“You're brother and sister. No we're not. You're BROTHER and SISTER. No, we're not. YES YOU ARE AND THAT'S THE BOTTOMLINE CAUSE STONE COLD SAID SO!”
A panchayat in Chandigarh decided that a 3-year marriage which now had a 10-month-old baby needs to annulled because the absent-minded couple (Satish and Kavita) in question were actually ‘brother and sister’ (though not from the same 'gotra' - lineage or clan. More on that in a while). That their parents had consented to the wedding carried no weight against conclusions of the Panchayat.
Not long ago, the friendly panchayats had issued punishments when couples from the same ‘gotra’ got married. But the problem with these ‘same gotra’ couples was that they were a hard catch as they would quickly elope and the poor panchayat's lack of enforcement capability made it rather difficult to bring the freshly-eloped pair to injustice. To the panchayat's credit, they still managed to get their job done by using the tried and tested techniques of blackmail and ostracism, among other things.
Not to be tied down by the specifics of intra-gotra marriage, the panchayat now decided to punish people even from different ‘gotras’. In the above case, village-specific dimensions came into play when an official profoundly said, “In our village, a couple from these two ‘gotras’ cannot marry as they are considered brother and sister”.
The ‘firm’ (air)head of the panchayat, Hawa Singh was, well, firm. he gave the couple a 28-day deadline to comply, pending which firm action would be taken. I do not know if the number 28 was given keeping in mind the approaching month of February. If it was, then I'm sure poor Satish would've wished for March to have begun.
In all fairness, I must add that the Panchayat did not take a knee-jerk decision. It took "a six hour discussion" to decide.
Roger that, Chief. Chief. Chief... Chief?
Meanwhile, in the legion of doom... Actually in Meghalaya, the Meghalayans (I know they are Indians first, but here I’m talking in the ‘second person’) had the rare privilege of having 4 ‘Chief Ministers’. They already had three and now, four. In the latest instance, the Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Lyngdoh became the proud 4th CM. There is some serious enjoyment happening at the top, thought I. And to second me thrice was the Chief Minister himself (CM No 1, 2 or 3? I found out later).
His un-minced words bear quotation in extensio: “This is not the first instance of Meghalaya having more than one person enjoying the rank of Chief Minister. We had done [it] in the past. I myself was enjoying the rank of Chief Minister when Mr. Rymbai became Chief Minister. Similarly Mr. Rymbai and Mr. Donkupar Roy are enjoying the rank of Chief Minister. There is absolutely nothing wrong in our upgrading the rank of Mr. Lyngdoh to Chief Minister.”
The Divider becomes the Compass...I mean... the Divided
India's favourite uniting-dividers, who unite as they divide (or vice-versa depending which side you're on) found themselves divided. When RSS ideologue Ram Madhav tried to test the waters by calling on the “[Parivar's] volunteers in Maharashtra” and indirectly told our Marathi-supremacist brothers (and sisters. Happy?) to “try and prevent the spread of anti-north Indian and anti-Hindi feelings”, he probably didn’t realize that the word ‘prevent’ was superfluous. Because if they tried, the ‘spread of anti-many things’ would surely be prevented. Mr. Manohar Joshi, former Lok Sabha Speaker (who never spoke as he was without a Mic) took more than a hint and “...Mumbai belongs to the Marathi people...” he roared.
When Mr. Madhav and Mr. Joshi met at the sidelines of the - where else? - midlines, here is how the conversation continued (according to a ‘highly placed source’ of course) -
Ram Madhav (RSS) - 'Why did you get offended? I was only addressing the "volunteers of the Parivar"' to stop the spread of you-know-what. If you consider yourself a volunteer of the Parivar, you ought not to have been offended as you are part of the Parivar and ought to know to take orders. If you don’t consider yourself a volunteer, then the message wasn’t addressed to you in the first place. Now tell me, "Is it the former or the latter?”
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - [now feebly] 'Mumbai belongs to the Marathi people...’
Ram Madhav (RSS) - ‘Did you comprehend my question?’
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - ‘Well. What can I say... I got serious Language issues!’
Ram Madhav (RSS) - 'Why did you get offended? I was only addressing the "volunteers of the Parivar"' to stop the spread of you-know-what. If you consider yourself a volunteer of the Parivar, you ought not to have been offended as you are part of the Parivar and ought to know to take orders. If you don’t consider yourself a volunteer, then the message wasn’t addressed to you in the first place. Now tell me, "Is it the former or the latter?”
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - [now feebly] 'Mumbai belongs to the Marathi people...’
Ram Madhav (RSS) - ‘Did you comprehend my question?’
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - ‘Well. What can I say... I got serious Language issues!’
Reach the author at seekingoblivion(at)gmail.com.
Stone Cold line made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDelete