Sometimes I think my head will explode. There’s so much I need to do, so much I want to do, so much I should do. But will they let me? All I hear is noise. All I see is more and more dirt and filth, in every stinking variant. One billion people to care for and I am allowed to do nothing. Every day I wake up with an OOPS (out of place sensation).
So I, Maunvrat Singh, Prime Minister of Swades do the only thing I can: I tie my turban tight (to keep my head from exploding) and my beard even tighter. This tight-beard thing is a great strategy, by the way. It keeps my teeth clenched and forces a mumble. People only hear what they want to hear, not what I’m really saying.
Yesterday, the resident chumps from the Ministry of Poverty and Exploitation (MoPE) briefed me on this business of grain distribution. “Food will be given to the needy,” they assured me.
I looked at them doubtfully. “But we’ve got mountains and mountains of grain just rotting away, haven’t we? Why don’t we just give it to the poor?”
They looked at me incredulously. “Give it to the poor? Sir, impossible! We have to give it to the needy!”
“The poor are not needy?”
“Of course not! The needy are … well, us. We have needs. The poor are just … poor. They only want. Want, want, want.”
“Want what?”
“They want to be not poor, sir. That’s why they are not needy.”
One of us must be mad, I thought, and it isn’t me. I smiled beatifically.
Then there’s this Booresh Calamari, the Minister of Monetization. He really is a vile octopus. His tentacles are everywhere, in a hundred different pies. And every time Doorknob Goeswhammy comes out with another expose at nine pm, Booresh can be trusted to squirt some inky black cloud and slip away.
“Everything is budgeted for,” he said to me the other day.
“Even the four thousand rupee toilet paper rolls?”
“Sir, this is about quality. Money is no object.”
That’s interesting, I thought. What about the moral and ethical deficit, I wanted to ask. I smiled beatifically. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s how to smile beatifically.
He made a huge mistake the other day when he announced a “probe”. Since nobody believes a word he says, the ‘probe’ took on a quite different and, for him, unfortunate dimension.
She Who Must Be Obeyed called with the news. She, Little She, Little He and It — Little’s She’s Significant Other — have a direct line to me 24/7. Which is as disastrous as 9/11 or 26/11 or any other stroke-filled date.
“Do you even know what they’re doing to MoM?” She hissed.
Mom? Last I heard, she was dead.
“Who?” I said, confused.
“MoM! The Minister of Monetization! Calamari! Do you know what they’re doing to him?”
“Serving him up with olive oil and lime?” I suggested helpfully since this was pretty close to lunch.
“Oh mio dio!” she snapped. “He’s having a procedure! This looks bad for all of us. You must do something! He’s a member of our Partay!”
Apparently the white coats had taken the probe announcement a little too seriously. Even as we spoke, Calamari was a patient etherized upon a table. Finally, I thought, the sun sets on this waste land.
I called the head of surgery. “What are you lot doing to Calamari?” I asked.
“Saarji, we are following orders, saarji.”
“What orders?”
“To conduct a probe, saarji.”
“I see. And how are you doing that?”
“Saarji, the matter is rather delicate. But not to worry, we have the very best proctologists in the world. Why, even people from America and Belgium come to us …”
“Yes, yes, all right. But why are you probing his, um, you know …”
“Because it’s the only way, sir! He’s so full of shit!”
At least that was true, if indelicate. I dug deep into my reserves. “How about an endoscopy instead?”
He paused. “But which end, saarji? Which end?”
That didn’t go very well. Poor Calamari. No doubt they’ll put up a statue to him somewhere as the guardian angel of monetization. The things they don’t teach you at LSE.
I telephoned She, who was by now sounding distinctly Hagard. “What is it now?” she said wearily. “What do you want from me?”
“Linguine,” I said brightly, still thinking about lunch. “Linguine and calamari. Yes, that should do very nicely. Very nicely indeed.”
A slightly different version of this spoof appeared on Friday, August 20, 2010 in the Mumbai Mirror and the Bangalore Mirror.
The Secret Diary Of A Prime Minister
Dear diary,
Sometimes I think my head will explode. There's so much I need to do, so much I want to do, so much I should do. But will *they* let me? All I hear is noise. All I see is more and more dirt and filth, in every stinking variant. One billion people to care for and I am allowed to do nothing. Every day I wake up with an OOPS (out of place sensation).
