This is the Image from the paper

This is a paper we published for our Annual Fest at the School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University back in April 2005. Co-authors were Manish Kushwaha and Sayantan Bose

The Baba of Small Things

As I was contemplating adding another teaspoon of sugar to my morning coffee, my wife, Koli, asked me, “Did you see that Baba Ramdev is on a protest fast? One of the things he is advocating for is death penalty to anyone who kills a cow…”

I looked tenderly at the corned beef on the table. “Well if not anything it will stop you from eating all that beef and getting fat”, my wife concluded. Koli, as always in her inimitable way somehow managed to channel Indian politics onto my ever- increasing (in her opinion) waistline. This is a mere example of her ability to take anything from rising gas prices to unrest in the Middle East and blame my good old Bengali paunch as the causative agent. But at that moment it seemed like the Bharat Swabhiman Andolan would launch itself full tilt into my quiet and peaceful Sunday morning, rather like the way those ads unsuspectingly blowup in your face whenever you log onto the Times of India website. The other day I forgot that I actually wanted to check out what Mahesh Bhatt had to say about the Pakistani actress Meera, and almost got badgered into buying a 4-pound pack of some generic fiber supplement to improve my bowel movement. But I wander…

I think it is the thought of giving up beef forever or else finding myself in front of a firing range, which was driving me nuts. I started wondering how a Godman would kill somebody in a death penalty situation? Would they use the electric chair or would they rain down curses on that person until they shrivel up and die? Avada Kedavra? Or maybe something from the Hinduvta Godmen Book of Curses. Or you know what? In fact, they could take a leaf out of the Taliban’s book of capital punishment. I know we call them terrorists, but hey, capital punishment is capital punishment! As Baba Ramdev says, capital punishment would allow sinners like gays and cow slaughterers to gain moksha.

My wife shook me from my reverie for a moment, “Floated into one of your day dreams as usual, haven’t you? Drink your coffee before it gets cold”. I smiled and said, “Honey, did you know Baba Ramdev is against all foreign brands? If his party wins, you’d better bid goodbye to your favorite chocolates and stuff, coz’ you know…foreign brands are out.”

“And you don’t forget to practice drinking unsweetened milk coz’ that is what we’ll get from vending machines instead of your favorite cola brand…”, Koli hit back. Wonder how she does that…somehow she always manages trump me in whatever I say! “And thank your stars that hopefully it will be milk and not the other bovine fluid option…carbonated for extra zing…but don’t worry, even if that is the case, I am sure it would have been blessed by a certified Hindu guru before packaging”, she added.

I was finding this fascinating. Baba Ramdev and his vision were starting to open up new vistas for our great Hindustan. What a country we would be! We would be a bunch of proud Hindus leading the nation. And with a skewed sex ratio of 940 females per 1000 males, we can declare the remaining 60 men who do not find a wife, as gays. And since Baba Ramdev says that gays are actually sick people and unnatural, we can bundle them with the lower castes, which means more people doing menial jobs, which equals to clean streets and cities.

And other religions? Of course we won’t convert them (at least for now), but even they know that Lord Ram Is The True Saviour And Trinity Rules Supreme. But Whatever They May Claim, Spirituality and Cosmic Consciousness Are Reserved For Hindus Only…. At this point Koli interrupted my chain of thought again, “Why do you have to think aloud? And why do you have to capitalize everything you say, like it Really Means Something?” “Well”, I mumbled. “This is how I used to score points in my ‘Ideals and Progresses’ spirituality class at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram School I went to. We used to learn big polysyllabic words like – ‘Supreme, Consciousness, Being, etc and use those to write pages after pages of what I can only describe as excretement of the highest quality. And these words were always capitalized for no apparent reason…”, I reasoned.

“Well don’t you think it’s wrong?”, my wife asked.

“What! Me scoring marks in the I/P class?! Dear, I had to pass that test by whatever means possible!” I was ready to defend my tactics designed to ace the spirituality test, come what may.

“No, no I meant Indian politics turning out the way you were describing”, she seemed irritated by my stupidity.

“Well the people of India must decide. You know if they find the oodles of Hinduvta oozing out of them on Election Day, they will vote for Baba Ramdev”, I said. “But if you ask me, I would have voted for someone else. Someone who is much calmer and more stable and seemed to be more sage-like in all he does”

“And who is that, may I ask?” I could tell Koli had grown really skeptical at this point.

“Swami Nityanand. I would vote for him any day over Guru Ramdev. He is a true guru if ever there was one - a simple man, who made ‘Seva’ his ‘dharma’. Receiving ‘seva’, not providing it though….but who’s complaining? Only jealous people are. People who’d love to receive such ‘seva’ of the finest quality, but know that they never can. Coz’ everyone is not Swami Nityananda.”

The look on Koli’s face was a mixture of pity, amusement and indignation. I could tell she was probably having second thoughts about me.

I took advantage of her bemusement and went on - “As one friend quoted Swami Nityananda, the other day – ‘If you speak to Lady, do not touch the Body. If you touch the Body, someone will make a CD’. Very true words, in this day and age. As a matter of fact, I think what he really meant was – let the Lady touch you first… That’s chivalry! Such a gentleman! So my choice would be Swami Nityananda as the President of India!”

I made a last ditch effort in trying to campaign for my presidential candidate of choice, “No one else will pay that much attention to the Women’s bill and vote for womens' lib. Although I have a sneaking feeling he means 'liberation' in more ways than one. But anyhow it should make you happy….and herein rests my case.”

I realized that by then my coffee had grown cold.