Shobhaa De | Battle Of 2 Drama Queens: Who Will Emerge On Top?

Ei Didi! Ei Donald! Beshi drama koro na, go… In other words, tone it down, you two. There’s enough drama taking place in the world, without two political thespians vying for the Best Performance Award. Once upon a time, long, long ago, much before today’s savvy voter was born, it was believed that “when Bengal sneezes, the rest of India catches a cold”. Add to that, another trope: “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.” God forbid! Today, that pompous claim sounds hysterical. Hollow. Ironical. Forget about catching a cold, India runs for cover! Shrugs and moves away. Unfortunately, West Bengal successfully isolated itself from the India Story ages ago. The rather foolish “Bengali” superiority is so deeply entrenched in the psyche of its people, it is enough to be born a Bengali in West Bengal for the person to feel instantly entitled and privileged.

About what??? The visible decline? The decadence? The despair (clumsily concealed behind a thin layer of lofty defensiveness)? The term “maamar baadi” (maternal uncle’s home) is a putdown most Bengalis throw at those they consider upstarts (everyone!). “Do you think this is your uncle’s house?” Bengalis mock. “Certainly not… thank God, it isn’t”, most retort. It’s a taunt Mamata Banerjee and her supporters resort to while provoking their tormentors: like current bete noir Union home minister Amit Shah, along with members of the BJP. “Bodol noy, badla chai”, (“not change, but revenge”), chanted Didi’s loyalists as they went about terrorising defenceless dissenters. But revenge, as one knows, is best served cold. What revenge? Against which specific enemy? Aaaah… the enemy has a name. And the enemy is “Non-Bengali”.

In a state where the amorphous Bengali identity is valued over and above jobs, progress, law and order, infrastructure, the enemy in this case, is at a clear advantage. The BJP has put its considerable weight, money and might behind this key election (a record-breaking historic turnout of 92.59%, which may seal Mamata’s political fate and end her 15-year tyrannical rule). But wait, in a state where Hindi is rarely heard and even less spoken, the BJP relied on powerful, eloquent speakers who addressed massive rallies in that “foreign” language and not widely-understood local Bengali.

Basics, my dear chaps! Why wouldn’t you recruit orators fluent in the bhadralok lingo… especially when you had years to plan this strategic campaign? If you no can speak Bangla, you may as well be talking Greek. Yes, it is that serious.

Uske baad… comes the question of leadership in case the BJP makes it. Nobody has been identified so far as a chief minister candidate.

Mind you, that person needs to be Didi ka baap, or maa. Who can undermine Mamata’s phenomenal charisma, communication skills, combined with a ruthless dictator’s control over her flock – all these elements are hard to compete with, even less, beat.

A Hindi-wallah will not be accepted. Even a progressive Bong will find it hard to handle the CM’s job in a post-Mamata era. The manner in which Mamata has successfully projected the BJP as a regressive, anti-Muslim, anti-Bengali, hardcore Hindutva party, out to strip the asli Bengali of the precious Bengali identity, is a master class in tactical, psychological warfare. She made the BJP sound as threatening as a marauding army from a foreign land. She warned her people that they will be denied their daily staples of maach-maangsho (fish and meat), and forced to switch to tasteless vegetarian food. Worse, the aliens will impose Hindi across the state, and forbid citizens from speaking in their beloved Bangla. This strident rhetoric led to a few comical situations, with Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma (who campaigned in North Bengal) challenging Mamata to a hedonistic meat-eating contest, boasting he’d gobble two kilos more of mangsho than the TMC supremo!

While 105.6 million people of West Bengal anxiously await the verdict, the rest of India is also watching the outcome with bated breath. The TMC and BJP based their respective election campaigns on generating widespread fear. Mamata’s intimidatory goon squads were suitably harnessed by the Centre sending in the toughest cops, including a dashing IPS officer, popularly known as “Singham”.

The message went out loud and clear: her old methods of gun-toting henchmen terrorising neighbourhoods, preventing voters from leaving their homes, sealing deals with cash, threatening the unwary with violence, were effectively scuttled. One hears from reliable sources that Amit Shah commanded a specially created “war room” to monitor and micro-manage the election, expertly directing his obedient troops to go flat out. So far, as we hurtle towards the climax, the savagery of the past has been dramatically reduced and a bloodless transfer of power is expected.

Ei Didi… Ei Amit… Dekha hobey!

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The title of the world’s biggest Drama Queen was effortlessly won by President Donald Trump last week after the so-called assassination attempt backfired. Surely there are easier, less hazardous ways to avoid the press? Just boycott the damn thing! Why stage such an elaborate natak inside a ballroom packed with 2,500 well-heeled, well-dressed invitees, mainly heavyweight mediawallahs, senators and other VIPs.

This is the third attempt on the life of POTUS, who seems to possess nine lives (don’t worry, folks, that leaves six more missed assassination attempts still to go). The annual White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner took a dramatic turn when an armed 32-year-old from California forced his way into a secure perimeter of the shabby Hilton Hotel, before the Secret Service intercepted him. Reports say that the Drama Queen’s wife, First Lady Melania Trump, looked unsurprised and remained stony-faced through the ordeal, providing enough material to the likes of late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel to turn the incident into a monumental joke! Apparently, once the “danger” was suitably taken care of, President Trump wanted the posh dinner to resume but by then most of the invitees had fled, but not before high-ranking media bosses ran for cover clutching pinched bottles of expensive wine placed on tables.

Sensible! Why waste a good vintage? Besides… This was breaking news – and stories had to be filed. As veteran journos agree: news reports are best written apres a few glasses of a high-value Burgundy.

Ei Donald… it’s showtime. Take a cue from King Charles III. What a roasting that was -- classy, quintessentially Brit, and perfectly pitched.

Well done, old chap! Now do us a favour, won’t you, and return our Kohinoor.