INTO THE PAST WITH PAIN...226

INTO THE PAST WITH PAIN…226
Dr K Prabhakar Rao

( Gandhi, Nehru and patel are seen near Ramlila Maidan and the area looks like a battle field. It is strewn with chappals, clothes, broken bangles, torn blouses, broken spectacles, purses etc)

Gnadhi. Patel. What is this. What happened here? It looks as if great scuffle has taken place here.

Patel. Looks so Bapu. The situation reminds us of our days when we were struggling against British Raj

Nehru. Bapu. These things are common now.

Gandhi. What could have happened?

Patel. I shall enquire soon.

( Patel goes to a near by Pan shop and talks to the guy selling pan and retrns)

Patel. Bapu. Yesterday there was a meeting here and Police guys have dispersed the crowd who were in large numbers.

Gandhi. Why? What they have done? Were they carrying arms?

Patel. No . They were unarmed. Probably they had some pens and pencils apart from water bottles and walking sticks carried by old people like you. They may be having pencil sharpeners too.

Gandhi. What do you mean? I am not old. I am still hale and healthy. If Godse didn’t kill me I would have lived another 100 years.

Patel. That is fine Bapu. Iam sorry. I should not have called you an old guy. You are surely young like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.

Gandhi. Who are these khans? I know Dilip Kumar. He was originally Yusuf Khan. I saw his movie when he was young.

Patel. These are the Bombay film heroes. Any one with name Khan becomes a hero in Hindi film. We had many khans like this. Khan is a magic word in Hindi film industry. We had Amir Khan, Sha rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Sanjay Khan, Feroze Khan, Tariq Khan, It is Khans galore.

Gandhi. That is very good. We had earlier Bismillah Khan, Abdul Gaffar Khan and they were popular too.He became famous as border Gnadhi and was given Bharat Ratna.

Patel. Hee..heee. We deviated to Khans from our original topic. Any how, any guy can get Bharat Ratna in India. It is like pea nuts. It is not a great thing. Even I got one after I died. It was after many years. I was given because other guy was to be given. Haa..haaa.. hee..hee

Gandhi. Yeah, very true. We were discussing the drama here.

Patel. Bapu. A baba was conducting a programme here and suddenly police guys landed. They hammered every one irrespective of gender and broke away the meeting and camp.

Gandhi. Ohfo. NO. What happened to Baba? Was he killed in melee?

Patel. No. He was taken away by police to some unknown place.

Gandhi. This is not new in this land. I too faced similar treatment by British police. But they could not break my will. Failures are stepping stones to success I could throw out British Raj that was most powerful.

Nehru. We do not know what really happened here. Why police would break a camp if it was simple and no trouble was there.

Gandhi. Have you attended the camp? How can you speak like this?

Nehru. Iam only giving my opinion.

Gandhi. Thanks for it. Patel, where is that Baba? Is he injured and still in one piece/

Patel. Luckily he is in one piece, I was told.

Gandhi. Actually I do not know what are his demands.

Patel. I heard he is demanding that all black money stocked abroad in banks by Indians must be brought back particularly from Swiss Banks. I was told that in fcat the names of all such guys are known to government. But they are not disclosing

Gandhi. Why?

Patel. It appears there are some international constraints on the government for not disclosing the names. They say they recover tax from them.

Gandhi. The answer is not convincing to me. It mean some guys are being shielded.

Patel. They know better. The whole thing is turning into a boiling cauldron soon.

Gandhi. If I was alive, I would have gone on fast too. Do you know, I threatened to go on fast if India did not pay 55 Crores rupees to Pakistan after 1947? The whole thing culminated in Godse killing me soon.

Patel. I know that. Bapu, things have changed now. Even If you go on fast now you, will be behind bars soon. Gandhi Raj is over. You are good on cement pillars and currency notes and of course at Rajghat deeply buried in ground with flame on top to keep you warm in winter.. Haa.. haa. Who wants you now? No one wants you. No one wants your ideals. Jis ka lathi us ka bhains.( Buffalo belongs to the guy who has stick)

Gandhi. That means Babas attempt against corruption is finished

Patel. No. No. Hazare is still there. He has come up strongly. Any how evil will not go that easily. It will fight back.

Gandhi. If they can do to Baba they can also do to Hazare. Only thing is that Hazare is too old and sick and he might collapse under any police action. Baba is strong. He can with stand hardships.

Patel. Time only will tell everything. But one this is clear. India is up in flames now. We just can not say how things will deviate. We keep fingers crossed.

Gandhi. True. Well said. Let us go from here. Some guys may think us to be followers of Baba.

(Gandhi, Patel and Nehru walk away keeping their fingers crossed)

CURTAIN FALLS