INTO THE PAST WITH PAIN...155

INTO THE PAST WITH PAIN….155

Dr K Prabhakar Rao


(Gandhi, Nehru and patel are sitting in a park in heavens. There are very few guys in park and are scattered here and there. Bapu is seen lying flat on a lawn while Nehru is doping on a bench. Patel is looking here and there.)


Patel. ( Goes to Bapu) Bapu. Mere Bapu. Why are you so quiet today? You are not active as usual. What happened to you Bapu? I am feeling upset. What is troubling you? I can not see you morose like this. Bapu. You are giving the pose of Dilip Kumar in old film Devdas. I must say you are looking like Saigal in film Devdas. You are also looking like Surendra nath BAALLB, in Anmol Ghadi and Élan.

( Bapu opens his eyes slowly, blinks and closes eyes again. Nehru for a moment lifts his head and looks at Patel and again goes to half sleep doping. He starts snoring too…grrr..grrr…grrr….greee…grr.)

Patel ( Looks at them mysteriously and sings and does slow jig)

What happened to these guys?
They are quiet and look half dead
I am sure they are playing some trick
Or their brains are polluted by some lead

Bapu. Patel. Why are you getting upset over my silence? Sometimes I feel like to be quiet. Every time we went out here and there to help people nothing has come out. In fcat they were offensive. World has greatly changed. My values are no more valid. They queerly look at us.

Patel. Mere Bapu( My Bapu). True. Thus I have been telling you often. But you were not paying attention to my words. Every time we have to hastily retreat our steps.

Gandhi. I agree with you. But how do we spend time? We have spent long time in this heavens. Probably there is still long time left for our rebirth. I do not know when it will come.

Nehru. Bapu. Please do not remind me about all those things. I get scared.

Gandhi. Why should you be scared? There is nothing in our hands. You will pay for your deeds. You have to go through cycle of births and deaths till you get liberated.


Nehru. That means I have to take rebirth.]

Patel. Surely Nehruji, Chacha Nehruji. You have to surely go through. I am sure committed many sins. I do not know which form you will get. I am sure you will be borne as Gecko.

Nehru. Chee…chee.. Was I so sinful?

Patel. God will decide.

Nehru. How about you?

Patel. I am least bothered about it. It will happen as per my fate.

Gandhi. What is the nonsense talk going on?

Nehru. Sorry Bapu.

Patel. I am sorry Bapu. I get irked up when Jawaharlal says some thing.

Gandhi. What is the latest news from India?

Patel. I learnt from news paper that PM Manmohan singh visited Andhra Pradesh

Gandhi. What for?

Patel. He inaugurated a research center at Hyderabad. It is called Tata fundamental research center.

Nehru. What they will do. Will they produce fundamentalists?

Patel. Hee..heee.. Is this you think? You were called Pundit.

Gandhi. Come on guys. Even I was a bit apprehensive of the name.

Patel.Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore was named similarly earlier.

Gandhi. Why they selected Hyderabad for this activity? As it is there is so much of trouble at Hyderabad. The demand for Telangana will pick up again once Krishna committee plays flute.Then all these guys will have holidays and free money as salaries. Haaa…haa…haa.. No work and still pay.

Patel. Hee..hee. What big research goes on here in India? Till date there is no breakthrough in any field. All inventions were made in West. We only implemented them and copied. I am sure all research centers in India are big white elephants and big burden on the people. Did any one get a Nobel prize working in Indian research centers? Probably Dr CV Raman was one who got it without this investment and show shaa.. Real research vanished with him. Less said it is better.

Gandhi. Is it so? Iam non technical man, Jawaharlal what you have to say?

Nehru. Bapu ,what can a say? Patel will immediately strike it down. After independence I got IITs established.

Patel. They are feeding USA with technical man power. Not a single guy stays back in India.

Nehru. Is it my fault?

Patel. You know it better. How about Arjuna tank? How many decades the guys at FVRDE in Madras took to make own tank?

Nehru. They started designing Indian MBT (Main battle tank) much before 1970.

Patel. It never rolled out. Officers became Major Generals and got many promotions, went on world tours and produced a big zero. They were trying to re invent zero again. Officers of higher rank were given AVSM, PVSM and some VSM for achieving nothing. That is the story. I think these awards are given for survival for long time and achieving nothing. The guys could never design their own engine. What they made was only a Dibba (Tin Box). Finally they imported engines and gear boxes and fixed in the box. Israel came to rescue. The fat pregnant box now goes around as Arjuna tank.

Gandhi. Arjuna means the great warrior prince from epic Mahbharatha.

Patel. Yeah. The same guy who never tasted defeat and annihilated Kaurava army accompanied by Bheema, his brother.

Gandhi. Will this Arjuna do some thing in war?

Patel. War with whom?

Gandhi. Who else? War with Pakistan I mean.

Patel. After 1971 war Indian tanks are getting worn out by rubbing polish in the sheds, in games exercises and running around here and there. Till now these tanks have not faced enemy. Pakistan has powerful Al Khalid tanks now. Unless they face them what we can say? I doubt their capability. It is so heavy and massive. They will get stuck somewhere in field and get shot like ducks. Such things happened to Patton tanks in 1965 war.

Gandhi. Yeah I learnt .

( Suddenly there is a flash and a smart warrior appears in front of them. He is found wearing dress from yore and is sporting a mighty bow and a quiver full of long arrows.)

Warrior. Oh guys here. Some one remembered my name. I am Arjuna the Pandava prince.

( The trio gets up)

Gandhi. Namaste Arjunji. I am Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also called Bapu and father of Indian nation. We are honored by your presence.

Patel. Namaste Arjunji. This is Patel, Iron man of India. The other guy is Jawaharlal Nehru. He was the first Prime Minister of India after independence

Arjun. Strange indeed. Why are you talking of independence? That means were you slaves earlier?

Gandhi. Rather we were slaves.

Patel. We were first slaves to Islamic invaders and then to Englishmen along with Muslims.

Arjuna. Who are these Muslims? I never heard about them.

Patel. Sir. Muslims are those who follow religion of Islam. It was founded by Prophet Mohammed ( Peace be on him) in 6 th century. You lived in an era thousands of years before Christ was born.

Arjuna. Who is this Christ? Everything is confusing to me.

Patel. Christ was a prophet who found Christianity much before Islam was found. Judaism from which Christ came is much older.

Arjuna. Ohfo. All this appears very strange to me. But what I understand is Hinduism was far older than all these things. Is it true?

Gandhi. Very true sir.

Arjuna. We were your ancestors. Think of our valor. How could you become slaves? Are you not ashamed to tell that to me?

Patel. Sir, In fact We are shameless. We are not worthy too. We have no answer to your question. What answer we can give to you? We are worthless guys. Our ancestors like Prithviraj Chauhan who ruled at Thanes war was very brave and was not practical. He captured Mohammed Ghori the Muslim invader from Kabul 17 times and pardoned him. He let him go with presents too. Finally Ghori defeated Chauhan by deceit and at first opportunity killed him. Muslims started their rule in India. The slavery from Islam did not leave us till Europeans became masters of this country

Arjuna. All this look very strange. How all of you guys could not throw out invaders,

Patel. That is the joke in this land of Bharat. Hindus are in majority. But they are not united. They are divided on caste, creed, Religions, region and dynasty basis. It is a shame. That is why others could divide us and ruled.

Arjuna. The divide and rule game was there during our time too. Duryodhana tried to break up Yadavs and Pandavas, He took away army of Yadavs and only Krishna remained with us. He also took away Shalya the maternal uncle of Nakula and sahadeva and he was the brother of Madri the queen of Panduraja.

Patel. True sir.

Arjuna. This shows that our race deteriorated and almost became impotent against invaders. Shame on you guys. Better you suffered. At last you became free as you said.

Patel. What is the use sir? The country is again enslaved by a Nehru dynasty.

Nehru. There is no compulsion on Indians. Why they are then voting for them and giving them majority?

Arjuna. Ohfo. What is this new word democracy?

Patel, India is now under self rule and based on adult franchise. We elect representatives. The section that gets majority forms the govt and rules

Arjuna... I see.It is good and modern

Patel. But the guys vote devoid of true brain. They are mental slaves to Nehru Gandhi family..

Arjuna. Mr Nehru. Is it so.

Nehru. I can not say anything. It is up to people.

Arjuna. What he says is true

Patel. The voters are nuts. So this happens. Hindus have no pride of themselves. They are slavish and carried away by Gandhi charisma

Arjuna. Gandhi means this old man. Is it so,

Nehru. True.

Arjuna, You said you fathered India. How was it. Bharat was there when were ruling. How can you now become father of this country?

Patel. This is no Bharat now. Sindhu desh is now Pakistan. There is another place called Bangladesh on Eastern side of India. It was part of Pakistan and we got it severed. In north also we are not holding part of Jammu and Kashmir. Is it your Bharat now? This is truncated Bharat and screwed up Bharat. This old man Gandhi and we fathered this screwed up nation, not ancient Bharat . He being senior and we being flunkies, he became father of this moth eaten Bharat. Let him be like that. We are happy like this.

Arjuna. What a change in this country! Any how we much deviated. What is this Arjuna tank you were discussing? What is this word flunky?

Nehru. It is fighting vehicle in which soldiers sit and hide while firing at enemy. The word flunky means a follower, bootlicker, Chamcha, spoon, clapper etc. Not a good word to use. But is powerful word.

Arjuna. How shameful to be hiding in war before the enemy?

Patel. But this is the modern warfare. There is no chivalry of your days sir. I shall ask you one think. Did you not hide behind Sikhandi while fighting Bheeshmacharya in the Great War?

Arjuna. True. It was like that. Otherwise we could not have defeated him.

Patel. Now also it is like that. Aim is to kill others in war.

Arjuna. You named this Tank as ARJUNA, my name. But if it looses war I shall be put to shame

Patel. It is an inspiration for soldiers. I am very sure this tank will not work with its heaviness and ugly size.

Arjuna. Then change its name. As it is you guys are naming everything in the name of Rajiv Gandhi. Put the tank name also as Rajiv Tank. That is better. Shame on you guys. You have no commonsense. Better get screwed in war with that tank. But do not spoil name. I disassociate myself with that tank.

Patel. What can I say sir?

(Arjuna angrily disappears)

Patel. What Arjuna said was true.

Gandhi. True. Who will listen to us? His suggestion is good. It should be named after Rajiv.

Patel. Better we suggest that to the government and army too.

Nehru. Iam happy about it.

Gandhi. I am sure the govt will jump and accept it. They may even give us Bharat Ratna Class I to all of us for this suggestion.

Nehru. What is this class I Bharat Ratna?


Patel. The previous Bharat Ratna has become stale and it was given to all nuts and bolts. Now probably they would make it to Bharat Ratna Class I , II III and IV. Bapu, Is it correct

Gandhi. Yeah. That was good. Patel. You have great brains

Patel. But your Mahatma

Gandhi. True. That is my luck. Do you want to be called Mahatma Patel?

Patel. No Bapu. Iam happy like this. Leave me alone.

Gandhi. Bhai ( Brother). Let us go. It is getting late

( All disappear quickly from Park)


CURTAIN FALLS