The aam admi sucks

Bachi Karkaria / TNN / Mar 4, 2007, 00:08 IST

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Whether the Budget has given the aam admi a slice of the action, or made a sucker of him will be debated for long.

<arttitle>The <i>aam admi</i> sucks</arttitle>

Key Highlights

Whether the Budget has given the aam admi a slice of the action, or made a sucker of him will be debated for long.

Whether the Budget has given the aam admi a slice of the action, or made a sucker of him will be debated for long.
Whether the Budget has given the aam admi a slice of the action, or made a sucker of him will be debated for long.
Whether the Budget has given the aam admi a slice of the action, or made a sucker of him will be debated for long.
Whether the Budget has given the aam admi a slice of the action, or made a sucker of him will be debated for long.

There's always enough food on the political platter. Last week's runaway favourite was Gnocchi Quattrocchi. If desi was your desire, you could have had a sweet 'n' savoury peasant meal of Sheeramoni A-kali Dal.
But, most likely, you were riveted to the big basket of aam admi delivered by Chidambaram, who, this year, was more graam garam than urban cool.
Whether the Budget has actually given the aam admi a slice of the action, or simply made a sucker of him will be debated for as long as MPs need to justify their claim to their constituencies and a Lutyens bungalow, and as long as Media Pundits need power and prime time.

Or till both find fresh masala to be ground. What is beyond debate is that we must now all bow our lips to the new avatar, the aam admi, or mango mani.
Since i cannot garland this deity with tax sops or luxury soaps, i would like to show the connections between the aam and the khaas. In other words, the close resemblance between the Fruit of India and the bunch of people known as the Flowers of India.
There are as many contenders for the 'King of Mangoes' title as there are for the throne of Delhi, or for being crowned Urbs Primus in FDI. But since Mumbai has always fancied itself as the arbiter of everything, from skylines to necklines, its Hapoos has aam - twisted its way to this regal position.
If, only for the purposes of this column, we accept that the Alphonso is the Don of mangi-FERA Indica, let us find its
counterparts in the ruling triumvirate of Politics, Business and Bollywood.
Indian politics is full of people who think they are the Alpha-Alphonso, but who, in fact, are as dried up as last year's aam-chur. The younger crop is as sour; especially those who had tasted power, and can't wait to turn golden in its sun again.
The Alphonso is a divided family. Its Ratnagiri and Valsad branches are constantly making chhunda of each other; this fratricidal killing gets stickier with the growing number of their hybrid offspring. The corporate wars in its home region are fraught with the same plot-lines.
And, on the Maha-Kurukshetra of Mumbai, Don Ratan and Mukut Mukesh, both from the same language lineage, are locked in networth-to-networth combat. Amba-ni also happens to be a mango malik. Thousands of these groves planted around Jamnagar have turned barren wastes into a rich forex.
In Bollywood, there's only one Don. Defying all natural cycles, he keeps telling us in mellifluous words, or even Nishabd, how much juice he can still squeeze. Or how many tantalising pickles he can get into, and out of.
Other players try to prove they are the new Dewan-e-aam, or better still, that the aam janata is dewana over them. It's fruitless.
Of course, the Alphonso is not the only term of reference in mangoes or other mandates. We can easily discount the Totapuris who only parrot current agendas, and the large Malgoa and Malda aam of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are all mass but no new message.
However, no discussion is possible without Delhi's Dussehri, equally deified and demonised. She remains slim, elegant, superior - and thin-skinned.
My money is on the Langda. The prancing horses of the India Sweepstakes are like it, green on the outside, but bursting with promise inside. We just have to ensure that these front-running Langdas don't hobble into a limp.
Alec Smart said; "This time, will it be Dravid or Goliath?"