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
47 comments
Read more

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...
18 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...
13 comments
Read more