Statuetary Warnings

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All hell breaks loose when mobs go on rampage for one cause or the other inspired by hate speeches.....or even love speeches.

Yesterday there was a 'Million March (super-hyperbole)' of Telengana Activists along the famous Tank Bund Road of our Hussain Sagar Lake, a vast water body right in the heart of Hyderabad. The Lake is a visual delight, but a nauseatingly putrid nasal sore...one can't please all six senses.

NTR, the matinee idol of Telugus in the 50s and 60s, entered politics in the 80s with the catchy slogan that the Pride of Andhras was being trampled by the Central Congress Govt of Rajeev and other Gandhis...I guess he morrowed this strategy from our own Marxist Bengal, where every Election Speech (including those by my student who turned a blood-red Municipal Councilor) eloquently blamed the Center for all the woes of Golden Bengal including the stinking Phy bathrooms with stolen taps.

As soon as NTR came to power, he had to vindicate his authenticity as the sole champion soul of Telugu Pride. So, he erected 40 odd statues of Telugu Historical Greats choosing a judicious mix of Hindus and Muslims and perhaps a Christian or two stringing along that famous Tank Bund Road at even intervals decided by lottery.

And then all of a sudden he donned ocher robes within which he got intimately involved with his lady secretary who led him to his ultimate humiliation and downfall...history is replete with this Delilah Syndrome.

But at his zenith he felt he neglected Buddhism although there were no Buddhists in his electorate then...that was before Mayadi's Social Engineering (I wonder why IIT KGP didn't start a 4-year B Tech and 5-year Dual Degree yet).

So, he decided to erect a Buddha Statue of the most massive proportions (vying with the Bomian Buddha that was vandalized by our friendly neighborhood Saracens). But Social Engg is one thing and Civi Engg quite another. So, when the massive Buddha Statue was being lofted onto its mid-lake pedestal, the ropes gave and poor Buddha fell headlong into its dirty waters and lay there thus for a couple of years till Japanese or some such wizards lifted him back into a vertical position.

Since I am an out and out ogre for superstitions and omens I at once felt that doom is impending for his Telugu Statues as well.

And this came true yesterday when the Telengana activists picked on the Andhra Statues one by deliberate one, pulled them down from their pedestals and flung them far into the Lake...there there there....pulling down is far easier than standing them up, which I guess will now call for the good old Jap Engineers, who I am told have their finger deep also in the cleansing pie of the Sagar Lake...a verily Herculean Labor like the cleansing of the Aegean Stables...Japs may have to divert Godavary this way.

I happened to travel along the Tank Bund Road on my auto this morning and it was as eerie as the Day After the Fair.

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On my auto ride I kept reminiscing about the statues that crept into my long-lost youth.

First was at 17 when I read the Happy Prince...for once Oscar Wilde didn't indulge in his atrocious epigrams in that short story. My father was pressing my shirts while I was reading four or five Oscar Stories like the Nightingale and the Rose, and Selfish Giant.

I blurted out: "Oscar Wilde stories are very sentimental". My HM Father (Bless His English Soul!) at once corrected me: 'Sentimental' is a negative word...you should say 'lyrical'.

Then at 18 I read Julius Caesar and his assassination at the feet of his dethroned enemy Pompey's Statue...our Lecturer called it an example of 'Poetic Justice'... like the outcome of the forthcoming Bengal Elections.

Then at 20 I read Pygmalion, and Man and Superman, and was delighted by the cooing Statue in the one and the cackling in the other.

And at 21 I saw B C Roy's Statue at IIT KGP in the Lover's Circle and thereafter lost all interest in other statues....if the bird-dropped bald head of B C Roy could inspire Puppy Love in IITians, there must be something seriously wrong with IIT KGP, or all statues, no?

Anyway, although Lover's Circle was our nightly haunt during our bachelor days, both me and my son escaped BC Roy's rose-tipped arrows and married ladies chosen by our respective parents who are squarely to blame...



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