*****This appeared in FP with a different title by G Khamba*****
Dear Rahul,
Please, stop talking. Since you’re a symbol of the youth of this
country, I will try and explain the situation to you.
You see Rahul, there are very
few of us left who, despite your party’s shambolic governance record, are still
willing to hear you out. This is not because you are god’s gift to man as
sycophants around you would have you believe, but only because we disagree
ideologically with the right. Every time you open your mouth not only does it
become harder to take you seriously, but you also embarrass us in public, you are like those few hot chicks who manage to gather all the attention of crowd but crash it down to floor the moment they start speaking.
First, please stop invoking your family every damn time because you
think it builds an “emotional connect”. You’re not inside a Dhara cooking oil
advertisement that you have to shout “my daddy strongest”. Every governmental
scheme and every third road or infrastructure project is already named after
your family so you don’t have to remind people of their existence. And I don’t
know if you’re familiar with the word irony, but I'm pretty sure talking about
the value of democracy and then citing Indira Gandhi’s leadership in the same
breath counts as an example. It’s as laughable as Narendra Modi chastising the
UP government for its law and order problem and being unable to control
communal riots. I know talking about which family you belong to and how
powerful they are is a Delhi thing, but don’t say you’re the party of the
future if you’re going to live in the past.
Second, don’t keep invoking your rural travels as something that makes
you understand India. Thousands of foreign students come to work in rural India
every year to “discover themselves” and “be outside their comfort zones”, but
that doesn't make them fit to be prime minister. I was pained at hearing in a
recent speech that 25,000 mosquitoes bit you in Bundelkhand. On the bright side,
now you know what it feels like when someone uninvited comes and eats what you
have. The bigger revelation here is that in BJP ruled states even mosquitoes
are underdeveloped and poor: 25,000 mosquitoes bit you and nothing happened,
but mere hundreds in Sheila’s Delhi caused a dengue epidemic. Another thing I
found amusing was how you told a crowd in Indore, “we make more roads, railway
lines and airports than BJP”. Three minutes later you went ahead to say,
“people make a country, not roads”. While both might be true in isolation, can
I humbly request you to stick to propaganda points that don’t sound
contradictory? If you’re talking about uplifting the poor through the Food
Security Bill maybe don’t say things like poverty is a state of mind? It’s not
a chapter of The Secret where you tell poor people that if you want something
bad enough you'll get it. If you know your speech has already gone on too long,
can you not say, “I’ll talk more because I'm in the mood”? You make it sound
like an old couple that hasn't had sex in a long time, but one of them suddenly
gets turned on. Finally, for the love of god can you not say things like “If
India is a computer, the Congress is its default program”? When you use the
words computer and default, people think Windows and the last thing you want
people to associate your party with is viruses, constant crashes and missing
data files.
Regards,
People who voted for congress ever since.
