Mascot vs Mascot

Remember Gattu, the Asian Paints mascot? Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is valiantly attempting an imitation of him these days, with a metaphorical paint brush in his hand, trying desperately to whitewash his communal image. Just as well that he doesn't wear 'Dangerously Low' jeans or else his saffron innerwear would show.

I almost fell off my chair when I read about his turn around in a national daily. 'Communal? Who me? Gosh, whatever gave you that idea?' is the stance he's firmly taking during the run up to December's assembly elections in Gujarat.  I don't know about you, but his poker-faced secular protestations haven't convinced me one bit. Now, perhaps if he'd had the foresight to hire a shimmering halo and gauzy angel wings from Maganlal Dresswala's collection of theatrical props for his campaign photographs, maybe naah, forget it, even that won't work for me. Just what is it with politicians? Do they actually believe that citizens are plain stupid or have short-term memories?

I'm willing to concede that I'm being hasty here. The situation could be serious—perhaps Modi himself is suffering from memory loss. The poor dear may have forgotten that he was chief minister of Gujarat when the riots broke out, and that there were allegations  that he instructed the cops to protect Hindus and ignore attacks on Muslims, among a long list of other things that make me shudder. 

Quite possibly, one of those big fat heavy boxes in his office loft that contain zillions of un-opened complaints from the National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Minorities and sundry other horrified organisations fell on his head and caused concussion. Not a big deal— we just need it to fall on his head again for him to get his memory back (I'm not being violent, I'm merely recommending that we test this Tom & Jerry memory-regain method in the interests of science).  Thereafter, he should be gently persuaded to watch Parzania and TV clips of the 2002 carnage over and over and over again till he gets the picture. Of course, we'll have to smuggle the Parzania DVD into Gujarat, since the movie is banned in that state for some odd reason.

Oh, I don't expect him to apologise even if we confront him with the evidence — he's way too arrogant for that. Come on, recently he walked out of an interview with a TV channel when the interviewer had the nerve to mention the Gujarat riots!  And anyway, what will an apology achieve? Sorry, but I feel compelled at this point to make a small adaptation of a verse from The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam and dedicate it to Modi.  Here goes:  The moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your PR agents nor wiles Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your  crocodile tears wash out a word of it.

Even so, it's good to know that the poster boy of the BJP is terribly insecure these days. In the 2002 elections soon after the riots, he won without bothering to even languidly flick a duster on his image.  But now that there are party dissidents to contend with, he's forced to get off his high horse in the fond hope of getting votes from the very people whose lives and livelihood he destroyed by looking the other way. Tut tut, how the mighty are fallen.  Too bad for him that some of us have the  memory capacity of  yet another endearing Indian mascot—Appu, the baby elephant of the 1982 Asian Games.