Skip to main content

Nero’s Fiddle and Modi’s Muddle



Nero could not have played the fiddle while Rome burned. The fiddle didn’t exist in ancient Rome, for one thing. Ancient Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Nero was rumoured to have sung about the destruction of Troy while Rome was burning. He added that it was probably just a rumour. History has enough evidence, however, to show that Nero did initiate some relief measures though the people of Rome didn’t trust him. The Romans thought that Nero had started the fire himself in order to clear the area for the Golden Palace and the surrounding gardens that he constructed there soon. More interestingly, Nero later put the blame for the fire on the Christians who were a disliked minority in Rome in those days.

Two thousand years later, Nero’s soul seems to have found its appropriate material counterpart in no lesser an avatar than India’s Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi. Modi is fast-tracking his Central Vista project in Delhi which will cost the nation Rs 20,000 crore but will give Modi his coveted Golden Palace along with hopefully a golden place for him in the country’s history which is being rewritten hastily enough. Even a pandemic that is threatening to kill thousands of people doesn’t seem to deter Modi from his pet projects. After all, history will forget pandemics and its faceless victims. Golden Palaces will remain proclaiming the glory of their builders.


Compared with the cost of Modi’s Golden Palace in Delhi, the Rs 2500 crore temple in Ayodhya whose foundation stone will be laid next week by Modi himself should not be a burden on the national exchequer. More and more people are being driven to starvation by a pandemic that has gripped the nation as badly as the entire world. Hospitals and rehabilitation centres should take precedence over palaces and temples: did anyone say that?

A couple of years back, Modi presented to the world the tallest statue which cost India a whopping Rs 3000 crore. The proposed temple for Modi’s god doesn’t consume so many crores, mercifully. In a sheer display of absurd irony, the statue was named for national unity. Never in the history of India has national unity been under threat as in the years of Modi Raj. Modi thinks he can bury certain bitter truths under 20,000 cubic tons of cement concrete and 25,000 tons of steel with 1700 tons of bronze coating. Yet another cosmic irony too: the whole Indian national unity thing was fabricated by the Chinese – Chinese technology and Chinese labourers. A colossal statue whose one big toe alone can accommodate the entire Kothie village that was displaced along with many others in the process of the construction of the humungous dam whose lake houses the Statue of Unity.

Oh, the dam has a story to tell too. The Sardar Sarovar Dam, one of the biggest in the world, was Modi ji’s birthday gift to the country! The new version of the old dam was dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister on his 67th birthday, 17 Sep 2017. The new version of the dam had displaced about 85,000 families, i.e., some 500,000 people.

The present pandemic has displaced more people from their workplaces. When these people are struggling to find a way ahead, our Prime Minister will be on the holy grounds of Ayodhya laying the foundation stone of a dwelling for a god who spent a substantial part of his actual life as a displaced person. Ironies are not new in Modi’s India, of course. Mercifully, Modi ji doesn’t know how to play the fiddle and has no inclination either. But he did sing about the battle of Kurukshetra when the pandemic was raging in the country.




Comments

  1. जितेन्द्र माथुरJuly 20, 2020 at 2:10 PM

    Yes, it's the various ironies only which are a hallmark of the Modi era of the Indian politics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 20, 2020 at 2:19 PM

      The miracle is how people readily overlook every single irony, contradiction and even blatant falsehood and support this man. That deserves some research.

      Delete
  2. magiceyeJuly 20, 2020 at 6:55 PM

    Lives dont matter. Power does.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sonia DograJuly 21, 2020 at 2:40 PM

    Yes the truth is that pandemics are forgotten. It's like being a fatalist. The ones who must die will die. That's what politicians have finally resorted to.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 21, 2020 at 3:25 PM

      It's sad that our national leaders never took it seriously enough. They just pretend to be doing great things.

      Delete

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