The Nation Decides to Know

The village Vasville has existed ever since the Y-chromosomal Adam walked this earth in Africa. If and whether God existed, was unknown. Thus Adam, either being agnostic or having known better, called himself God. He found company elsewhere, mated and multiplied; warred and divided. Today, the thus evolved human beings are the ones ruling and being ruled. The best of the lot were too hot headed to persist and thereby perished in the wars, while the cowards survived. The genes of cowardice survived. The genes of cowardice ruled and they were being ruled.

Radolf Gannon belonged to the fourth generation of the ruling community. His family has been ruling Vasville ever since they gained freedom from their next door neighbor Briville. His family, having been entrusted by the people to rule, have since then ruled. The family changed their internal policies outlook from socialism to capitalism to neoliberalism, but people still remained poor. When it came to religious outlook, the family was confused with too many religions owing to their gene-mixing, although they all came from their common ancestor – Adam. Unaffected by communalo ileitis, the deadly disease that turns man into a wild dog and makes him hunt, at a point in history, the Gannons propagated the condition to avenge a key family member’s death. Yet, they never came out to apologize for the outbreak. Nevertheless, people being people, bestowed the family with the name ‘A perfect secular’.

The common man saw the Gannons grow in number and influence, but his hunger and struggle remained constant. In his fight for basic rights, many a two have died starving. Corruption was at its highest order, yet Radolf couldn’t control it. He didn’t have a say in how the village was being ruled, even though he wanted to rule the village someday. His internal conflicts were no less than a Pandora’s Box. Neither could he live without opening the box because of the curiosity of knowing the evil within, nor could he live with the truth that there is evil inside the box. Radolf was torn within himself.  Even as his family’s rule was running its last lap, people started calling him ‘Robber Radolf’ - not because his family robbed the village of everything that it had, but because he aided the robbers in everything that could be robbed. But, Radolf still believed in himself. He trusted the idea that he could be the one messiah they all have been waiting for. He wanted to empower the women of his village and saw clearly that the youth needed empowerment as well. His motto was ‘to find you and empower you’.

Meanwhile, Robber Radolf Gannon was facing stiff competition against a rags-to-riches, bigger-than-life persona Nathan Sircar. The story of Nathan is no ordinary story. Nathan was born into a family which went through cycles of poverty owing to poor mismanagement of resources by the Gannons. Nathan was born poor and educated poorly; but that allowed him to learn the knack of being street-smart. He could talk his way out of anything and could convince anyone. Poor people were his friends and they saw a lion in him that could roar against the atrocities being committed. Wearing patriotism on his sleeve, Nathan went on to win hearts of the many poor. When you become popular among the downtrodden, the rich befriend you. The powerful industrialists and wannabes fueled his growth. People loved him but for a section of people who loathed him for what he did. Ends don’t justify the means, so does what Nathan did a decade ago.

A decade ago, there was an outbreak of communalo ileitis in Nathan’s area. People thronged to Nathan’s house and asked him to help the people suffering because of the disease. What Nathan did was not only astounding but also shocking. Instead of finding a cure to the disease, he was alleged to have given a free hand to decimate the alleged cause. There was no proof that the converted wild dog breed Merizund was the cause of the disease, but Nathan didn’t care. He asked his people to let out the affected, even the closely associated ones. Thus was formed another breed, Hallyzund. He made the Hallyzund find and destroy the Merizunds on the whole. It was a nightmare for the area. Every Merizund that the Hallyzund could get hold of, was killed. After 3 days of Holocaust, there came an eerie calmness to the area. No one was cured of the disease, but there was a temporary control of the outbreak. There was no strength left in anyone to fight anymore. The biggest problem with the village was that the disease communalo ileitis outbreak was well controlled by the elite few for selfish reasons, but the common man continued to suffer from it during any and all outbreak hence. The debates around Sircar’s engagement in the Holocaust raged on. The interesting part during this whole ordeal was that the Gannons were tightlipped about it and offered no support or resistance to any of the suffering souls. No one noticed the conspicuous absence of voice. Thus, Nathan came to be addressed as Murderer Nathan. The name Murderer was not because he actually murdered, but because he could have avoided, but chose not to.

In the subsequent years, Nathan grew in stature. And with an unhealthy opposition that the Gannons have received due to their swindling activities, Nathan faces them as their biggest challenge. Irrespective of anything that has happened over the years, the common man has suffered. The common man has no say in whatsoever policies that their rulers bring in and he accepts that he has no power. And, thus comes the twist in the tale of two power centers of Radolf and Nathan – the rise of common man. The common man like anybody else in the village wanted to be an engineer, went on to serve the nation as a civil servant and was fed up with the way things worked. There was rampant corruption everywhere and he questioned the status quo and of the Gannons involvement at each and every juncture. He got no answers, but he persisted with the struggle. The common man questioned Nathan’s closeness to industrialists and his association with crony capitalism, but faced a dead end. Like in movies, the common man challenged Nathan Sircar’s wave with his share of anti-corruption youth’s wave. What was a tug of war between Sircar and Gannon became a triangle of contention with the common man becoming the vertex.

The common man carried his own set of flaws. He was inexperienced and too honest to play politics. There were so much improvement to be desired in his day-to-day life that the common man’s policies didn’t echo with the majority. He was beginning to be viewed as left-leaning and anti-capitalist. Propaganda started pouring in that his will would stall development. There were too many diseases to be treated, but the common man focused on only one disease. He set out to satisfy the village, but fell well short of what he intended to. People asked him for a manifesto, but the common man has got no answer to it. With age one gains wisdom. On an individual level, everyone have their reservations, but as a group, people always side with the popular belief. Vasville people were no different. They trust PR campaigns more than the truth. With the stage set, Vasville was set to vote for

1. Robber Radolf Gannon – Empowerment

2. Murderer Nathan Sircar – Development

3. Common Man – Anti-corruption

No matter what happened in the past,

No matter what happens in the future,

One can’t help but endure,

Ab ki baar, Nathan Sircar.

Will the common man rise to rule the village, or is it going to be another drab of five years by the Robber or Murderer?

Wait, the spaceship just landed….