The PM’s daily jottings—full of doom, despair and dyspepsia

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace...
   ...It's a tale told by an idiot, full
Of sound and fury, signifying nothing"
     —Macbeth, Shakespeare

CONFIDENTIAL: FOR THE PM'S EYES ONLY

Ah William, Bill the Bard, Bill the Bald, Master Shakespeare, genus genius-you wrote five hundred years ago and yet how beautifully you describe the state of my mind.

Everything is dark. Inflation; an economy beginning to downslide; stock markets plunging like the necklines of third-rate actresses; Anna Hazare; an angry middle class. And an heir to the throne—the less said about him, the better.

Corruption everywhere; cases in court, monstrous avarice coupled with the intelligence quotient of the classical village idiot; the wanton and senseless destruction of Air India, one of India's iconic assets.

The 2G scam was the worst. Why, for Heaven's sake why, did those lowbrows choose to meddle in an area which could have yielded one lakh seventy five thousand crores to the exchequer? We could have wiped out a large part of the national debt, cleaned up the Budget so that it does not look like a bankrupt's balance sheet, reduced deficits and still have had quite a bit left over for rural development and employment.

But no. These fellows had to meddle to make a few thousand crores of black money. And they did not have the intelligence to cover up their tracks; they had to leave wide-open trails that even the CAG could follow.

There is a new corruption scandal erupting every day. And it looks as if everybody in government and Parliament and the Assemblies will have to wear the noose of the Jan Lokpal around the neck forever.

I wish I could be like Amma Jayalalithaa. She is arresting people by the dozen for land-grabbing and other economic crimes. But I can't do that either. She is arresting her political opponents; I have to arrest my own party-men and alliance partners!

No, no, this is becoming too much. I am a gentle man who never interfered with what my fellow man was doing. I assumed that everyone is as honest as I am.

I want to quote Woody Allen: "God is dead; Marx is dead and I am not feeling too good either". (Or was it graffiti in a New York subway?). And the Ayurvedic kashayam (potion) doesn't help either. I want to quit; the whole beggar's breakfast of a political situation was not of my making, anyway.

Got to meet Soniaji Amma Madam, now that she is back from Sloan Kettering or wherever she went.

LATER

Back from meeting Soniaji Amma Madam. Not a very good session. She looked pale, wan and tired. I asked her about her trip abroad. She made a cryptic statement: "I have made all the necessary arrangements." For what, I asked. She twisted her face into what she thought was an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile.

She agreed the political situation was tough. Everybody in the UPA was feathering his nest—and what huge nests they were. "We should not have allowed it. Something has to be done."

I asked her whether she wanted me to resign. "What!" she screamed, "and leave my son in the cesspool?"

"No, no," I said. "I have not been feeling well recently. The pressure and stress of the job are taking their toll. I don't think I will live very long."

"Manmohanji," she said sternly. "This kind of talk will get us nowhere. Look at my family. See how much we have sacrificed. We have always been ready to die for our country."

"But, Madam Soniaji, I prefer to live for my country."

(R Vijayaraghavan has been a professional journalist for more than four decades, specialising in finance, business and politics. He conceived and helped to launch Business Line, the financial daily of The Hindu group. He can be contacted at [email protected]).