A fable for our times

Two men set off on a journey. One was a chronic liar, the other was a habitual truth-teller. Their journey led them to the land of monkeys, whose leader noticed the travellers and ordered his minions to detain them.

The leader commanded all the monkeys in the land to line up. He had a throne — replica of one he had seen once when, as a young monkey, he had wandered into the palace of an emperor — placed in their midst, and he sat on it in state.

He asked the first man to step up. “Who am I?”, the leader asked. “You are the emperor, mightiest of all emperors on earth!”, the man responded.

“And the ones you see standing on either side of me, who are they?”

“They are your noble, faithful companions, your ministers, your efficient officials and the invincible commanders of your army.”

The leader of the monkeys was pleased, and ordered that the man be showered with presents (land at throwaway prices, defence contracts, you know the sort of thing – no, Aesop didn’t say this, I tacked it on). He then asked the other man to step up.

“Tell me, who am I, and who do you see standing in line on either side of me?”

“You are a monkey, and the ones standing in line on either side are your simian sycophants,” the second man, habituated to truth telling, replied.

The enraged leader of the monkeys ordered his followers (the IT cell, the sycophants who depended on him for morsels of favour, such as a Rajya Sabha seat or a prime post-retirement posting, the news channels whose owners were part of the rent-seeking machinery… no no, not Aesop, I added this bit) to fall on the second man and rend him limb from limb.

NB: Yeah, this blog is live again. Or will be, starting next week — like the Election Commission that’s been dragging its feet on announcing the dates for polling to elect the 17th Lok Sabha, I’ve been a bit tardy. But this will be remedied, and normal service will resume, from Monday March 11. See you in this space.