The homeless Richie Rich and the House of Commons

Remember the House, one of the first runaway hit TV series on a bunch of lunatics working together to rescue lives in a hospital against the wishes of an evil management? Well, even I don’t. Was starting to tell a story about two homeless Richie Richs trying to enter the House of Commons, and the TV series got in the way. Who names a television drama on a hospital The House? Anyway…

Here, in the dunes of Rajasthan when people were choosing their own gormint (government for locals), two strapping young lads – Ok. I have been told to be honest with my readers so, no, they are not strapping. That too? Ok, confession time. Dear Lord, forgive me for I have sinned. They are not even lads, they are 40-something blokes – born to two families in worlds apart like Kane and Abel. Only both Kane and Abel bring in their own Wayne legacies here.

Manvendra Singh, son of former Union minister Jaswant Singh Jasol, who did a Vibhishana on BJP and fought Vasundhara Raje, was far away from his home in Jasol, Barmer, to contest the chief minister (She’s gone! Like really? Then, ex-CM it is) on her home turf Jhalrapatan.

And, here an hour’s drive from Jaipur, if you have one of those beasts of an SUV snorting diesel under the hood, Sachin Pilot (Why do women swoon over him? That was some deep rooted jealousy finding a totally harmless and involuntary release) — born to the Late Rajesh Pilot who was friends with former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi — contested Raje’s minister no. 1, Yunus Khan.

The area is called Tonk. Don’t know why, but yes it’s named Tonk, like Honk. Am visualising the metallic arse of a dusty truck tattooed with the words: Horn OK Please. (That was supposed to be a red herring BTW. Yes, I know, it didn’t work). He is, like this Jasol warlord, away from his home in Ajmer, the Mecca of the east, and battling it out against Khan.

So, the two had the toughest contests on hands locked in battle with the no. 1 and no. 2 of a badass gormint with some real deep pockets and badass numbers in the House. Oh! Yes the House I forgot to tell you about. There is this round, round living room in the centre of Jaipur laid out under a huge dome which can shelter 200 lunatics at a time (Disclaimer: That was a typo. The writer meant legislators. The error is deeply regretted). This place is called the Vidhan Sabha or the House where the commoners send in their representatives. People elect them to do things which they normally wouldn’t want to do and so their chosen representatives also end up not doing them. (Ok. I know now why the creators named the show on lunatics, the House).

The two young guns who were battling it out far away from their royal retreats were ironically lodged in wayside undernourished motels, which were looking for a facelift all these years and they landed the cashier’s cheque the moment Manvendra and Sachin decided to check in.

New to the towns, the two had nowhere to go, to call “someplace” their home. In a Wild, Wild West setting, both Manvendra and Sachin would have been riding horses, gun slinging down their leather holsters, into the new town. Here, in the world left behind by Henry Ford, the two were burning rubber on the dusty roads of the two towns they found themselves fighting the battles of their own picking.

Everyday, Manvendra would step out of his rented bedroom in the motel on the bypass, his colourful turban resting neatly on his head and hunter jacket flung over his fav cotton kurta. The hotel is spartan compared to his spatial living and tastes that include among other superlatives letting out his self-confessed fanboy of Liverpool FC in the stadiums of Europe.

He slips into everything that makes Manvendra, except that he’s dumped his jootis for a pair of comfy shoes to walk the unforgiving country roads. Manvendra climbs into the SUV, that’s his own, not party-funded, to make inroads into the Queen’s turf.

Like him, Sachin is lodged in a shabby hotel on the Tonk highway, the owner having managed to merrily recuse himself from the obligatory duties of a host as his team took over the hotel or whatever remained of it after years of neglect. His room is a far cry from his well-groomed lifestyle. Dressed in Kurta-pyjama with a black jacket thrown over, he looks like a lanky youth who has lost his way in the jungle only to be crowned the next leader of the clan by the local tribe.

Everyday, while in Tonk (Why the hell, Tonk? What’s with the names? Now, that’s my OCD kicking in) he would step out of this tacky hotel to tell the voters of his newfound home and why he is here to stay. He walks and talks like a chief minister in making. Sachin would go on to win the polls from the confines of this seedy hotel. His boyish charm that the fairer sex finds so irresistible would however hold him to ransom and relegate him to a perpetual CM in waiting.

In a parallel world on the other end, Manvendra would lose to Queen V. But not before bringing down her victory margin by half in his very first attempt. Much like the King Leonidas of the Greek City Sparta, who scarred his invincible opponent Heracles to famously quip “he’s not a God, he bleeds” Manvendra leaves behinds the tracks of his SUV, like the supple scars of a fresh wound on Raje’s home turf.