Vijaykanth will soon be Vijay Can’t?

By Lazy Fly

I was surprised to see my ‘political fixer’ contact Maha Guru at the Chennai Press Club, drinking what seemed like diluted carrot juice.

“This place has no bar, but one is allowed to quietly have a drink. I brought my own glass and its contents. Elections are scheduled in Chennai, this one-mare-city capital of Tamil Nadu – a state with the largest number of political contradictory permutations and combinations. In this joint, the elections were scheduled to be held to elect a new team. But, I hear that they have been postponed due to an injunction announced by the Madras High Court,” the man said.

“Never mind the club, its postponed elections. Instead, tell me what the likely results in the ensuing assembly elections in Tamil Nadu would be,” I remarked.

“I thought everyone knows it. The washed up actor and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam [DMDK] boss Vijaykanth has played a political game of Russian roulette ^[1] and has shot himself in the mouth by going it alone,” the fixer said.

The fixer looks like a spitting image of the late Indira Gandhi’s flunkey – Makhan Lal Fotedar. He calls himself MG – which stands for Maha Guru and also Minimum Guarantee. Sometimes, he refers to his own aphorisms and terms them the Voice of My Master [VMM]. Most of his pronouncements are of a bygone era and hence others derisively refer to him as the now outdated Long Playing Old Record [LPOR], cassette tape [CT] and video-cassette-disc [VCD].

“Consider me a bit slow on the uptake and explain yourself. Everyone thinks that Vijaykanth is a future Chief Minister and could even upset the apple-cart of the current CM Jayalalithaa. Significantly, Vijaykanth and his wife believe in the idea completely,” I interjected.

“You half-baked idiot journalists are making this up. Some of you are being paid large sums to say this. But, the writing on the wall says something else in neon signs,” MG guffawed.

“That is rubbish. We are only doing our jobs,” I protested.

“Of course you are and are getting paid for it. It depends who makes the payment for what,” LPOR smirked.

“Can you justify your preposterous statement please with facts?” I asked the question angrily.

“I will choose not to pick on badly paid journalists. It is but natural that politicians will exploit the situation. Vijaykanth is no different. When the entire nation’s majority politicians bribe and/or get bribed, the widespread malady only deserves a passing comment. But, let me deal with the ex-actor’s X Factor. Vijaykanth entered the realm of politics in 1996. That was when his movie career had begun to fade. A few hundreds of thousands of fans paid Rs.10,000 each to contest some poll or other in Tamil Nadu and its neighbourhood since then – apparently for party funds. Conservatively let us put this figure at 2,00,000 party-faithful-investors so far. That must have netted him Rs.200 crores or Rs. 2 billion or US$ 35 million. Vijaykanth could never have earned that kind of money through a movie career. If the current indications are pointing to something, more gullible people are pumping money into his party’s coffers. This was no rocket-science anyway. Before Vijaykanth, MGR in Tamil Nadu and NTR in Andhra Pradesh had done it more successfully. Sadly, this actor whose Tamil pronounciation itself is awful, will never reach that pinnacle,” the VCD began.

“Cut the history crap and come to the point,” I said.

“In 2009, Vijaykanth contested from all the 39 parliamentary constituencies in Tamil Nadu. His DMDK polled the difference between victory and defeat in 25 of them. At that point in time, his party bagged a little over 10 per cent of the popular vote. The DMK-Congress combine along with the regional Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi [VCK] benefited from it massively. VCK-men beat up Congress workers just before the elections were announced then. Further, its leader Thol Thirumavalavan hails the killers of Rajiv Gandhi – who had been the leader of the party. The DMK had been the cause of the fall of the Gujral regime at the machination of the Congress due to DMK’s conspiratorial role in the murder of Rajiv Gandhi as stated in the Jain Commission Report. Yet, 7 years later, the DMK and Congress joined together to form an alliance! Without realising all this, many you idiot journalists had predicted that Jayalalithaa would be the king/queen maker. The AIADMK received a drubbing in 2009 parliamentary polls. In 2011, Vijaykanth became the aide-de-camp adjunct of the same Jaya – and managed to get 29 seats in the assembly. That made him the leader of opposition as the DMK had a lesser number of seats. In 2014, the parliamentary polls saw him head the National Democratic Alliance group here and he couldn’t win a single seat. Worse, the DMDK vote-share was a little over 5 per cent. In the by elections that have taken place in Tamil Nadu since 2011, DMDK got trounced. For instance in the Pudukkottai by election, the DMDK vote-share was less than a third of what the AIADMK got. The simple fact of life is that with her 32% vote-share Jaya will romp home – despite alleged worst governance and all that. The other parties simply do not have the numbers. For one more time, some 25% of the population will vote for a party that will rule over the other 75% with a devil-may-care attitude. Which political party will agree to a washed up actor’s demands to make him CM when his contribution to the state’s progress reads in negative figures? His party’s number 2 and wife has extended an olive branch to all those who would agree to make her husband CM and in return for her brother being made a member of the Rajya Sabha. Are the other outfits in this business for charity to seriously heed her request? Or have the other parties – including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party meant to be sacrificial goats at the altar of state political temples to possibly make Vijaykant the leader of opposition yet again?”

CT’s question left me somewhat stumped. But, I continued to play the devil’s advocate.

“The parties like the DMK group – the biggest challenger of the ruling All India Anna DMK could benefit as well, despite Vijaykanth splitting the anti-incumbency votes,” I said.

“That is the biggest joke I have heard in a long time. In its heyday, the DMK had 23% and the Congress had 8%. Now, Karunanidhi’s son Alagiri will play spoilsport in southern TN to stymie chances of his sibling Stalin. So, may be 1.5% would go away. The Congress party minus ex-AICC mainstay GK Moopanar’s son Vasan perhaps has some 2% of the vote-share. The other flotsam and jetsam are in the fray too – to split the anti-Jaya votes. After the elections, the opposition in TN would look like the opposition in Lok Sabha – fully decimated. Sooner or later, Mallikarjun Kharge – the current de facto LoP could be replaced by Rahul Gandhi because that is what the Congress jokers would want. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is surviving despite sniping from his own flanks like the games being played by Arun Jaitley, the divided opposition suits the BJP. Now, one can see that Delhi CM Kejriwal has begun releasing a huge number of advertisements to be projected as the realistic challenger of Modi. The ad budget spread is said to have crossed Rs.500 crores, according to some in the business of flogging satellite television channels. The BJP may not do anything worthwhile in Kerala and in West Bengal or for that matter, TN’s backyard and Union Territory – Pondicherry and finally Tamil Nadu itself. In an unwritten way, Jaya is already Modi’s ally. The proof is that the an AIADMK MP is the deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha! If one has to choose between Kejriwal and Modi – the big biz houses know whom to bet on. Same would be the case with Jaya when juxtaposed with the DMK-led front and it is time you pen-pushers realised it,” VCD observed with a grim expression.

I had got a verbal bludgeoning from this man, but my pride as a journalist was still intact.

“Are you implying that all the political parties in TN or the nation haven’t become wise to this lopsided set of theories?”

I asked the question thinking it would save me from further embarrassment.

It did not.

“Politicians are not as foolish as journalists, boyo. The big players in TN obviously had had enough of the tantrums of Vijaykanth. So, they have quietly agreed to eliminate his political challenge forever. After the 70’s emergency, the sudden elevation of Rajiv Gandhi in the mid-80’s and Sonia’s dominance since 2009, various small-time Congress satraps like Kamaraj, Chenna Reddy, Sharad Pawar, Biju Patnaik, Devraj Urs, Jagjivan Ram, Pranab Mukherjee, Chidambaram, Vazhappadi Ramamurthy, Karunakaran, AK Anthony, Jaganmohan Reddy, Bhajan Lal and even Suresh Kalmadi of the Commonwealth Games ill-fame split from the ‘mother-party’. All these politicians piggy-backed on the same ‘hen-party’ some time or other because they could not win a single election on their own. Times are now changing. Some of the hen-ecch-men have begun levitating towards the Modi-led BJP. Despite Modi being the PM – after 60 years’ rule of the Congress – the nation’s administration is still in the hands of the old Congress major domos. Coming to TN, the DMK will try to lick its wounds after the elections and see how it could revive its fortunes. If BJP wins a few seats in W Bengal and Kerala, it would pose a challenge to the reds who are anyway opposed to Modi. But all those possibilities could only suit Modi because he seems to be safest bet for the industrialists whose comprador mentality suits the system nicely. But for the likes of Modi, Sonia and to some extent Kejriwal, today’s political scene is dominated by brokers, gigolos and henpecked puppy and/or ‘Pappu’ hubbies or may be gangsters. Whatever other leaders are out of such a dubious ambit – espouse fissiparous concepts like MNS glook – Raj Thackeray. The political churn is on, but whether it will see the emergence of a decent opposition or will cause the public to throw up against politics leading to anarchy remains to be seen,” the Guru argued.

This was becoming too controversial.

I switched the topic.

“What cocktail are you drinking today?”

The query fetched me more political grief.

“Called Agent Orange, this is a highball made of organic carrot juice, vodka, and rum. It came into existence in the 2007 San Mateo County Fair’s cocktail competition where it won Best New Cocktail award. Agent Orange is also the name of herbicide chemical weapon used in Vietnam by the US of A that between 1961 and 1971. Russian roulette became famous due to a movie based on the Vietnam War – The Deer Hunter. According to the Wikipedia dossier, Russian roulette was made famous worldwide with the 1978 film The Deer Hunter. It featured 3 US soldiers who are captured during the Vietnam War. The scenes showed that the three were forced to play the game by their captors who also gambled on the results. During the sequences, the depiction of cruelty was macabre. The game was shown as taking place in a bamboo room above where the other prisoners are held. Every time the trigger was pulled and an inmate died, the losers’ oozing blood is depicted on screen as dripping down on future contestants. Several teen deaths following the movie’s release caused police and the media to blame the film’s depiction of Russian roulette, saying that it inspired the youths. This led to another – but less harmful game called Beer Hunter. In this game, six cans of beer are placed between the participants. One of the cans is vigorously shaken. The positioning of the cans is scrambled. Participants are meant to take turns opening the cans of beer right under their noses. The loser is the person into whose nose the beer spray enters. This game also has a hard-liquor variant. Six ‘shot’ glasses are filled with liquids – ranging between water, ‘clear’ beer and vodka – the last one in just one of the containers. The glasses’ positioning is scrambled. Participants are supposed to ‘bottoms-up’ meaning quaffing the contents of the shot glass in one gulp. The person drinking the vodka would suffer a burning sensation through his mouth, throat and alimentary canal. Losers with low capacity of withstanding intoxication make fools of themselves in this game. While one cannot vouch for the allegations of Vijaykanth getting drunk all the time, one hears his favourite is Vodka. Now, juxtapose Vodka, Russian roulette, Agent Orange chemical weapon, politics and everything else with Tamil Nadu politics and its main spoiler Vijaykanth and you get a surprising set of coincidences! The only difference is that political game could prove fatal to the political career of the washed up actor. With little or no chances to come to power again, DMK and the Congress would become Decimated MK and gone-gress. The state would suffer due to this brand of politics for a long time like Vietnam still suffers due to Agent Orange’s remnants. And there is this one final thing. The actor’s real name is Vijay Raj. The name translates into English as Victorious ruler. But, juxtapose this with the name of another man – Vijay Mallya [it means the same when translated from Kannada] and you will obtain a very queer result. Incidentally, the first Dravidian political party – the DMK’s symbol is the rising sun. Karunanidhi’s son Stalin, with few chances, denotes the Dravidian parties’ setting sun as the party leaders claim to espouse atheist policies. Moreover, the Dravidian parties came into existence on the basic plank of anti-Brahmin feelings. Jayalalithaa is a Tamil speaking Brahmin who visits temples regularly. The punch-line is that liquor biz-man Vijay Mallya used to be an acolyte of Jaya herself! It is an ominous sign for the south,” MG said.

Noticing someone signalling to him, the Guru left without a word.

And I sat there wondering as to what the gullible people of Tamil Nadu had allowed themselves to be led into.

[1]

Russian roulette is a deadly game played with a revolver whose 6 chambers contain a solitary bullet.

The player places a bullet in one of the chambers of the cylinder, spins it, clicks into place, positions the muzzle on his forehead and pulls the trigger.

The game originated in Russia.

Roulette points to a spinning wheel in a gambling casino.

The chances are – five lives and one death.

The game applies to swing-out cylinder type revolvers.

Its rule is that the cylinder is spun outside of the revolver and allowed to come to a complete stop before locked back in. The man spinning the cylinder is not supposed to look at the gun when doing so.

Politicians and villains are becoming more notorious by the day!

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