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Witerati: Chithi chithi gang gang
In pandemic’s poll season staging Donald Trump’s Theatre of the Absurd, engaging the eyeballs of India Rooting was not only team Biden-Kamala Harris’ Battle of the Ballot, but also a Battle of the Berth, at IPL 2020
Donald Trump has done for democracy what a petulant and pouty progeny who isn’t served a second helping of Death by Chocolate Donut or who’s denied another trip to Disneyland does – staged tantrums, left right and centre.
What the Trump tantrum narrative has earned him is a place not only in poll history but also in histrionics.
It’s not easy to outmatch the histrionics, oops hiss-trionics, of the Great Indian Neta Rolled Into Abhineta, when it comes to ‘chappal catapulting’ parliamentary politics.
The chappal politics of the Indian neta is wil(l)y-nilly wont to be gravity defying, but what the Trump tantrums did smacked of even more “gravity” – it was gravitas defying.
Tantrum-y Trump put Indian parliamentarians to shame by staging what none of our desi prime ministerial or presidential candidates have perhaps enacted – Drama of Denial Mode that made for Theatre of the Absurd.
Trump’s public staging of the dramatics of denial mode bore (un)poetic resemblance to the melodrama of a sulking six year old shredding to smithereens a school report card that declares him flunked.
Tweeple on turf closer home tasted not only the Battle of the Ballot, but also another battle – Donald-ism VS Decibel-ism.
Tamasha TV’s saner channel cousins punctuated breaking news bulletins with tell-all taglines – “News Without Noise” or “No Noise, Only News”. That compounded Couch Potatoes’ confusion – did these taglines resonate the sound and fury emanating from Trump or did the camouflaged catchphrase-ism allude to the lull in the lungs of Loudmouths like jailed Arnab Goswami, the subtext smacking of another war – channel war?
The curious case of “For Whom the Ballot T(r)olls”.
When Harris met Sulky
Well, it’s not for us to do a dissection or dissertation of Donald-esque denial mode. What concerns us more is misadventures closer home – what kept our Lollita, Lamba ji & Co busy during the epic Battle of the Ballot.
Remember, the Trump-Biden theatrics coincided with another battle – Qualifiers for #IPL2020 final.
So the scenario scripts thus: Lollita is all agog not so much about Trump making history or histrionics, but the making of Harris. She’s busy telephonically twattling and also twiddling on her touchscreen, texting Tamil friends for enlightenment on vernacular vocabulary – struggling to master the pronunciation of Thulasendrapuram, Kamala Harris’ village.
Lamba ji’s eyeballs are engaged in a nail-biting finish of the Battle of the Berth, and he’s in no mood to lend his ears, Biden or unbidden. Lamba ji’s lungs lustily root for Mumbai Indians, “Kamaal hai ... Kamaal!”
Lollita too is lost in a nail-biting finish, but her vocal cords chortle cheeringly for an American-Indian, “Kamala ... Kamala!”
The next moment, bowler Jasprit breaks a record, propelling MI ahead in the Battle of the Berth. Lamba ji erupts into elation, “Bumrah … Bumrah!”
Lollita too breaks into jollifications, but at the breaking of an American glass ceiling, “Bhangra, bhangra!”
Amid the cricket cheering, Lamba ji remembers the letter from his head office which arrived that morning. “Honey, can you pass me the chithhi?”
Lollita is in no mood for distractions, she’s engrossed in deconstructions – of Kamala’s viral vocabulary. Lamba ji returns rebuffed to IPL action, like a surly schoolboy who keeps raising his hand but the teacher turns a blind eye.
Showing off her smattering of newly imbibed Tamil, Lollita speed dials her TamBrahm girlie gang to go gaga, “Chithis... Chithis!”
The curious case of “Chithis Creak”.
chetnakeer@yahoo.com
