the chengez of our times

I would really like to know who exactly advises Bal Thackeray on political matters these days. Just so that I can help my adopted state with some peace and tranquility by wringing the necks of those so-called advisors. Because as much as I might have a problem with the man’s politics, you cannot deny the fact that inside that head ticks a very good and capable brain. And all the buffoonery we saw in the name of one nonsensical film – that too directed by Karan Johar- cannot be a product of Bal Thackeray’s brains.

Having known Maharashtrians quite intimately for a host of reasons including having been in a relationship with one for them for several years, I know them as remarkably intelligent people. The kind who dearly want to up their stations in life with the help of white-collared jobs.

Precisely the reason why despite Kolkata, Chennai and several other cities being by the sea, the elements chose Mumbai- Bombay then- as the magnet of riches in India. A lot of that credit has to go to Mumbaikars and their essentially Marathi ethos. Just look at the mess the bhadralok and their love for culture has got Kolkata into.

In such a place, building up a political party, a thought process and a following as fanatical as the Sainik is nothing short of the kind of genius that we have read of in conquerors in history. I have seen the reverence the man evokes even among politicians who have left the Sena fold and have hopped onto other parties. It is always Balasaheb, never Bal Thackeray. One of them still addresses the old man as ‘saheb’ though he was rather unceremoniously booted out of the party some years ago.

The legend is that Bal Thackeray revolted because he was given a lesser raise than several of his ‘outsider’ colleagues. I don’t know how true this legend is but if someone can make a movement out of something this miniscule and convert the theatre of Maharashtra politics into ‘him’ and the ‘rest’, then I would believe the man has the same capabilities and qualities as another fabled hero of yore- for more information please access Chengez Khan on Wikipedia. From fatherless in a patriarchal Mongol society with an impoverished mother and brothers to feed to the man who shook up history of the times in such a magnificent way that the Arab custodians of the fastest-growing religion of the time had to mutilate history down to the last grave to deny the great Khan his due as a conqueror-statesman-prophet.

But as My Name is Khan plays in the theatres- I’m being bombarded by news that it is houseful- we all know the Sena romance is in its last reels. And probably like Sholay, it is a film that was brilliant in every reel save the last. Now don’t tell me you didn’t want Thakur or Dharmendra to kill Gabbar.

But as Sholay was just too good for a bad ending to kill its place in our minds forever, the Sena too would evoke the same nostalgia among millions of Marathis long after it is gone.