Su dhamaal chhe, what’s the fuss?

India's best known psychoanalyst, Dr Rudhir Takar, squints at the exquisite Svarovski swan that graces his working table. His formidable mind, trained in the best institutes of Europe, once again reviews his VVIP patient’s profile. He knows that there is only so much he can do in a case that is ridden with complications. Finally, he sighs and signals his assistant to let the patient enter. PMji walks in, shaking his head angrily...

Takar (after a quick reading of the VVIP visage): Good morning, PMji. Do hope the knees are okay.

PMji (irritably): My knees are perfectly okay. Why does everybody go on about them? If my government were as firm as my knees are, I would be a happy man.

Takar waits for more evidence of PMji’s state of mind.

PMji (bursting out): Who does she think she is?

Takar had read the newspapers sufficiently to gauge who the reference was to but since a disciplined psychoanalyst never intrudes in his patient’s train of thought, he waits.

PMji: The cheek of her, the arrogance of her. Videshi aurat. She must have been playing hopscotch when I first addressed Parliament.

Takar nodded.

PMji: I’ve been addressing Parliament for longer than her mother-in-law has, much longer than her husband, much before Lincoln came to power in USA.

Takar: Lincoln?

PMji: Yes, yes, Lincoln. He had called me during the Gettysburg battle, you know that? (he corrects himself) I mean, do you know Clinton called me during the Kargil war? But I just let him have it.

Takar notes: patient displaying signs of somnambulism.

PMji: And she says my moment of reckoning has come!

Takar (sympathetically): Terrible, terrible.

PMji: She has the gall to talk about my family matters!

Takar: Quite right. The family, as R.D. Laing indicated decades ago, is the defence or bulwark against total collapse, disintegration, emptiness...

PMji: I don’t know all this Laing-shaing stuff. I only know yeh parivar ka mamla hai, woh isme dakhal na de. I cannot stand it, doctor, I CANNOT STAND IT.

Takar: Ummmh, when did you notice this distinct distaste for the first time?

PMji: I thought I could ignore her, like I would a fly. For years I put up with her. But the woman is now winning elections and THAT I CANNOT STAND.

Takar nods understandingly.

PMji: I am a bachelor, you know that. I thought I wouldn’t complicate my life with women. But now my life is simply crawling with them. Take that Mamata. She keeps taking potshots at me on TV. I’m ignoring it, but FOR HOW LONG? There’s a limit to enduring anything (he bursts out sobbing).

Takar waits for the sobs to subside.

PMji: Then there is Mayawati. She wants an alliance, but she’s difficult, that one. She’ll chew us up in UP.

Takar: This is an old problem, this mismatch between women and men. But tell me, PMji, is there any woman, at the moment, who fills you with joy?

At this point, PMji blushes. He looks intently at his nails.

PMji: There is someone...(his emotions overcome him).

Takar: Go on...

PMji (playing with the corner of his handkerchief): Well, one woman from the South is showing some interest. I have just sent her a bouquet of lotuses gathered from the Yamuna.

PMji is now transformed: instead of glowering, he glows.

PMji: She’s difficult, but her heart is in the right place.

Takar (shuts his notebook): Don’t think of the others. Concentrate on this one. Dreams, as Sigmund Freud stated, can be very therapeutic.

PMji nods vigorously. He leaves the Takar clinic a much happier man.

Earlier Columns