Piyush Roy
There still remain a few months for the Oscars for 2016 to be given. But the performance of the year, most seen, after much loving and loathing, has just been awarded — the top most honour in the world’s most prestigious democracy.
A Reality TV Star has achieved a Reality TV Style win in what undoubtedly was the most impactful acting in the theatre of the American election this year!
A blockbuster script is now ready and waiting to happen for those Hollywood makers wanting to commission a spectacular dare in the genre of controversial biopic fare. For lovers of Bollywood style dramatics too, there is a story with ample action, emotion, comedy, tragedy, surprise and relentless thrills in this victory of a much written-off anti-hero, with a villain’s repute to some.
This is a narrative that is bound to generate extreme articulations. For those on the Left, it will remain a theatre of the absurd, a nightmare on freedom street; a haunting forever! For the Right, it is an underdog success story against a seemingly uncaring, nonperforming establishment worth applause. For the Middle, here’s the perfect conversation topic to be savoured over some drinks, with a lament and a few laughs.
The intelligentsia has been booing him, diligently. For the jeering media, he has been jarring. The classes always been smirking…Until then the masses did their speaking!
Donald Trump’s win, and the defeat of Hillary Clinton, is no happening somewhere, random Third World dance of democracy that can be forgotten after its primetime season is over. A dystopian scenario for some; it also has been seen as a revenge of the neo-proletariat – 21st century style? It happened during Brexit, and it will not stop happening with Trump’s election, as long as the ruling elite continues to confuse sympathy for empathy in its dalliances with the plebeian.
Racist, sexist, opportunist, misogynist, anti-feminist, capitalist, anarchist, islamophobist, fundamentalist… the character barbs against an unlikely icon, still unlikable will not vanish overnight. Neither will they be compromised. Reconciliations do not come easy to any fanzine of the absolute. And here, many an opinion making, opinions influencing class has been made upset. The unsettled elite, the shocked middle class, may not take it well, a challenge to their naturally apportioned right at thinking the RIGHT always, and for all, including Trump. As the LEFT will now go further right, and the RIGHT will try walking towards a conciliatory MIDDLE, will DEMOCRACY emerge a Spectator, Game Changer, Spoiler or Winner, only time will tell…
Until then, let’s savour the pyrrhic aftertaste of the most followed national election that also was the greatest entertainment show on planet earth, a blockbuster that did compel even the busiest and the most disdainful of politics to pause and care.
Now with some poignant newsroom poetry, the grandest masala show of the year has just completed its season one. Its dialogues – the good, the bad and the ugly – have been flying back and forth for weeks on telly now. An adrenaline pumping climax has just been delivered by a voiceless, faceless majority, and how.
The impact is perhaps best summed in the candid prediction of one of the most consistently anti-establishment, conscience challenging filmmakers in recent years, Michael Moore. He says,“From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of (Ronald) Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them a nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here…The Outsider, Donald Trump, has arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the centre of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR MESSENGER!”
As regards the Diva on exit mode, Hillary Clinton, perhaps the best way to beat this high drama would be with some melodrama… unadulterated, undiluted, cathartic, pure desi style. I can’t think of a better mood mellowing farewell sonata for her than this little gem from KJo’s latest big film…
Achcha chalt(i) hoon, Duaaon mein yaad rakhna
Mere zikr ka zubaan pe suwaad rakhna.
Dil ke sandukon mein, mere achche kaam rakhna
Chitthi taaron mein bhi, mera tu salaam rakhna.
Andhera tera maine le liya, mera ujla sitaara tere naam kiya,
Channa mereya…
