign travels, not for publicity, not for costumes, not for you name it.

I leave the question to thinking people: why not eliminate politicians?  Why not live in “Peace and Liberty”?  Why not get rid of taxes levied by kings (governments – both Central and State)?  Why not get rid of the mafia run by governments?  Why not get rid of the bureaucracy which sucks our blood?  Why not get rid of the religious leaders who sell us ignorance? 

I never raise these questions in my class.  Because these questions are my private dreams.  A country without politicians is just a dream.  A country of intelligent people is a nightmare.


Comments

  1. Rajeev MoothedathFebruary 3, 2018 at 11:01 PM

    "I leave the question to thinking people: why not eliminate politicians?" - Who ( How) will bell the cat?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 4, 2018 at 11:25 AM

      How is the real question. Who? I'm ready. But I don't know how it can be done.

      Delete
  2. ManiparnaFebruary 4, 2018 at 3:33 AM

    I dream of such a city/ world without politicians!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 4, 2018 at 11:26 AM

      Happy to see another individual who shares my dream. Some dreams are only for self-consolation :)

      Delete
  3. Anita SabatFebruary 4, 2018 at 12:26 PM

    Imagine Melon Cities or any other favourite fruit/veggie cities worldwide! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. yatrasblogFebruary 5, 2018 at 10:23 PM

    My father in law says the same,his dream is 0 polititian in India.Then new India will born.yes,like minded people are there.we will get solution too..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 5, 2018 at 11:24 PM

      That's encouraging. Let more and more people come out against politicians.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
44 comments
Read more

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

  Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...
4 comments
Read more

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...
14 comments
Read more

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...
10 comments
Read more

Koorumala Viewpoint

  Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place.  From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower  A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...
30 comments
Read more