The SAARC curse and all that

Darling Ma-hinder

I cannot tell a lie dearie. Thelma was lead to believe that sick and tired of a solitary life and in order to induce felicity in your prospects, you had directed a fancy sort of fireworks display to light up the Paradisian sky last week.

And I can tell you straight off, that ejected out of my seat by a piercing scream emanating from the larynx of a particularly feisty peasant in the neighbourhood, I rushed forth onto a high balcony and set about scanning the skies for this and that.

Not a moment too soon. Two rods of light were to suddenly crisscross each other in the night sky momentarily bathing a particularly dusty corner of my own room even as I made a mental note to waggle a disapproving finger at the general factotum and tell her to look pretty sharp with the broom next time.

And what with the power off, and traces of whatever you chaps randomly fire in the air, making a pattern of tangled red thread cascading across the inky sky and all that, Thellie got to thinking. Yes you've guessed it. It was this if not that, that Thellie got to thinking of. 

I don't know what came over me but the moment I saw those search lights it reminded me of Boggles. And from boggles to things foreign to carpets to high spending and finally to SAARC took but a moment for my astute mind to settle on. After all, SAARC has come and gone and hardly anyone remembers what happened anymore, but Thellie has, in a manner of speaking, a way of regurgitating stuff like this all the time.

And that is when it hit me. The curse of SAARC  I mean to say and I can almost see you cock your head to one side like an inquiring parrot looking for a nut.

Take that poor fellow Gayoom. Well not so poor one supposes, considering he hung on to that bally high seat like a man drowning for the past three decades. But no sooner than he shuffled his leathered feet across the floors of BMICH albeit on floors with bumps on the red carpet - but more of that anon -  the fellow was practically kicked out and told to take a hike.

As for Koirala coming events were casting their shadows and never so much as when the hapless fellow was standing on the badly laid out red carpet in the main corridor of the BMICH. There he stumbled and Thellie I can tell you watched with alarm as he took a pratfall in Paradise only to take another back home in Nepal. And Alas, no Tensing Norgay to help him. Never mind the Mushy one from Pakistan who did not bother to even come but he was out on his ear before long too which to me darling does not augur all that well for those heading the nations that are all SAARC.

And while Paradisians were trying to make their ends meet after the big spending spree by you and boggles, that chap Manmohan had to make several things meet including the diametrically opposed ideologies that plague Tamil Nadu politics. All this while heading into a losing election too.

And Rakneel will tell you losing can often give one a headache. Thus M Singh while Donning his twisted cloth hat absent mindedly has to muster up all he has learnt at the night school of snake charming and juggling before he gets to work.

And that is not all. A stickler for perfection it will come as no surprise for me to learn that the chap walks the length and breath of the Ganges night market to find superior lentils both yellow and black that will satisfy the demands of an over sensitive Karunanidhi who will give his stamp of approval to the dispatch of same to the north of Paradise. 

It transpires the fellow - and by fellow I mean the Tamil Nadu chap, suffers from acute gingivitis and blames the half cooked lentil for the condition. He can handle a refugee, he can handle a dead fisherman, he can even handle a large Jayalalitha, but Thellie has been told that if there is one thing the man can't abide it's a refugee with gingivitis or for that matter halitosis. It seems toothbrushes are not readily available in Chennai.

But Thellie has no real knowledge of the matter, and before you, like Lizzie Bennet observes that it is prodigiously clever of me to write about something I have no knowledge of, let me tell you darling that all this I hear from good authority.

Aany hoo darling, just beware of the signs willya. Wouldn't want you to go getting yourself mixed up in the SAARC jinx. I mean to say who am I to write to of a Sunday, grumble about of a Friday and scribble about on a Wednesday?  Be very careful is all I can say darling. For Thellie, despite getting outside half a bottle of Wolf Blass Eagle Hawk Reisling, sees a dangerous pattern in heads of state being knocked off their perch like drunken parrots immediately following the SAARC visit in Paradise. I may have even gone so far as to call it a conspiracy if not for the fact that I have yet to come across boggles wearing a black cape and eye patch.

Don't succumb to the SAARC curse darling. Stay if you can. And even though I'm far more than just a fair lady and you are certainly no Higgins, Thellie admits, she has grown accustomed to your face.