An exclusive interview with the Common Man (CM to his friends)
Q: Over the past few weeks it was next to impossible to meet you, let alone seek an exclusive interview with you, Mr. Common Man.
CM: Yes I know, I am sorry. You see, it is that time of the year when everyone wants to meet me, click photographs, and interview me. I have no time to spare.
Q: What is this special time?
CM: I thought everyone knows it. Election time yaar. Just now the four state assembly polls were over. We are waiting for the Biggie, the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. I am overworked and I must be careful about my health, particularly the digestive system.
Q: Why?
CM: It is the entire national poll, yaar. The state governments and their chief ministers are busy offering sops — rice at Rs. 1 a kg, cooking oil at Rs. 2 kg, special prices for dals, masalas, chillies, mass reductions in vegetable prices plus home delivery, discounts on ice cream and so on. You travel from state to state enjoying these sops, and then see what it does to your health and waistline. Thank heavens the Lok Sabha polls come only once every five years. It is an ordeal for me.
Q: I agree it is quite an ordeal for you. But suddenly you have become very clever. So many questions on different topics are asked but you come out with brilliant answers. I never knew our Common Man was so brilliant. National, regional, local or international…… you answer questions on all these subjects without any difficulty. You have become a genius, yaar!
CM: Hard work, yaar, and some luck. I burn midnight oil swotting newspaper editorials, magazine cover page articles and so on. But the worst part is watching and listening to the TV debates. Loudmouth anchors screaming, dumbo panelists stuttering answers and so on. Once the polls are over, I will keep my distance from the rampaging Arnab, silly Sardesai and bellicose Barkha. And all of them arguing on what is good for me. Just leave me alone. That is all I ask.
Q: But still it must be good to be in the limelight.
CM: That’s what you think. The worst part is to be so insincere. Tell all those lies. This is not what is expected of the Common Man, but in real life this was what I do all the time.
Q: What kind of lies?
CM: For instance, I don’t like that blighter Sachin Tendulkar. But when the media pester me, I am supposed to give flattering replies. O, he was the greatest batsman in the world, he was the incarnation of modesty, good manners, charitable disposition and so on. I know the truth. He was a big bore, a slow coach, played only to break records and not a single charitable bone in his body. Expected others to pay for his luxuries, including customs duty on his imported gift, that ‘Ferrari’. But as the Common Man, I had to keep quiet and blabber out only flattery. Made me sick!
Q: And during elections?
CM: Don’t ask me that. So much blabbering about how the CM (not the Chief Minister but the Common Man) prefers this party or that, and the political leader to lead the nation. Who is the Common Man’s leader? Of all the people, Narendra Modi? Humph! Who is the modern Gandhi? Arvind Kejriwal who turned down two five-bedroom flats only after much public pressure? Why drag the Common Man into all this?
Q: Life is so different. I thought you are happy and proud to be a Common Man and have your views splashed all over the media.
CM: My troubles never seem to end. So far, I was just the Common Man. And now there is this new Aam Aadmi. He is collecting most of the rabble but unlike me, he did not have any class. Okay, I have two more interviews lined up after this.
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V. Gangadhar
The writer is a well-known satirist.[/column]