08 January 2014, 10:38 PM IST
With the thick fog over Delhi, which parties will be left in the cold?
With Delhi's new state government AAP and running, two issues are exercising the capital: power and fog. After flushing out the jal board, Kejri and Co have swept through the discoms to provide cheaper bijli without appearing to be power tripping (as happened in the controversy over the CM's bungle-low). But fog is not something you can produce or make disappear with one wave of your magic jhadoo. Metaphorically it seems to have become endemic among the ruling classes. Isn't it clear that the bigger netas of Delhi don't seem to have the foggiest idea of what they've been doing these past few years?
Fog is a fall-out of the cold season, which i loved when i lived in Delhi. Ever since i returned to Mumbai, where the only sign of winter is the Gujju shop advertising oondhiyu imported from Surat, i have yearned to go back and sit, basking like a Dilli Billi on a mellow-sunned lawn, wearing silks with matching shawls.
But this year's monster winter is totemic, and will brook no such indulgence. Instead, it has forced me to see the connection between a fogbound city and the rise of a new party which has made all earlier political predictions as chaotic as the flights to and from Delhi. This week's scenario of scrambled airline schedules is an uncanny trailer of the election drama coming soon to a poll-booth near you.
Cyclone Phailin is about to be upstaged by Fog Kejriwal which has already caused devastation and disruption even before it has hit the 2014 elections trail. Having enveloped not just Delhi but the imagination of everyone from baby-boomers to bankers, it has grounded other hopefuls and stymied the best-laid plans of Modi and men.
Captain NaMo was all belted up in the pilot's seat, hand on the joystick and ready to rev up the engines for take-off. However, instead of cruising comfortably to his dream destination, his flight path has been hit by sudden turbulence.
With political savvy honed over years of aiming for the clouds and crowds, he may just about stop the AAPstart from hijacking his plane. He's praying for an electoral ILS which will help him make a safe touchdown in the capital despite Fog Kejriwal having severely hampered his visibility.
In the Congress cabin, there has been a steep rise in heir pressure. It may have to draw up quite another genre of flight plans.
Yes, the spread of Fog Kejriwal has deepened the cold wave sweeping across the party. The public long ago gave up all hope of a thaw in Dr Manmohan Singh's frozen tongue, though the frosty Sonia has been known to loosen up like the ice-cubes in a tray whenever the party is on the rocks.
As the party shivers, Delhi's grapevine is a-quiver with the buzz about a revolt within the Gandhi sultanate. Dr Singh has proved the gossip right, and is hanging on till the last hour to the perks and peacocks of 7, Race Course Road. Some partymen were waiting for a fall in the hope of a rise of a post-Gandhi Congress, but they have found their horizon further obfuscated by Fog Kejriwal. One thing is clear, the crash of the GOP was caused by both pilot error and a signal failure to heed the warnings.
Power is a numbers' game, and one can never tell who will finally make it to Arrivals, and who will end up having to swallow the bad coffee in the Departures section of the Indira Gandhi airport. That's if it will still be called that.
As for us ordinary people, we can only hope that, like today's stranded passengers, we don't end up in a terminal condition.
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