Finally after rice, dal and sabji I was forced to venture into cooking the last item-Roti as the nearby eatery stopped preparing chapati for me.
I thought it would be an easy task but somehow gave many feelings which perhaps only Dr Manmohan Singh can sense while managing the affairs of this vast nation. Process started with mixing water in the wheat flour. It was as if many regional parties need to be brought together and form UPA so that well balanced flour is set in. Initially I poured less water, perhaps the way Dr. Manmohan Singh wanted to keep left and 'behenji of north and amma of south' out of the coalition but soon found to my dismay that flour will not set in unless more water is poured. Therefore following Dr. Manmohan singh I added more water, but as he was inexperienced at handling 'more parties' my flour became wet like a liquid paste. Neverthless 'manthan' continued and while accommodating different corners, added more flour after learning from dear Prime minister to create more ministerial berths. With some pushes and pulls with the 'liquid paste' and additional wheat flour, flour started giving a well balanced look. However as time proved to Dr. Manmohan singh that this 'apparent' better look was nothing more than 'apparent'. Once I started rolling it into small round pieces, I realized that there was not enough elasticity and Mamtaji forced to get Railway Ministry. Moment it was put on 'chauki' A Raja started his show. South South came together and Roti started taking shape of India. At one corner I had Jammu and Kashmir where as at other end there was North east joined by a very small connecting route to the 'hindi' mainland. Neverthless efforts continued to take the map as a 'unified' but still a 'federal' nation. However there came a turning moment. Erstwhile Andhra Pradesh in the roti brokeout and Telangana supporters got separated, your own MP's resigned . Finally Dr Manmohan singh sent his most reliable people to pacify the matter ofcourse as a patch work. I too added some paste of flour in the adjoining Andhra Pradesh and tried to form a Telangana. This made first raw 'roti' but not sure whether even formation of Telangana will make this roti and my nation look better from development perspective. All the while my mother kept instructing me on phone and I kept following as you do obediently to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi
Journey however was destined at something else. Perhaps Dr. Manmohan singh is not destined for peaceful life. Moment Chapati was put in 'tawa' it got divided into three parts. One appeared representing foreign diplomacy policy towards USA for terrrorism, other representing inflation with rising petroleum prices and third civil society anguish against corruption. With time "tawa' was getting hot and cooking the three pieces together was becoming difficult. While Dr. Manmohan Singh focussed on foreign policy, civil society representative Anna Hazare started his anshan and this part got 'roasted to black', third part was left unattended and remained raw. After doing some 'ulat pulat' for 10-15 min, I took out all the three pieces assuming them to be still one Roti.
Wish it was one Roti. Neverthless I was happy with the first roti, immediately called back home and shared this success story to my father. However much alike supreme court of India, he didnt believe that I could prepare first roti of my life. May God bless Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Dear Prime Minister I don't appreciate you but I do sympathize with your situation . you are perhaps still better among the worst available options as eatery had stopped preparing chapati and in all possible cases it's better to eat raw/burnt roti than sleeping without food !
Nice analogy Sharda...sure its a hard task for an amateur to prepare a chapati; like it is hard for a no voice to run a country.
ReplyDeleteBut what we forget is that preparing chapati and running country has some dissimilarities. While one can perfect an art of cooking with time and then regularly cook good food daily; politics cannot be perfected. There you are never right and always wrong. Further what do you do if you cannot anyhow learn to cook food. You hire a trained cook, pay money and enjoy your meal w/o doing anything. Here you have an option to change you servant anytime at short notice. U definitely know the corresponding scenario of second actor of your story.
Haan Huzur..carrying forward ur arguement..perhaps we also seem to enjoy the meal (development of country) by hiring (electing) trained (?) cook (MP/MLA)...but that doesnt seem to work. Isiiliye Chapati kahin jal jaati hai (naxal affected districts), kahin kacchchi reh jaati hai (vidarbha and KBK) and kuch toh 'tawe' par bhi nahin chad pati... Perhaps instead of 'only' blaming government, the 'common man' has to own the preparation of good roti (country)....If we won;t who will ?
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