Skip to main content

The Politician


Fiction

Dr Zachariah slowed the car. Someone was waving a hand standing on the road. The man looked wounded. It was dangerous to stop the car because it was almost midnight and the endless rain continued to pour down reducing visibility considerably. Moreover, he was exhausted after a very long day at hospital which culminated with a surgery. Nevertheless he stopped his car and lowered the glass a little.

Both the doctor and the wounded man on the road were stunned for a moment as they recognised each other.

“Doctor, please help me, I’m injured badly.” The man pleaded.

“Hmm, hop in.” Dr Zach opened the door and the man crept in with some difficulty. “Dry yourself,” said the doctor giving him a towel which he pulled out from somewhere in the car. “What happened?”

“I was attacked,” he said. “A masked gang. Must be the commies.”

The man who was known as Raghav ji was a local leader of the BJP. Fights between the BJP and the Left parties were not uncommon in the state.

“Where shall I take you?” Dr Zach asked. “Government hospital?”

“Please take me to your own hospital, doctor,” the man pleaded.

“And then you will organise a rally against my hospital?”

The doctor took a U-turn. “If you want I’ll drive you to the city where you’ll get better hospitals.” In their small town, Dr Zach’s Calvary was the only hospital apart from the government one.

“Please, doctor, I’m sorry about what happened that time. Please take me to your own hospital.”

Dr Zach looked at the figurine of Jesus on the dashboard as he used to do whenever a dilemma presented itself before him. Jesus winked at him.  “Hmm,” the doctor answered Jesus’ wink.

“Thank you, doctor,’” Raghav ji said assuming the Hmm meant Yes to his request.

Raghav ji’s wife was admitted at Calvary a few months back for delivery. An unforeseen complication called for a last-minute Caesarean which Raghav ji and his party workers interpreted as medical exploitation. As soon as the mother and child were discharged safely, Raghav ji’s party arrived at the hospital leading a rally. They shouted slogans against Calvary which in their view performed the surgery purely for making profits. The drama ended in a big chaos that brought the police and some prominent politicians to the hospital.

Raghav ji required a surgery because his arm was fractured. The doctor showed him the X-ray image of his arm and explained that he was free to seek counsel from another orthopaedic surgeon in the city if he wished.

“You are the best surgeon, doctor ji,” said Raghav.

Jesus winked in Dr Zach’s heart. “Hmm,” said the doc.

As Raghav ji lay in the hospital bed recuperating from the various wounds and bruises he had received apart from the fracture in the arm, he watched the news on the TV in the room.

Atal Behari Vajpayee passed away, the TV channels announced. Raghav ji was not saddened by the news. Vajpayee was too moderate a politician for Raghav ji. He had dared to teach Raj dharma to a great leader like Narendra Modi when the latter was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. “In the loss of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the metaphor for charisma, charm and moderation has forever been lost,” the news reader said.

“How foolish!” Raghav ji mumbled to himself. “We now have a much more charismatic and charming leader. And who wants moderation?”

The rains were battering the state mercilessly without any moderation. The Commie government’s estimate of the losses ran into thousands of crores of rupees. Foreign countries, especially those where large numbers of people from the state worked, extended generous financial assistance. But the strong leader at the Centre who knew no moderation dismissed foreign aids. “India is self-reliant,” he declared. “India will uphold its national pride,” he asserted.

The Republic TV called the people of the state “shameless” for looking forward to foreign assistance. National pride swelled in Raghav ji’s veins. He switched channels avidly. One channel declared that Lord Ayappa was punishing the people of the state because their Commie government had got the women the right to enter the Sabarimala temple. Another channel blamed the Christians for their sinful transgressions. This last explanation intoxicated Raghav ji’s national pride further. He knew what he would do as soon as he was discharged from the hospital.



Top post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 31, 2018 at 5:07 PM

    Nice story. Did Raghav ji keep his promise of not demonstrating against the hospital?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

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
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more