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10 scenarios for an amorality play
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Prologue: The sweet torment of a tentative spring was playing over Indraprastha, the seat of the Lotus. But one fine morning, a cold southerly gust blasts across the imperial city like a sudden, hostile Hun attack. That pink blush threatens to vanish from its cheeks - a surefire reckoner of advancing debility - yet the proud flower stands aloft, its petals shivering in the unseasonal chill, refusing to retreat into the Navel. Sundry pimps, professional two-timers and former Harvard profs flit about, thrilling to the conditions, like moths in the monsoon. Lesser apsaras and their beaus sulk in all corners of the benighted land.
The beehives down the coastline complain that they can't produce honey like this. The gods above, below and in Nagpur watch bemusedly, but - alas! - as they are wont to, offer all sorts of contrary advice, adding to the cacophony. (The real decibels come from the chief apsara, who answers to the name of Joy Lolita. This apparition started life as a rolypoly bundle of delight shaking a leg in southern cloud-cuckoo heavens. Now, other people's legs shake magically whenever she's in the neighbourhood - after all, size does matter.) So the world is agog, everybody's waitin' for somethin' to happen. Betwixt all this, the Lotus King sits, his thick eyes half-open, half-op'd, his fingers held like the Christian Cross and, till the last reports came in, his brain still on auto-pause….
``Not now, dahling!'' comes the dainty voice from 10, Frowning Street.
3) But the Lady also has an evil angel on her right shoulder, whispering the poison of doubt into her brain. The angel is called Bo Forster, and - gosh! - she wears the nattiest see-through apparel from the Geneva spring collection.
7) The Winsome One has an alter ego. She's called Losesome, and she's just opened an uptown, one-stop shop for tribal craft to recoup her losses. (First cats and dogs, then tribals! .. well, well, a not-so-clear Darwin soup, but that's an aside.) Our Lady doesn't want to take over and end the recession right now, just so that the Other One doesn't prosper.
9) This little girl's got a husband too. He would've never won the Gladrags Manhunt crown, but, in accordance with family protocol, his opinion too was solicited via his wife. In response, he began gentle leg-pulling, warbling an Elvis number: ``Just b'coz you think you're so pretty/ just b'coz your mama thinks you're hot…''
Illustrations by Siddhartha Mitra |
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Epilogue: Here's where the tale gets truly interactive. Why does the Regina-to-be, who goes by the name of Sonia G, hesitate? Why does she tarry, what halts her hand? We sketch a few possible-world scenarios, exploring ten (repeat, 10) lines of speculation to make sense of this open-ended Amorality Play. All sorts of suggestions, modifications and swear-words are welcome, audience participation being scared to our genre of story-telling. For, this is not Channel V, but you, ingenious reader, you poor old sod, you're still in it….
1) The Winsome Lady of 10, Frowning Street thinks her late, lamented husband invented the 21st century, so she can rightfully claim it. There's still six months to go, and she wants the Lotus-eaters to rude out the Y2K bug (which is nothing else but a KGB conspiracy).
2) The Lady has 20 descendants from the clan of Birbal the Wise One crowding on her left shoulder, shouting words of encouragement…. ``atta girl, go for it! Every tower leans a little, preferably to the left''. She makes to move…..
4) The apsaras and their fickle beaux have formed a union but Lolita, perpetually on a solo strike, wants a bigger, disproportionate stake in management. (Magically, no hunger strike has ever put a blemish on her complexion). Since our Lady has just seen the Lotus King pooped from exertion, trying to satiate the Polka-Dotted Cape Kumari, she fears to tread the same path.
5) One grey-bearded, stuck-record voice from the past says the apsaras, the devas and the asuras should all together form a national government. But the lady has her doubts. That'll mean giving up her privileged position, and living with the likes of George the Titanic - who's just sunk the nation's only ship after making the captain walk the plank - among many other well-known bandicoots.
6) The Lady first wants a JPC to probe why there's so much chaos in the world. The panel is drawn but the squabbling members come to no conclusion - a goateed defence analyst cites radiation from Balochistan, a once-portly onion trader blames El Nino, the panelist from FICCI points disapprovingly to the half-floating rupee, the statistician says it's all because Tendulkar is not in the team, the physio still can't spot the nation's spine, and the shrink is too busy writing novels to attend any meeting.
8) The Lady, to be sure, did ask her pretty daughter to take an interest in affairs of state. But the waif-like girl squealed in protest, ``Cummon, mama, I want to watch Fashion TV''.
10) The actual situation is simpler, and one only need take a sneak preview of the activity inside Sonia G's head. Our Lady does want the crown, but she really has no clue why! She stood in front of her mirror and asked in her peculiar European lisp, ``Why, dear lady?'' ``Because,'' replied the mirror, carrying on the Elvis number, ``well, well, just because…''