The elections are getting closer and closer. Parties have made their guest-lists. They are preparing their manifestoes and their bullet-points. People are talking Ram & stocking rum. Old leaders are trying to make news. While new candidates are making old noises. In all this buzz, here are some more suggestions for quick, snappy, speeches…

Sanjay Dutt - Oy there. Vote for me, ok. I want to be PM. My career started in a Rocky manner. But I soon made a Naam for myself. The Mumbai Blasts were a Kaante in my flesh because people thought I had made our Dushman into my Saajan. So I was called Khalnayak and kept in Kabzaa for possessing Hathyaar. But now I’m back with a Dhamaal. I fail to understand why, just because I’m a movie star, I’ve become the Dutt of all jokes. Believe me, I’m a man of deep conviction – 6 years to be precise. So vote for me and vote for a muscular India. Sanjay ka Haath, Arm Aadmi ke Saath.

Mamata Banerjee – Farmers, and former farmers. This is your Didi standing before you asking for your vote. These industrialists want your land to set up plants. What for I say? Don’t farmers anyway grow plants? Industry? Na, no, never. I will ban progress. After all, people respectfully call me Bannerjee. Your Didi will make a great PM. With the constant terrorist threat, we need a PM capable of ordering surgical strikes. Or even, if necessary, a nuclear strike. And I am a veteran of strikes. Auto strike, lawyer strike and so on. So vote for me and let us restore Farm Rajya in this country.

Raj Thackeray - Manoos & er.. womanoos. Make me PM and I promise to protect our borders. I’ll ban everything Pakistani. Singers, sportsmen, jugglers. Movies like Pakeezah. Sweets like Mysore Pak. Even games like Pakman. You see, by eliminating all peaceful visitors, we can attack any Pakistani on the street because he, then, must be a terrorist. Of course, if he’s armed, we’ll let our Bhaiyyas in NSG handle it. I’ll spread Marathi around India, signboard by signboard. Marathi is music to my ears and I love music. Especially violence. And sometimes, I play the loot. I am well educated, in the famous Goon School, where I studied the work of the poet Burns. Unlike my uncle, I have Bals. So please vote for me and send me to Delhi. Or else, I’ll remain in Mumbai.

Barkha Dutt - You the people. I request you to vote me in as PM. This nation is floating meaninglessly. It needs an anchor. Like me. I will not treat politics as a business. I’ll make it personal. Very personal. I will personally investigate every terror attack and fearlessly interrogate the er… victims. I’ll have no secrets and I’ll ensure that our nation too has none. After all, even terrorists count in the TRPs, don’t they? I’ll cajole our industrialists to ensure that our economy is sensational. I’ll add melodrama to parliamentary proceedings thus making it prime-time viewing. I beg you for your vote. So, please vote for me. Or I’ll cry.

Considering I’ve plunged down to people like Barkha Dutt, I guess its time to end this series. Unless some fresh jokers enter politics.

Disclaimer : The above speeches are pure fiction. So it does not purport to represent the state of Indian politics, which is more about friction, factions & infractions.

An insomniac from Oracle in California just visited my site. And my sitemeter visitor count crossed 10,000 (yeah, yeah, I do get kicks out of stuff like this). Of course, about 2000 of these visits were those that I had made (to check the count). Nevertheless, now that some of you have been lulled into visiting this blog regularly, let me cunningly slip-in a quick cross-promotion for my twitter updates.

I joined twitter a week back and I’m absolutely hooked on to it. All random thoughts can be instantly SMSed to Twitterland and they join an incredibly rich pool of information, entertainment and nonsense. All in a snack-sized length of less than 140 characters. Here are some of my Tweets of last week…

Bakri Id is a week away but the slaughter of (scape)goats has begun.

Chidambaram as home minister. Now I am hoping for a home-loan waiver.

Vilas Rao Deshmukh says that Ram Gopal Verma is not a terrorist. He obviously hasn’t seen RGV Ki Aag.

R.R. Patil said it wasn’t a complete intelligence failure. He was wrong. It was. In his head.

Apparently the dead terrorists were turned away from paradise. Jihad and all that is fine but they shouldn’t have shaved their beards.

Manmohan Singh visited my area yesterday, so all roads were widened and surfaced. Let’s have 25 PMs who criss-cross India non-stop.

All politicians in India will finally come together because they have found a common enemy – the public.

The only reason Barkha still has her job is the fact that her name is an anagram of Khabar.

Ramadoss to ban terrorism in public places.

You can follow my twitter updates by clicking here. And if you are extremely masochistic, you can opt to get the updates as SMSes. I, in turn, solemnly swear, that I will not inflict on you any of the “Ramesh is hungry” or “Ramesh is getting into a plane” kind of titbits that pass off as facebook status updates.

Ramesh

PS : For a hilarious look at facebook status updates, check out face value.

2. Pratibha Patil has put our minds at ease by “strongly condemning” the terror attacks. She probably thought that we were sick with apprehension that she might applaud it. The Deccan Mujaheddin are now expected to be completely demoralized by this presidential rebuke.

3. Manmohan Singh has “called” for the establishment of a federal investigation agency. Uh? Who is he “calling”? Isn’t he the guy who is supposed to set it up? And preferably have set it up by now. It’s like Emperor Nero “calling” for the establishment of a fire department.

4. Commandos are landing on the Nariman Building. They seem to be tip-toeing down. They are communicating to each other through hand signals. Secrecy & surprise are paramount. And NDTV is showing this live!!! With informative commentary on how many commandos have landed and so on. Perhaps NDTV’s research has shown that terrorists only watch cartoon network during missions.

5. Shivraj Patil is peeved that the terrorists didn’t hang around in the Cama Hospital & CST till he landed up. He is probably extremely upset about this grave breach of protocol. Which is why, his description of the events has been “most disturbing“. Reminds me of Humphry Appleby.

6. The CII Chief Mentor, Tarun Das, has suggested that many conferences should be held to combat terrorism. I presume they will meet all day in exotic but safe spots and come out with a resolution condemning terrorism. There goes Al Qaeda’s chances on getting listed in the BSE.

7. While all the TV channels have been uniformly hysterical, Barkha Dutt seems to have emerged as the first among equals in the race for the most words with the least sense. By asking the relatives of hostages bizarre questions – “How do you feel?” and “What will you do if your husband doesn’t come out?”  - she has piled insensitivity on top of stupidity. Basically the thugs have taken the hostages and the media is spreading the terror.

Sat morning

The fighting seems to be over. Now I guess the battles will begin.

One news channel is showing the corpse of a terrorist and claims that the death of this particular terrorist symbolizes the death of terror. NDTV has changed its caption from “War Zone” to “Enough is enough”. Which, strangely enough, is what most people have been telling them.