Sachch Boley Kauwa Kaatey -II

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Cartoon by K.P Sasi

Scene Two:

Ghulam goes off to get the tea, into which he crushes and puts a few of the truth-telling herbal leaves. All this with a wicked smile on his face.

Ghulam gives the tea to the CM. Just as he is about to drink it Balwa Julum comes in and the CM keeps the teacup aside.

Balwa Julum: You called me sir? What do you want me to do now? Murder, rape, arson, communal violence, civil war. I can organise everything except nuclear war. Am still trying to get hold of the right material for that from Dr Khan across the border!

CM: Shaabaash! Balwa Julum! Spoken like a true mercenary! This time the task is much simpler- to drive thousands of poor tribals out of the forest where they live. All these past centuries we the ‘Aryan’ outsiders have driven the tribal communities into the forests by taking away their lands and now it is time to drive them out of the forests into out city slums! Who knew before, that the land beneath the forests could be the source of so much wealth! These tribal’s don’t understand this, but they are sitting on our treasure!

Balwa Julum: Will be done sir. You have to give my boys some police uniforms, guns, lots of money and impunity for any crime we may commit. And of course, before I forget – you have to keep the human rights fellows and the nosey journalists off our backs. They will make life difficult otherwise. I don’t like publicity!

CM: Don’t worry Balwa I have the right medicine for these human rights wallahs. We will accuse them of being ‘accomplices’ of the terrorists and put them away in prison. Once captured, we will give them this new truth–telling medicine that I have discovered!

And as for nosey journalists, a few expensive advertisements to their newspapers and magazines will shut them up!

Pulls out the leaf from his pocket and at the same time picks up the cup of tea and drinks it. Suddenly his head starts spinning and he lets out a weak cry and falls to the ground unconscious.

Balwa shouts to Ghulam: “Call a doctor quick. The CM has fainted’.

Ghulam: Which doctor should I call? All the best doctors in the state have been put away in jail already!

Balwa: I don’t care who you call. Call any quack you want. We can’t take responsibility if this fat politician dies alone with the two of us. If there is no doctor available get the DakuTar, that dacoit doctor!

Scene Three:

Two men, dressed as male nurse, come rushing in and put the CM on a stretcher and take him away. He is taken to Dakutar, who checks his heartbeat with a stethoscope.

Dakutar: I don’t hear any heartbeat but I think that is normal. A politician of the CM’s stature could not have any heart anyway. I think he will be all right if we give him some electrical shocks. As long as there is no power cut I think we can do this successfully.

Dakutar proceeds to give the CM shocks while the two male nurses hold him down. CM convulses a few times and then wakes up screaming.

CM: Where am I? What happened? Who are all of you?

Dakutar: I am a Dakutar, the Daku Doctor. You are the Chief Minister of our state. I just now saved your life. So you should give me half your property when you die. In fact I will make sure you die very soon. No, no- what I mean is that you will live very long sir if you give me half your property!

CM: I don’t know. I am feeling very strange right now. I feel like telling the truth all the time. I have never ever felt like this all my life. Even as a baby I used to tell lies and my mother though I was the cleverest child in the whole world and was so proud of me.

You mentioned property. I want to tell the truth about the property I own. I have one apartment in Paris, two in America, three in London, a dozen in Delhi and maybe fifty here in our state capital. I have millions of dollars stashed away in a Swiss bank and also own at least ten percent of the Bombay stock market. I stole all this money from various people, but mostly from the people of India. I am the most corrupt Chief Minister I have ever personally met and I meet myself every morning when I look into the mirror. I have committed crimes that would make the Satan go back to kindergarten and start his schooling all over again!

Dakutar: Wow! That is pure honesty on your part to admit all that! And now that I know how much you own I feel like charging you a little more for ‘saving your life’!

CM: (continuing) I am going to tell the truth and nothing but the truth from now on. I am going to tell the entire country about the crimes committed by my government, my party, the ministers in my cabinet. How we have been paid by the big companies to steal land from the people and hand it over to them. How we have given away valuable public property to private businessmen in return for their bribes. How we have arrested our opponents by planting false evidence on them and calling them terrorists. I have the details, the records, the evidence against all my colleagues in the government. They will all go to jail, bloody rascals………

CM is led out by the two male nurses, still babbling about exposing his government to the people.

Scene Four:

Nickkerji is discussing the CM’s condition with Kamdev

Nickkerji: Kamdevji, what I hear about the CM’s behaviour is very disturbing. He is revealing all the truth about his government, his cabinet colleagues, the party, our goals and objectives. If this continues we can forget any idea of establishing the AaRam Rajya we have been aiming for. .

Kamdev: Aaram for us and Ram, Ram for the masses you mean. Yes, this news about the CM is very disturbing indeed. Truth from the mouths of people in power is dangerous- for the people in power. For speaking such truths our government has arrested so many people and now the CM is saying the same things openly.

Nickkerji: You are supposed to be a master of yoga and ayurveda. You have made a lot of money out of twisting yourself into all kinds of positions on television channels, encouraging people to deep breathe polluted air and by selling a lot of spurious herbal medicines. Do you have anything from our ancient Indian wisdom that can cure the CM and make him tell lies again? Surely there must be something?

Kamdev: Telling lies always came naturally to my ancestors. They did not have to do yoga or take any herbal medicine for that. Every time they told a lie a new god was born and that is why we have so many of them. Yes, for making people tell the truth there was a special herb that was used. If there was no herb available a simpler technique was used- the danda, which is still being used by the Indian police for extracting confessions from prisoners. Let me think deeply about what we can do to make the CM tell lies again?

Nickkerji: I don’t trust you one bit and know you are a very devious fellow. That is why I am talking to you. You are the only one who can solve this problem. Give me a solution using your knowledge of ancient Indian wisdom. We need to solve this problem or else we are all doomed.

Kamdev: I know from my understanding of ancient Indian wisdom that the best solutions to our local problems are always those that are imported from America. Even in the Vedic period we had good relations with America. I would suggest – for getting the CM to tell lies once again- we need to hire the services of an American corporation that specialises in this kind of work.

Nickkerji: Kamdev, you are a genius! I knew our ancients were smart but did not realize how smart! Importing solutions from America is indeed the way forward. After all American politicians tell bigger and better lies than even our local ones. They must have some special technology for telling lies, apart from their smooth tongues!

Read Part 3