Democracy for me is a word which should now be altered as Democrazy in the context of our country. It is made up of two words. Demons gone crazy. This will come as a shock to the students of political science but hang on how can be politics a science. It is a tamasha infact a grand tamasha wherein you have corrupt media, lethargic babus, dysfunctional and byzantine politicians, loves to bunk parliament and teacher Sonia Gandhi wants to have the list , greedy capitalists, and gullible middle class paying taxes, outdated institutions and nominal heads of states (governors and presidents some of them flying fighter planes!!!). It does not matter that we could have spent money on education and health services. Media is only too eager to hail it as an event which altered the mankind. I think they are right as it is surely going to help global warming by burning aviation fuel for a joy ride. Some politicians want to do better by spending money to construct parks, elephants made up of marble so that they can help people. It is indeed true that most people who struggle to meet basic necessities of life will be content with these white elephants. Infact white elephants are symbolic of what these intelligent politicians have now become. Some of them do not trust the system or banks with the nation's money and so they ensure it is better if deposited in swiss banks. Ohh this reminds me of one politician, who likes to pump iron hence called iron man, promised to bring back all that money from Swiss bank. Obviously he was not happy that he did not have an account there or may be not enough money in his account if he had one!!!

It was expected that with the advent of electronic media, nations will have a strong fourth estate. Well as it turned out they have now become a great contributor to this tamasha. After all few capitalist did think of a concept called Infotainment. Well gradually it became all entertainment and no information. This made journalists as a star of this tamasha .This has also opened a whole new opportunity for any socialite or a page 3 guy to become a political/social commentator. I am sure we all remember when some media houses ran a campaign to encourage people to vote during the last election. We had every bollywood star signed up for this grand publicity tamasha. Never mind their accent and frivolous body language. It also ensured that it created a breed of media savvy politicians. Today there are talk shows which discuss serious issues in half an hour including breaks. Infact there are many politicians who despite having never fought a single election or having any mass appeal went on to assume significant offices of the land. Media and its capitalist owners along with politicians are now embedded in to this grand tamasha.

This leaves me to explain the role of babus in this tamasha. Well simply speaking babus are the ones behind the screen working to make this tamasha work. The brightest and best of us who join babudom very soon realize that it better to participate in this tamasha passively. This will allow them to get away if the tamasha goes wrong. A case in point the preparations for common wealth games or the unfortunate incident of 26/11. They are happy to be advisors to the politicians to script the tamasha. They play a similar role to the capitalists who also like to be behind the scenes. This helps them to get way with any thing as they are not being the focus of this tamasha.

So where does it leave us, the common working middle class, in this entire story. Well we are the ones for whom this is played out. It is important to remember that it is we who pay for this entire tamasha by way of paying taxes and electing wrong people for office at times due to the misinformation thanks to corrupt media. So it is important for us to ensure that we only seek entertainment value from this Tamasha and should never allow it to hamper our rationale and values. So let's enjoy the tamasha as long as it continues.

About Author / Additional Info: