20. Funny State: Journalist journey

It was about a month since I had assumed the office of Chief Minister. I was waiting for the pretty journalist I met yesterday in the press meet for a candid interview in my office. The interview was a much enjoyable affair, especially in comparison with my earlier outing with Ms.Lakshmi Subramaniam, the so called ‘activist’ journalist, who drilled me with so many questions on policies and decisions. 


I just recited what uncle and his team of experts had prepared. ‘Lakku bhai’ got so frustrated with my sappy replies she snapped at a point and asked “Don’t you have anything to say without reading the prints in your hand”

I had replied “I would if you can ask questions which I can understand and are not boring” for which I get daily reprimands from uncle every day when he sees a follow-up article mentioning the said interview. My dad, the ex-CM, had been camping at the National Capital canvasing for the highest post in the country and hence had left the responsibility of monitoring my work to uncle. Being the youngest Chief Minister in the country did not seem to be a cake walk as I had imagined.

So from then on it was more or less like me doing things I was told to, speak things that were prepared for me.  I was more like a puppet commanded by the strings attached to him. My public ratings that had dropped due to wonderful words by Lakku Bhai did come back to reasonable levels. 

But I felt more bad reading those plaudits, than when I used to read the brick bats given by earlier articles. Don’t mistake me for those independent self-sufficient types, for instance I never felt bad about using my dad and uncle’s names to get to CM’s chair. Because they were part of me, but what I saw in the articles was not me, it was not who I was.

Harini introduced herself and asked “Shall we start?”

“Only if you continue smiling like this throughout the interview” Hope she was not feeling that I was hitting on her.

“Of course sir, on condition that you keep it interesting with your answers” she replied, showing her intention to fish for a scoop, which I was more than willing to.

“So what made you jump into politics at such a young age?”

“My advisors have told me to answer for this question with ‘opportunity to work for people’ and ‘bring about a positive change in the country’” she was a bit disappointed with the tame answer. So I continued “But they are all rubbish. It’s something more personal, like…” I stopped for a while to look at her eye balls running around like a mice chased by a kitten, intently watching my every movement and words.

“Like what???”

There are some things you can’t tell to a journalist, no matter how close they speak or how casual they say the interview is. I learnt it the hard way, though at a stage the stakes were much less when I look at it now.

‘Praseed’ his name was, the first journalist I have ever encountered in my life, in fact he was the first person I have met in our college as soon as I joined. Unlike others I did not have to wait in long queues of agony and suspense to get admissions. Dad gave me a few options which he felt would suit my career later (for careers he had in mind).

“Why don’t I have the top ranking colleges in this list?” I asked

“They’ll want you to study a lot, and I thought you won’t be fond of’em”

“I want to be in the rank no.1 college. After going through that two years in that boarding school up hill, think I deserve to be in one of these campuses…” I told him. I didn’t realise how silly and ironical  it’d have sounded to someone who had toiled years for the same seat and lost out.

Also I had my own reasons for choosing one of these colleges. I could see how chicks look at guys from these institutions. There’s a whole back story to it which I might tell at later stage.

But here I was, the day before the first day of the college, and I was with Praseed in the college Bank. Dad has sent me all alone (the driver who drove my car doesn’t count) to open an account in the bank. And there was Praseed in his glasses and lanky frame and inquisitive gestures. I always have the ability to find the person for the job, and the moment I saw him, I knew I had the guy for the job. And as expected he was also a new joinee and like me had come to open an account. His dad was working in some finance consultancy in Gulf and so could not come with him for the procedures.

“But it’s fun doing things all by yourself.” He said. I didn’t have to agree with him cos the need for his help was over, but I still nodded. He got Electronics, unlike me who got Computer Science. He really admired me for that, though I didn’t tell him how I got it. (I learnt much later in my life that telling that little secret would have gained me more admiration. Weird to know the admiration people have for success that comes without effort, despite all those volumes of text written on the values of hard work and meritocracy)

I did not have much of contact with Praseed except the occasional ‘hi’ and ‘watsup’ in the hostel corridors until the final year. That was when we had the serious elections. (The ones for earlier years don’t count). And Praseed by now was popular among the bookish types, a minor population and was known to be a sure shot IIM grad. (He wasn’t, went to MIT Sloan). He was running the campus journal, and though it wasn’t a master piece, it was more than worth the funds put in use, and he did a much better job than the earlier teams.

By now I had become famous in my own way, culturals, symposiums and the like. And I never participated in any elections in college, it’s better to be behind the screens and do the puppeteering. It gave me more powers and much more freedom. And so one day this kid from my neighbouring hostel, Sethu, came to me… said he wanted to run for the college President, and wanted my support. I knew he’d come to me, but he took longer to bring up the courage to approach me, probably was waiting for me to see if I’d throw my hat into the race.

“No probs, dude. Am not running” I said

“But your friend Praseed is” he said

I must have heard it wrong, how on earth did he think he’d win?

“He has a fan following, especially girls, and hence guys who want to agree with those girls” said Sethu.

One difficult thing with College politics is that unlike ‘real politics’ views of the female half count. No matter what one reads about the growing influence of women in politics, they are far and few and the major decisions and trends are still based on men based issues. Coming back to the issue at hand... I decided to speak with Praseed

Speak I did, and he repeated the same reply “It’s not like am against you or your friend who runs, I think I can do a good job and I sure think it’s definitely good for democracy to have some competition in the election” Think he had read some crap from the newspapers.

“Like what???” Harini asked me again

 “It’s not even the admiration and adulation you receive, though I don’t complain. It’s the satisfaction you get when you know what you are doing has immense significance.” I also thought of including the admiration one gets from chicks like her, but was smart enough to curtail it before the words slipped out.

Luckily she was happy with a light-hearted personal interview rather than the hot seat ‘issue’ based questions I was rammed up with otherwise.  I even told her about how unsuccessful I was in the girlfriend arena (‘Really??? girls would have thronged at such an important person’ she exclaimed) and the tea shop I used to hang around with friends (I even offered to take her there, but she politely declined)

I was really not great with girls. Though the cool guy image and the charisma of influence does make an impact on women, whenever girls gets closer they act completely different and almost all of them stop being even the earlier friendlier self.

“Girls feel that you don’t give them due respect” one of my friends said

“You act the same way like you are with us” another friend of mine said. Acting the same way with guys and girls is a bad thing? Seems so… And I almost started believing it, but one day

“You act the same with both guys and girls, that’s kind of cool” she said

“I didn’t get your name..”

“Kanmani… You can call me ‘Candy’ “ she said showing her Campus journal id card written ‘KAN.D’ on it. Her dad’s name was Devaraj, I got to know later while enquiring her, a well-known businessman in her native. “He’s basically into agri-products, but he’s considering branching out into textiles” she said

Praseed had handed over the reins of the journal to her since he was preparing for his higher studies, and also he had the foresight to mentor someone who could continue the legacy of the club.

“And why do you want my interview?” I asked her

“Because they say you are the king maker of the campus”

“Not at all, things look so because people don’t like giving credit to the winners”

“You are just being modest” she said

“What about Praseed? He never needed anything from me to get to the position he is….”

“But he’s not the college President” He wasn’t, after that day we went hell bent into making sure Sethu got elected.

Though I had nothing against him, I felt the need to show Praseed who had the real influence. May be because it was the first time I was actually upto a real challenge in college. The first few weeks after Sethu came to me for support were really trying. It seemed that everyone liked Praseed or at least found him agreeable, wherein Sethu was a lil bit off the mark in that area.

“What can I do? I can’t be a ‘sweet guy’ running errands for the profs and taking late night tuitions like him. I don’t find time even for my studies”

“So that’s going to be our sales pitch” I said

“What??”

“How can someone who’s aspiring to join an ivy league university spare time for his Presidential duties amidst his busy study schedule, and the running between profs for apping and visa centres” I asked back

The plan was set in. We invited Praseed to lecture our juniors on how to get into good colleges or higher studies. He did fall in. “Just add a bit about how difficult it’d be and how much time consuming it’d be” we told him

“It’s not that difficult, and it doesn’t take much of my time”

“Not for you, but we must impress upon our juniors the importance of hard work” he fell for it.

And in the background we had started canvasing for Sethu and telling how difficult it’d be for Praseed to fulfill his duties if he got elected.

“Do you think it’ll work” Sethu asked me. It worked… We also had a tie-up with another girl who had a lot of friends by offering her Lady Vice President post (a newly created one specially for her) to get the LH (Ladies hostel) votes

I was surprised when Candy finished the interview without any more questions. While winding off, she asked, “Tell me off the record…How do you select a person for any post”

“Off the record???“  I thought for a while, and just to sound funny, I told her “Just select a person whom you can have control on, people who might need you even after winning”

“You think Praseed may not have needed your support if he had won?”

“You might tell him that if that’d make him feel comfortable”

But it made many people uncomfortable when it was published in the journal next week. The title read “The campus Puppeteer” with my photo looking like a villain from a 80’sBollywood movie. It was the last journal before we left college.

Praseed did apologise to me for the article telling that he did not look at the journal until it was published, as he thought it’d be better to give his successors a whiff of independence in the last issue of his tenure. But the damage was already done.

Sethu became more recluse while interacting with me. When I confronted him he said “Nothing yaar.. it’s just the farewell blues…” he avoided any actual conversation. But he was never the same friend again

After a fun filled one hour (atleast for me) Harini was winding up, “So when are you going to introduce us to your team?”

“What ???”

“Ya.. Your youthful team that’ll be helping you make all those out of the box schemes you are planning..” she looked at me with those big round eyes again

“You’ll see…” I chuckled nonchalantly hiding my fidgety fingers. “And thanks for the interview, it brought back a lot of pleasant memories”

‘Do I have to form a team for myself?’ I was thinking the whole day and even during night, as the thought did not allow me to have enough peace to sleep.

I initially thought of discussing it with uncle, but decided against it. He might feel that I was getting outside his line of control. Dad would give me some ideas but I did not want to bother him with these petty issues, especially when he was busy moving coins in the centre.

What I’d want in my team would be a couple of people whom I can trust, and at the same time can expect to give sensible ideas. And also not make me feel stupid…I need to have some fun working with them too…

I opened my facebook account to browse for some friends… to select the people who’ll help me draft the policies that run the nation and bring prosperity.

Just two names came into my final list

1.   Praseed Venkatraman Econometric specialist, Stellar News
2.   Kanmani Devaraj HR consultant, HiT governance India

One for advice, one for fun !!! Am still waiting to see which of the two would first respond to my invitation to join my team. Still waiting….