When push comes to shove

Everyone, including my dog, knows that politicians aren't the least bit frightened off the law. It takes ages to catch up with them and even then, there are always loopholes they can wriggle out of like those extraordinarily supple cockroaches. In the rare cases where they are sentenced and confined to the slammer, do you suppose they actually break rocks with pick-axes or make extra-crunchy Tihar-brand chips or put up the Ramleela to entertain their fellow inmates? No way, Jose!  Tsk, the lazy sods don't even bother to make an effort to dig themselves out of jail and into Australia with teaspoons or saw through iron bars with nail-files their loving wives smuggle in. Why bother? The delicate darlings always manage to get flutters in their hearts (a fancy word for indigestion) so they can chill out at posh hospitals instead. An aside here: that indigestion has nothing to do with jail food. It's probably due to the biryani or samosas that bribe-offering people plied them with before the sentence was pronounced. 

But all is not lost, fellow citizens!  Ever since our TV journalists discovered that we sadists would much rather see politicians sweat than smile on camera, they've been pulling out all stops to deliver. We've suddenly become powerful because TV ratings matter more than votes, you see. Take the recent case of Bihar's Agriculture Minister, Narendra Singh, pushing a poor old woman petitioner away (My god, a widow at that, what an arrogant fool he was!) at Bhagalpur's Agriculture University, while inaugurating something or the other. The nicest part of it — it wasn't even a devious spycam operation but a normal procedure, quite possibly the minister's very own PR chaps had called TV crews in to film the minister doing 'good works'!

Of course, he vehemently denied it — that's the very first thing they teach you at the School for Politicians. But the footage was incriminating enough and he had to confess to the slip of a girl interviewing him that yes, perhaps it looked as though he was pushing her, to the jaundiced eye only, of course. Now, if I were in his place, I'd have confidently said that I saw a venomous King Cobra about to attack her and chivalrously attempted to shove her out of harm's way. Tragically, politicians have no imagination either (a course I would willingly conduct for the School for Politicians only if they offer me a bungalow in the Lutyen's part of New Delhi during my tenure).

What made me despise the minister even more is that he wittered on about how he could never ever do what we all saw because he respects women so. Give me a break, please! I'm sick and tired of that hypocritical line of thought from the moral police and politicians (no difference, as we all know).  Fortunately my airline-pinched sickness bag was accurately positioned when he made that statement.

But there is a god after all, and that sorry story had a happy ending. The poor old widowed woman got compensation and a job for her son, while the minister is spending sleepless nights wondering if other parties will pressurise his party men to insist that he resign. There's a lesson here for all of us. Don't waste your money trying to bribe politicians; they'll be caught and so will you! Just whisper rude things to them (if you're like me, it will come naturally) while the cameras are watching. That way, they'll be forced to push or slap you and you'll get what you want and more! So we've all learnt something valuable here, right?