At the outset, I confess that I am not one who is any
interested in politics. Of course, that does not imply that over a drink, as
Dave Barry writes somewhere, I would be any less eloquent or vociferous in my
opinions on the subject. I am one who generally restricts himself to the
sports, additional and the cartoon strip sections of a newspaper until
something really big is going on in the world around me, if you know what I
mean. In spite of nothing of such magnitude having happened recently, my eyes
did fall on the front page which was covering the nominations for the next President
of India and I observed a headline saying that 'The United National Progressive
Alliance' is backing so-and-so candidate or something to that effect. Now, my
knowledge certainly is to the extent of knowing what the ruling party in the
country is - which calls itself the 'United Progressive Alliance'. This
immediately made me burst out heartily with laughter. Ask me why. It reminded
me of a sequence in Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' a movie made in 1979 which
satirises the existence of multiple parties wanting to rid themselves of the
Romans during the turn of the first millennium (isn’t it what the time around
1AD is called) each sounding like the next one.
Here’s how the scene runs:
Brian: Are you the Judean People's Front?
Reg: Fuck off!
Brian: What?
Reg: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea!
Judean People's Front. Cawk.
Francis: Wankers.
Brian: Can I... join your group?
Reg: No. Piss off.
Brian: I didn't want to sell this stuff. It's only a job. I hate
the Romans as much as anybody.
PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA: Shhhh.
Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.
Reg: Schtum.
Judith: Are you sure?
Brian: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.
Reg: Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have
to really hate the Romans.
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh, yeah? How much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than
the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah...
Judith: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters...
Francis: And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
Loretta: And the People's Front of Judea.P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
Reg: What?
Loretta: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.Reg: We're the People's Front of Judea!Loretta: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
Reg: People's Front! C-huh.
Francis: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
Reg: He's over there.
When I mentioned this to a learned Tamil friend - now the
'learned Tamil friend' bit definitely is a tautology for I have yet to come
across a Tamil friend who is not learned; one I know is a cross between Woody
Allen and Lord Henry of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' fame, another a highly
cerebral cross between Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins, yet another a small-time Deepak Chopra, yet another a big-time Don Quixote de la Mancha and still
yet another a self-declared political heir to a largely unsuccessful political
party chief - he told me that Tamil Nadu for decades has been teeming with
factions that sound so close to one another that they could win elections by
virtue of the confusion the names created in the voters' minds. Sample these
names: Dravidar Kazhagam, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Dravida Vizhipunarchi
Kazhagam, Dhiravida Thelugar Munnetra Kalagam, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. The mind boggles.
Here we are, in the 21st century with all the modern marvels
around us and the statement ‘the more things change; the more they remain the same’
rings so true.
