The Ghost of Emergency, Returns …
The Ghost of Emergency
I can’t sleep because my dreams have become an oddity. Everytime I shut my eyes, a nightmare, begins. I enter my parent’s house. The main door is ajar. My mother is sitaring; and my father is praying. There’s an elderly lady who is reading a newspaper; and making a check-list about which Breaking News is backed by which political party and for what purpose. The newspaper is lowered. Its The Ghost of Emergency.
I realise this is no ordinary dream. This is a dream with an extraordinary premise. I gawp at The Ghost and try to interpret my dream. Should I read it as an allegory or a magical-realist fable, or as an edge-of-seat adventure. Or best still, should I drop everything and run away! Being a coward in the classical sense, I run away. I think I’m safe. But the next seven days, my dream repeats itself. Me, my parent’s house, The Ghost of Emergency.
On the eighth day, I confront my father in the prayer room, why is “The Ghost” here? In our house? My dad is nonchalant, “You know how it is in our home? Everyone is welcome!”
Our Legacy is Here
That evening I’m ordered to drop “The Ghost”, home. I am determined to survive the impossible. I say, I have a rehearsal of a new play. She wants to attend the rehearsal. We walk. On cue, we are gheraoed. Artistes, journalists, one veteran playwright, human rights activists, students, workers. Their stares are quaking. I tell them, please don’t fret, excessively, this is only a dream.
That rag-tag bunch are protesting the rule by decree, and suspending of civil liberties. The Ghost smirks. “I’m smarter, now. And subtler and much-more sophisticated than I was for those 21 months from 1975 to 1977. I’ve learnt my lesson. This time, I’ve co-opted society and its citizens into my plan of action. They are my biggest supporters. You and your friends have no chance.”
She continues, “I can detain innocent people without charge or notification of families. I can abuse and torture these detainees. I can mis-use public and private media institutions. I can be an arbitrator of arts. I can demolish slums. I can shut-down factories and mills. Basically, I can do as I please.”
My disbelief refuses to be suspended. But the Ghost continues, millions of my cadres are spinning a gory and macabre future. We intend to gain total power.
The beginnings of an unbeautiful friendship?
The Ghost watches the rehearsal of my new play. Half-way through, she stops the actors. “Its the worst play in the history of this planet. You and the actors should be imprisoned for this sort of thing.”
I sit in silence. India blurs. Future horrors are hinted at. Or who knows, there might be a neatness in the fable; and there shall be a happy ending. While I’m stunned into inaction, she is busy delivering a speech at a rally for new recruits. Her face is being plastered on public transport buses and the walls of our cities, towns, villages, bastis. Her new book of thoughts is a best-seller.
Last night, once again, she reappears in my dream. When she sees me, she exults, “young man, I’ve the perfect solution to save your terrible play.” I start to listen. You see, under the circumstances, I’ve no choice.
(Published with the kind permission of Hindustan Times, HT Cafe)
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
^:)^^:)^^:)^
Awesome!! cant wait for more!!!
Every nation has that kind of sovereign and their conduct they got in will, but they choose to up and almost escape that ghost..almost!
She is back and coopted our dreams in our land so its time to be awaken man it is now emergency..on papers its democracy in actual its kind of decree.. We will never know what we got until us not realizing what we need
Thanks ramu we are snoozed. Great alarming post
Ramu,so what r u finally doing with the ghost ? any final solution ? hav to live with her. whenever u post something, its such a refreshing change.
Beautiful Ramu…And Scary…esp. knowing the present India we live in…
Thank you for sharing. There’s many a ghosts hovering in this country still. How we survive is but a miracle.