The Prime Minister
a serial novel
by Rattan Mann
Keith
Wigdor -- A Nobleman Bound by His Own Hysteria
Go to Part 1, Episode 1
Go to Part 2, Episode 1
Hindi Terms
Lulu: is a useless nut who
can never get anything straight. It is not a name in the usual sense.
Chachi Jaan: is a more respectful
term for aunty. Chacha and chachi mean uncle and aunty and Jaan, meaning
life, adds more honour to the term. It means "aunty, my life". It is not
a name in the usual sense.
Jhuggis: are shanties in
a shanty-town, and jhuggi-wallas are those who dwell in the jhuggis.
Previous Episode
The Speech to the Universe
This Speech is dedicated to
Montera Mary Long.
Most noble and honourable Terrestials and Extra-Terrestials, Beings of Space and Time, and Beings beyond Space and Time, it is the High Command of the Milky Way, Sun the father, and Earth the mother, who addresses you at this hour of the greatest crisis to our universe.
Two mad Orbots (Organic Robots) are on the loose on Mother Earth. They have a mission - to destroy anything and everything that stands in their way even if it happens to be the Universe itself. They have a name - Kumar and Gupta. And they even have a pedigree - they are the descendants of Count Dracula, the Prince of Romania and his only son, Lulu alias Lal Singh, the prime minister of India. What else do they need to create trouble wherever they go?
Forty score and seventy years ago Kumar predicted that one day he would wipe out Man and replace him with Orbots. Nobody took him seriously. Nobody challenged him or dragged him to the court, or warned his fellow-men of kingdom to come. Nobody even bothered to tell him that Man is irreplaceable - nothing can ever take his place in the nature of things. The result of this apathy and inaction? Today! Today is the result of our follies of yesterday. Today is the thundering response to our cowardly silence of yesterday.
Immortal Intelligence, today a cross-road looms before us for the first time since the beginning of the Big Bang. The Big Bang gave us something out of Nothing. Today we are paying back our Creator by turning everything back to Nothing again.
New cross-roads point to new paths, new choices, and beg for new questions. They show us the Constellation and the Pole Star, and wait for us to make our move in the right direction.
Oh noble stars of a noble constellation, I explode upon you with a comet-like shower of questions, and challenge you to a response.
Oh noble star of a noble constellation, Buddha, some like Kumar and Gupta now say that the right words of man are not "Know Thyself" but "Know Thy Enemy".
Oh noble star of a noble constellation, Christ, some like Kumar and Gupta now say that the right thoughts of man are not "Love Thy Neighbour" but "Love Thyself".
Oh noble star of a noble constellation, Krishna, some like Kumar and Gupta now say that the right actions of man are not to sit on the Chariot of Truth, but to fly on the rockets of lies.
Oh noble star of a noble constellation, Muhammad, some like Kumar and Gupta now say that the right direction to face to is not Mecca and Medina but Dachau and Auschwitz.
Oh noble star of a noble constellation, Einstein, some like Kumar and Gupta now say that the greatest equation of mathematics is not E = mc-square but Lie = Truth.
Oh noble star of a noble constellation, Gandhi, some like Kumar and Gupta now say that the greatest achievement of man is not control over one's own mind but control over the minds of others.
Oh noble star of a noble constellation, Martin Luther King, some like Kumar and Gupta now say that the greatest achievement of civilization is not unadorned freedom but unbridled torture.
But, oh path-blazing permanence of the skies, Franklin, God has tied Man, Freedom, and Truth together so that the likes of Kumar and Gupta cannot hang them separately.
My words,oh my words! They gambol there in the Cosmos with the stars, so allow me, my noble friends and universe-men, to pause till they come back to me.
Descend, wandering words! Come back to thy Mother Earth like a storm powerful enough to blow thy Mother's ravishers, Kumar and Gupta, off their feet.
Noble Cosmos, throw thy strength into mine chicken-heart and challenge me, thy son, to face Kumar and Gupta - man to man, eyeball to eyeball!
Oh Kumarji and Guptaji, my words have finally descended from the Cosmos to make an earthly appeal to thy noble hearts.
Forgive me my words, Kumarji and Guptaji! They have lost the fervour of the skies and adopted the garbs of mundanity.
Mine is a public appeal to you, Kumarji and Guptaji - please mend your ways and listen to us, and then you will see how far we are willing to go to accommodate your dreams.
Kumarji, for your sake the High Command has dissolved the Republic of India to make way for the Indian Empire with you as its first emperor since Bahadur Shah was overthrown by the British in 1857. Professor Gupta is Your Majesty's first prime minister. But after much thought, the High Command has been forced to lay a humble pre-condition – please undergo brain-surgery before your anointment.
Your Majesty, the High Command's hands are tied in this regard because words have escaped into the Cosmos that you are a Dracula with a Dracula-chip implanted in your brain by Lal Singh and Rattan Singh. And the only way to prove otherwise is to bare your noble mind to the full gaze of your trusting subjects, that is, undergo brain-surgery.
Your Majesty, there is one further complication. Simple village-folks, perturbed by the rumours of a Dracula amidst them, are looking for you everywhere with sticks and home-made guns. And what is worse, they themselves have spread the rumour that you are hiding somewhere in the Chakrata Hills of Dehra Dun.
So your majesty, please act and act fast before it is too late. Follow Bahadur Shah and accept our protection and the rest will be a fairy-tale. We have constructed a special palace for you which rivals the palace the British constructed for Bahadur Shah in Burma and we have named it in your honour - "His Majesty's Joint-College of Human and Robot Diseases". What more can we do - history is our witness that the British Empire couldn't do better for an Indian emperor?
So Your Majesty, all the cards are on the table. But to choose or not to choose is the prerogative of princes, kings, and emperors. The whole world looks at you just as they looked at Hamlet forty score and seventy years ago - and waits for your move.
Your Majesty's Servant,
The High Command,
New Delhi
Most noble readers, I published this speech in my newspaper exactly as the High Command had ordered me. And thus was the Universe saved - with words!
Satayavadi (A Truthful Truth-Hunter)
Editor-in-chief:
"The Truth,the Whole Truth, and Nothing Else but the Truth"
Press Enclave
New Delhi
to be continued...
Copyright 2005 Rattan Mann
Oslo, Norway
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