Great Expectations

*****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.