Pappu . . . Naam toh sunaa hoga . . .

It’s that time, again. And all those seeking the electorate’s blessing seem like honourable panhandlers. Honourable only when ideating begging, that is. They’re seldom honourable, actually.

And even the best and much presentable seem like Pappus. Or prefer to be presented so, perhaps. Only until such time that their fate is sealed, after which, after all, the electorate returns to the role of that. Pappu, that is.

There cannot be a formula making everyone seem alert and knowledgeable. There has to be a few fools, anyway, in the electorate. And there may be a race to even prove that.

With so many first-timers, young and educated, tech-savvy and, thus, well-informed, they are the ones that are targeted and focussed upon much. And most of them are non-prejudiced, and hence, feed only on facts and data. And facts and data are available with all of them. The rulers and the ruled. How they are presented is going to be the decider. And the whole game comes with lots of twists and turns, of course. Until the time the dispensation takes charge.

All the so-called experts gabble with another set of data. No facts, but, this time. Here. Because we all know. And data needn’t be correct or complete, thus, clear picture needn’t evolve. Thus, it’s going to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Afterall, it’s all about the seat. The top seat of the nation.

Let’s go vote. As the election commission is projecting it as the great festival. Let’s go celebrate.

The Pulsant Life

I had seen Don Sutherland in The Italian Job, and can vividly remember his character, despite his short presence, and, amidst Mark Wahlberg, and more importantly, Charlize Theron. But, in The Leisure Seeker, with Helen Mirren, he was in a different league, and wouldn’t have budged with any number of Charlizes. Well, I don’t remember seeing Helen in any movies hitherto, though she deserved the Golden Globe nomination for this one.

(Picture courtesy: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3741632/mediaviewer/rm3009305856.)

The bonding of siblings Lillian and Jane, specially just before the credits roll, is adorable, too.

And I learnt love can happen in the West, indeed. Bollywood churns out Baghban moments every third movie, that we hardly see or experience in real life. Despite stories of uncommitted love amongst or between folks, TLS gives an insight into the reality there; in contrast to the fake news that is shown in Bollywood’s Baghbans.

I also learnt love actually grows when you age. Or both of you age. Or the three of you, sometimes. Only, the third is hard to understand as having been away for over three decades as someone else’s, who had adored the imagination as an innocent interest of love of a young teen. And that interest now appears to be of the purest form. There hasn’t been an interest like that ever since. That was over three decades ago. Childhood heartthrob keeps life pulsant, after all. The love as you age is something similar.

Love now-a-days happens for no reason. And relationships develop for reasons not love. It often appears to be absent at all between two souls, but just an arrangement. An understanding. A contract. No pain. No one is hurt, either. A passer-by situation. Strangers in some ways, indeed. Or in many ways, rather. Infatuation in some situations. Most often, it is love for how you are, but not for what you are. You get impressed easily, and get annoyed more so.

Specially with the vices of the world, more so societal, or fads, to boot, you wouldn’t know what you are upto. At the end, you wouldn’t even know what you went through, and so no guilt. And carry on with the next, something new. As young people, we were fed stories of the West something similar. Materialistic. And, then TLS changed the idea. But Baghban moments aren’t coming either.

It is more The Pleasure Seeker now. There is no unconditional love anymore. Rather, there is no love at all, anymore. It is just a pastime. Impressed by the accent, rather than the language itself. Or the meaning of it.

Just felt nice for old times. Three decades since.