Yogaarrghh!!!!!!!!!!!!

India is a strange country. In some parts of the country, hundreds of people are dying of hunger, when they really don't want to. And elsewhere, one man has sworn he wants to die of hunger, even though he really doesn't need to. Baba Ramdev has decided that he's had it with corruption and he's going to bring all our black money back to us, and he's going to do it by not eating. Of course, if not eating solved all the problems in the world, then Africa would be the happiest place in the universe, but don't tell Baba that.


  And then there's the sheer, unhinged lunacy this entire fast has unleashed ever since it began. Let's recount;-

1) He stopped eating.

2) The cops showed up at midnight to shut his fast down, just like they do with all good parties.

3) He tried to hide himself from the cops by putting on a sari. Because that'll fool 'em. ("What? This? A beard? Noooooooo! I just haven't done my upper lip in a while officer!")

4) A branch of The Sri Ram Sena, the same guys who said Valentine's Day was immoral, have joined in with him. I guess the pink chaddis they get in the mail should go great with the sari.

5) He threatened to raise his own army, consisting of 11,000 of his followers. Though I'm not sure what you do in battle with an army of 11,000 heavily breathing people whose deadliest move is putting their left leg over their own neck.

6) He took a vow of silence.

7) A sari. He actually thought that'd work.

And fascinated we watched, because how could we not? You can't, as they say, make this shit up. There isn't a script-writer in the world who could put those elements together in a manner that's half as entertaining as what's going on right now. And while Baba seems to be sticking to his fast with much gusto, I suspect he snuck out one night to get a snack. I'm worried he ate our prime minister, because I haven't seen him since this madness started.

And it all got piped into our home 24/7, in all its lurid glory, because everybody loves it when the circus is in town. And that's really all this is. A giant circus. Because as a people, we're incapable of conducting our public affairs with any dignity. Some poor half-wit follower has to take a lathi-charge, some government-lackey has to get fired for shooting his mouth off, and some journalist has to get a story, because this revolution will be televised.

So we watch, on and on, this pantomime against corruption. Which, ironically enough, eats into all the news space we could have spent shining a light on the 2G scam, CWG scam, and whatever scam our government's decided to rob us with today.

Me? I'm done. I don't care about the Baba, I don't care about the government,

and I don't care about black money. And that's the sad thing. In a country like India, you have to be REALLY annoying to get me to stop giving a shit about the fight against corruption. But I don't like circuses. Especially not ones in which the clowns got their jobs through the democratic process. Somebody please pull the plug on this whole charade. Or I'm going to go on a fast unto death. Anyone got a sari to lend me??