Winston Churchill, who had extraordinary command over the English language, was usually unkind to Mahatma Gandhi. He would call him “a naked fakir” or a “mendicant”. Now this mendicant has been spotted on Mars by an Italian, Mr. Matteo Lanneo. At this news in the Daily Mail, London, (June 14), Vizzy would have turned into his dilapidating grave. He never appreciated the idea of independent India: I am not expanding the boundaries of Her Majesty’s Great Britain to be ultimately given away to the beggars.
The beggars of the yore were totally different from the beggars of the day. A beggar died in Ajmer last week with about a Rs. two lakh sum in the inner pocket of his pant. Soon after his untimely demise nobody recognised him but at the time of his post-mortem, the doctors revealed he died not only of multiple diseases but had enough cash to be successfully treated in any Apollo Hospital, dotting the metropolitan cities of the country.
Thiefery also is perhaps in our contaminated blood. Three months ago, some smart fellow – yes, today thieves are called smart fellows – melted into thin air with the Mahatma’s iconic rounded spectacles. The reported theft was not reported perhaps out of courtesy to the memory of the Mahatma.
My 2-part gut feeling is the Mahatma, with a view to using the glasses on Mars, got them whisked away through any outgoing acquaintance. The other part of my gut feeling is: soon the spectacles would be found at the original place because they are not worth a dime in the market. If you want to know the real reason behind what I feel is because this national property would be too-cheap for an ace thief to be sold in the black market that abounds in Ray Bans and Ascilors of the finest possible quality.
In the meantime, I am anxiously waiting for the emergence of Subhas Chandra Bose on the surface of Pluto or Neptune.
For quite long ago, no glad tiding has come to say that Subhas Babu is waiting in the wings in a deep and dark cave in the Himalayas to arrive in the country anytime so that he erases off the devils and sub-devils from the surface of plural Bharat and establishes a State where milk and honey would flow majestically on our too-dirty streets.
I am also anxiously waiting for the grand reception that the Congresswalas as well as Ms Mamta Bannerjee would throw for the Italian Mr. Matteo Lanneo, who is fortunate enough to see our Father of the Nation on the distant Mars.