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….
