The Man Who Knows He Would Be Prime Minister

Does it happen to you that all of a sudden without any warning an old, near forgotten incident comes back to your mind and you are forced to relive those moments all over again? From time to time this happens to me. It also happens with the Man Who Knows He Would Be Prime Minister. He himself told me this whereupon, and with tremendous effort, I gathered courage to ask him how it felt to know that he would be a Prime Minister. He said, ‘It is terrible’. But that did not tell anything because he said the same thing to any question that you asked. It was this that once made Susie (name changed) very angry with him. That day she had worked very hard and believed that she had really given him a brilliant shag, so when it was all over she asked how did he feel to which he replied, ‘Its terrible’. ‘I really wanted to box his ears’, Susie (name changed) confessed to me, ‘but women are so weak. If Monica could not give it to Bill, how could I’. Once when he was on a tour of the place that he had decided he would chose as his constituency someone asked him how he liked the place, ‘It is terrible’, he had replied. When I went back and told all this to his mother (not the real one) she spit on my face and said I was making a fuss of a non issue, his son says ‘It is terrific’ which people like me misinterpret.
One day I asked him when did he come to know that he would be Prime Minister, “since birth’, he said and then added, ‘It is terrible’. That day we were sitting under the huge banyan tree. All old colleges in our country has these banyan tree which with their gnarled and shrivelled aerial roots and cavernous trunks lent a majesty to the place which is otherwise surrounded by old dilapidated buildings, unkempt gardens and a general appearance of sloth and indifference. It was not very often that we sat under this banyan tree, only when he slept badly the previous night. His yoga guru had told him that if he spent at least three hours sitting under a banyan tree then he would never have insomnia. But there was a catch here. The catch was that he would also have to go through a period of abstinence for thirty days. ‘It is terrible’ he had commented. He is a very quiet person; if he was with you in a room with half a dozen other persons you were most likely to miss his presence. In fact one day he got very upset with Daphne (name changed) because she had paid the bill and left the restaurant even before he had finished eating. Later when I told this to Daphne (name changed) she said, ‘Oh, I see, that explains it. Up until now I had often wondered how could the bill be so much for a single person. Hmm, he must have been sitting opposite me and I forgot, or may be did not notice.’
He grew up the way children grow up in our country. His mother (the real one) left him in the care of his mother (not the real one). Except for brushing his teeth and washing himself he had people hanging around to do all other jobs for him. On the odd occasion when we had our lunch together in the college canteen he waited for me to put food in his mouth, move his jaws up and down thirty two times and then to make him gulp the food pinch his nostrils and close his mouth so he could not breath. The first time I had refused to feed him. As soon as I came out of the canteen four hefty men in safaris closed in on me, took me to a Jeep, drove me to an old forlorn building, put me into a dark room with no ventilation, made me undress, raped me by turns, hanged me upside down from the ceiling and dropped me in front of my house past midnight.
Although he had chosen his constituency while he was still quite young he was in no hurry to get elected. He let years roll by; elections go past letting others (including his mother, both real and not the real one) to become Prime Minister. He was in no hurry because he knew that he was going to be Prime Minister. How long this would have gone on one never knows but the family kept getting impatient, particularly during the periods they were not the Prime Minister, and finally told him that it was about time that he performed that task for which he had been sent to this world or at least took care of his own constituency. During election he sat quietly on the dais and made no speeches, nor did he try to strike a pose and look majestic. He just sat there and won the election. He could not become the Prime Minister; his mother (whether the real one or the not the real one it is not yet known) has wooed away some of his men.
Have those men in safari visited his mother; we will come to about it tomorrow.
    

It is early days

It is early days for Rahul Dravid and he may still prove me wrong. There has never been a born to be a cricket captain, captaincy actually grows on one, and it is a very slow constantly learning process. Among other things, one of the factors that signals the start the beginning of the end of a successful stint of a captain is the moment when the captains starts believing that he knows everything one needs to know about being a successful captain. This is when the captain starts strategising on preconceived ideas, stops thinking out of the box solutions, stops discussing cricket with his teammates and generally adopts a mechanical approach. If batting second in the previous game brought victory then it will jolly well be case in this match as well and so decide to field after winning the toss without bothering about the state of the wicket, about the weather, about own and rivals’ team composition and many other things that one does in such circumstances. Five bowlers under all circumstances? Yes, why not, that is how we have always structured our team. Even when the top and the lower order are struggling?

Dravid hasn’t reached that stage yet and that is why he may still prove me wrong; all the same I am pretty seriously worried about the defensive streak that Dravid has so strongly demonstrated in his captaincy so far. He is not willing to take a chance at a win unless he is absolutely certain that he will not lose the game. The very very late surge in Nagpur, the exceptionally slow batting on the third day at Mohali is just two recent examples. Even at Mumbai where the final Test is currently on, decision to field first and piking five bowlers just reflect Dravid’s defensive mindset. He seems to be so worried about the batting form of two of his batsmen that even before the match started he had decided that he wont take chance batting first and get out to a small total, better pick five bowlers and try to get the opposition out cheaply. In theory a good thinking, but field first at Wankehde? Were Sachin and other cricketers who know a thing or two about Wankehde not around to advise him? With India at 218/8 at tea on the third day, there is only one winner at this time.