NaMo’s Monkey Bath.

          Ever since the PM started the Monkey Bath on All India Radio and the television channels, there’s been hungama in my house.

          Bai Goanna believes that everybody who knew her ancestors (may their erstwhile wagging tongues be resting in peace) vigorously discussed their Monkey Bath.

          Shri Husband feels he’s the one of many carrying on the legacy Amartya Sen mentioned in the ‘Argumentative Indian’, who gives his opinion loud and clear on each and every topic, whether or not it concerns him. Chai pe Charcha is something the PM can and may do, he (Shri Husband, not NaMo) says passionately, but the Monkey Bath can’t be copyrighted by him (this time NaMo, not Shri Husband).

          Come holiday morning dawn and the voices in my home drown out any edition of the PM’s Monkey Bath broadcast over the sub-continent. Bai Goanna and Shri Husband aren’t the only ones who talk here. We have friends, visitors, neighbours, relatives: noisy, the entire lot of them, each voicing his/her own Monkey Bath.

          One said, staring at a news photograph: “Look at the way the Raksha Mantri takes a Guard of Honour. Hands in pocket, crumpled clothes, sloppy posture. The same Parrikar, in Japan for a matching occasion is all spruced up. Appears as if he’s giving the Jap soldiers more respect than to his own.”

          Shri Husband, ever pragmatic, interrupted: “Maybe the image is photo-shopped.”

          Next one: “Did y’all see a video that went viral? MS Aiyer telling Pakistanis in Pakistan that they can’t have successful peace talks unless Modi goes?”

Shri Husband, trying to be reasonable: “Aiyer may have lapses in memory, poor chap. He didn’t remember perhaps that the people of India followed a democratic process to make NaMo PM. Aiyer’s now in the dessert-time of his life, forgive him.”

Talker number three in my home the same morning: “Can’t forgive. Because on that day, one Indian Army Colonel and four of his jawans were killed in Kupwara. We can’t have senior politicians talking the way Aiyer did. None of the politicians have a clue what the soldiers do. Our PM makes a visit to the glacier, gives motivating speeches, but how many helicopters and people had to work hard and overtime for that visit, does anyone know or care?”

At that our domestic Monkey Bath session came to a halt, each one contemplating on how difficult life is in Siachen, in the North-East, and how because of the job our soldiers do, we’re enjoying our freedom to curse the government, crib against politicians, live our lives in comfort. I silently wished this Siachen undeclared ‘war’ would be brought to an end. Too many productive young lives lost needlessly.

I wondered aloud: “Does the PM ever include the Siachen topic in his Monkey Bath?”

Shri Husband responded, as always at a tangent: “I heard him talk about building toilets for primary rural schools across the country, once. And almost always he talks about the Swatccha Bharat campaign.”

I had to agree that our little village school has new toilets suddenly built, with grey-black bricks, though I still don’t know whether they (the toilets, not the bricks) are functional and being used. Also had to agree that we have red, blue and green thick plastic trash-bins now located at every other corner, with the panchayat’s label painted on their (the bins’ not the corners’) sides. The trash still overflows, with Their Bovine Holinesses still traipsing through the mess munching thin polythene bags. Other than the trash-bin presence, nothing’s changed: garbage reigns supreme.

Bai Goanna, unusually quiet till now, piped up with her Monkey Bath: “Heard we have a cess to pay to keep the country clean. Fifty paisa over every hundred bucks that you spend at a restaurant.”

Shri Husband, carrying forth, ever cynical: “Do you think that money will help train us to segregate our domestic waste? Do you think we will suddenly decide to not spit on staircases or urinate wherever/whenever we find a compound wall? Do you think the roadside food-vendors will overnight find potable water to serve their customers?… that’ll reduce the plastic-bottle litter and the number of patients suffering from alimentary canal infections.”

Lecture baazi shuru, I thought; but that was my private Monkey Bath which I kept to myself. The others weren’t as civilized.

One NaMo fan piped up: “The PM’s making an effort. Come on, no government since 1947 has taken garbage-management seriously.”

A khadi-topi-wala retorted: “The way our population is growing… not a word on family planning these days. The fewer the people, the less the garbage, no?”

NaMo fan: “More hands, more work gets done.”

Khadi-topi-wala: “Useless hands don’t work.”

NaMo fan: “That’s why the government is building a skill-bank.”

Shri Husband, patience running out: “Enough. This kind of argument will outlast the weekend.”

I was furiously typing the above conversations for my column when Shri Husband peeked over the keyboard, grumpily pointed out “It’s not Monkey Bath, it’s mann ki baat” and walked away.

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