India That Is Bharat
Americans are the most pious, the most religious, people that Satiricus knows. Take, for instance, their devotion to the dollar. What is its origin? It is the prayerful partnership between the Almighty and the almighty Dollar. “In God we trust”, declares the dollar coin. But unfortunately where there is trust, there can also be trust deficit, to use the fashionable phrase instead of the simple distrust. Apparently this deplorable deficit on the part of some distrustful Americans has incited them to invade and pollute with their impious presence the sacred shrine of the dollar, namely, Wall Street. Does this mean the divine dollar finds itself against the Wall for a second time within three short years?
Satiricus recalls that this sacred shrine used to be also a secret shrine. For when, nearly half a century ago, Satiricus went to see it, he was warned not to take photographs of it. But now, alas, the divine dollar is in desecrated doldrums and irreverent Americans are not only squatting on Wall Street footpaths but sleeping there. It almost looks like they are saying “In God we don’t trust” anymore. However, Satiricus is not a little relieved to find that America still has leaders for whom God does not live on Wall Street alone and he had created more things than the New York Stock Exchange. For instance, only the other day Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said God created America to lead the world.
See? Had not God created America, where would the world have been? In particular, would not us Indians have been lost souls? Take Satiricus. He loves coffee, but could he have looked forward to the divine pleasure of sipping Starbucks had not God directed that American coffee shop chain to set up shop in India, as was reported the other day? Could he have enjoyed the happiness of a hamburger or the pleasure of a pizza (despite Prince Charles’s campaign against them) without the American God’s grace abounding? Above all, how could Lehman Brothers, one of the world’s biggest banks, have claimed that when they were cheating people on a colossal scale they were doing “God’s work” (at least before the devil shut their door)?
Again unfortunately, there are impolite anti-Americans who ask such rude questions. They ask : If America is God’s favourite country, how come Christ, Son of God, is lampooned in a play brawling in a pub, as was done not long back? Then again, if God is in his Christian heaven (that is, America), why would scores of Christian ‘Fathers’ be sued for millions of Godly dollars for fathering illegitimate children? Why would a US President of Christian America by name Jefferson flatly and blasphemously declare that the Christian God was cruel and vindictive? And finally, if God created America to lead the word, why does it lead it into such a complete mess in which the Americans themselves, the chosen people, had to scrounge for food in garbage dumps only a couple of short years ago? God alone knows—the Christian God, that is.
Cardinal Truth
Like all people everywhere, that is, like the general newspaper-reader all over the world, Satiricus implicitly believes that whatever is printed in the papers, whatever is there in black and white, bold type and all, must be the truth and cannot be anything but the truth. So when, just the other day, he read a small piece in the Economist headlined “Pakistan not a failure”, Satiricus readily accepted it as true. Then, just to re-affirm his faith in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the printed truth, he read the piece—and this is how it was revealed to him : “Is Pakistan on the brink of collapse?.... Riots broke out in several cities over erratic electricity supply. A wave of sectarian violence is sweeping through Baluchistan, and shootings continue to rip apart Karachi. However, all is not lost. A mechanism exists that could turn things around: democracy. Pakistan has never given it a chance to grow roots, but if it does, then better government could gradually follow…. If the current spell of civilian rule continues…. then for the first time in Pakistan’s history civilians could complete a full term in office….”
See? The Economist has assured Satiricus that “Pakistan is not a failure”. But do Messrs Pakistan President Zardari and Pakistan Prime Minister Gilani know what the Economist and Satiricus know? Maybe they may not know if they don’t read the Economist. And even if they do, the Economist may not tell them what the dons of the dictionary would—that the “spell” of civilian rule means a short period, and that civilians “in office” and civilians in power are as different as chalk is from cheese.
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