our chief minister

I think Shiela Dikshit  makes for great photo-ops. I love her tussar sarees in the cold season. I like the cottons she wears as well. I wish our president would discuss her wardrobe options with Shiela Dikshit and Sonia Gandhi. Sheila must make for a wonderful aunt. I am sure her near and dear ones are treated to orange lopchu tea with Monaco biscuits or crisp snacks and fresh cake when they visit, but  what i cannot understand about her is her public utterances.

When young Saumya Vishwanathan was killed while returning from work Sheila sounded like a distraught grandmother providing  interim domestic relief when she declared   that young women should not go out in the late hours. She could have scored some brownie points if she had said "young people" instead of women  and had drawn attention to damaged body clocks. At least she would have won the hearts and the loyalties of perennially  stressed parents.

Then she took on the entire populace living on either side of the BRTS or driving through it. Travelling on the  the bus lane ( in the centre of things) Aunt Dikshit declared that  no traffic problems were being created by the BRTS. The BRTS is without debate one of the most wretched changes that have been introduced on Delhi's roads. Having given official sanction to the mauling of the premier stretch of  Delhi's roads beyond recognition Aunt Dikshit turned her attention to the Common Wealth Games. She worked around the clock to effect clearances but ripped pavements and unfinished exteriors continue to plague our sight while all our service providers ranging from fruit seller to cobbler have been hustled off the roads.

Then after that intemperate brahmin cackled with malevolent glee over impending games disaster Dikshit took it upon herself to announce that anyone who was not for the games was not for the country. A slight  modification of the Delhi police ( with you, for you, always)statement, this, but look at the deluge that followed. Enormous siphoning and misappropriation of funds  were made public and this even made the  British queen  testy.Quickly forgetting  Britain's hoary colonial rapacity, or perhaps seeing this as a historic occasion  for redressal,  the Queen denounced  the 21st century attempts by her subjects  to shortchange the natives.

That imperial command prompted all our investigating journalists to go home to sleep off the attendant weariness. Meanwhile, the rains continued to descend on us. Little water in our taps, but unquantifiable, 24 hour supply of it  on all our roads. Driving below flyovers and underpasses, and on any road off the Ring Road equalled the experience of being in Venice on a Gondola. Except for the power that trips and is on the blink  and the freshly reincarnated mosquitoes ( bigger and more lethal). But Aunt Dikshit blunders on quixote-like and announces that there are no problems at New Delhi. She goes on to croon Meri Dilli Meri Shaan  and announces that we will have the best games ever. 

I think i have finally solved the mystery. Aunt Dikshit lives in a wonderful city where the girls being good  go to bed early, thereby bringing about a cessation in the crime graph. The civic amenities in this city are taken care of and every single inhabitant lives a happy life with abundant infrastructural  support. The countless parks and sports stadia are dotted by storehouses where helpful attendants hand out sports equipment to our gamine young and eminent sports persons coach all our young talent, while the joyous populace serenades its administrators with hosannas.  Shiela Dikshit cannot be the Chief Minister of New Delhi!

Ratna Raman