Aiyo Rama!

The Perfect Man,of the Hindu realm is back in politics. The last time Lord Rama was dragged out of the temple by BJP, he managed to swing the vote-bank for them and even blessed them with a poet prime minister to give some semblance of Ram-rajya to the darkness that had otherwise engulfed Hindustan a.k.a India. This time he has to skip across the stone formations that are at the center of the Sethusamudram controversy.

Fortunately for 1.1 billion, multi-religious, multi-caste, multi-class, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-historical and multi-multi, mob that drives our democracy, and for the reputation of Ram’s mythical jurisprudence, the BJP was routed by its own ‘My balls are shining while you are whining’ pr campaign.

Lord Rama was happily back in the temples around the world, getting indulged by priests, being mollycoddled and drowned in the piety of millions of his devotees. Dressed in silks, precious stones and flowers, the benevolent one blessed his followers who sang his praises, sought his favors, lit oil lamps during Diwali and celebrated his homecoming and generally stayed out of trouble.

All is well.

Until, the ‘secular’ jokers who are currently ruling our mob, denied Lord Rama’s existence vide an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court. Rama did not exist. Therefore, his monkeys never built the Rama’s bridge across Gulf of Mannar, to cross over to Srilanka, to rescue his wife Sita and vanquish the great Ravana, her abductor. Therefore any objections to blast a canal through the Gulf of Mannar, to save 650 miles of sailing time for Indian shipping industry and thereby rake in major cash to make up for the lost years for the Congress party is reasonable.

Aiyo Rama! All hell breaks loose. Ashok Banker should get his notebook ready, the ink, the bytes, the hysteria, you can already see Vinod Mehta and Rajdeep Sardesia and MJ Akbar and scores of other gelled and suited print and tv pundits getting ready for a jolly good time. Yet another saga for the quest for Ram Rajya begins. More ink for more paper. We are at the threshold of history books being rewritten again. Archeology, geography, history, science, technology versus faith, belief, and the truth – the nth round.

I have been to Rama’s bridge. I have seen the truth. It is the ecology of the place. That is the only truth that should govern the debate.Gulf of Mannar is a biodiversity hotspot, the last marine reserve, the last link for the future of sea-life in Bay of Bengal and Arabian sea in the Indian ocean, that has sustained not only faith but fed millions of fishermen. Even our former President’s family profited from the trade of thousands of exotic marine species from the Gulf of Mannar. Today most of the area is protected, by the government. Poaching is banned, the ban has been partially successful, the life in Gulf of Mannar is healing, there is hope. But Oil tankers and warships passing through Sethusamudram will destroy the critical eco-system forever which in turn will kill the spirit of a mob of 1.1. billion. Aiyo Rama!