A Garland Worth Crores

Political debates on News channels are about vociferously defending a party’s stand point and taking pot shots at opponents. More often than not, they turn hostile with panelists trying to rebut each other simultaneously thus making the discussion a cacophonous outburst. The anchors being moderators too, have a tough time doing the balancing act in giving an equal participating opportunity to all speakers within restricted time span. Having to contend with influential, high ranking and eminent panel with bloated egos on the show makes it even more delicately poised. Probably, providence has a way of putting these anchors at ease once in a while by turning discussions hilarious. The recent DIG level investigation ordered by Mayawati to probe the alleged conspiracy hatched by congress, of letting loose a swarm of bees to attack her while addressing a BSP rally, was a complete laugh riot.

The subject itself was ludicrous and the guests left no stone unturned in making snide remarks at “Queen Bee”. Imagine the plight of DIG who had earlier investigated some high profile cases, was now being asked to probe the bee attack as if he would swoop down on them and shift the entire hive inside the prison cell. On a serious note, the officer is in a tangle to either frame some scapegoat as part of his investigation to pacify the chief minister or lose his job. That too, the culpability of igniting fire to make bees go berserk should lie with congress as they were most vehement in condemning the ostentatious display of wealth. It cannot get any more bizarre than this.

But there were those who put their astute brains to use in ascertaining the worth of the garland by diligent mathematical calculations. The estimates vacillated from several lakhs to twenty two crores. The television viewers though were spared the agony of having to bear with statisticians computing mean and variance of cash entwined in ten meter long garland. In hindsight, it would not be presumptuous to assume that bees had swapped their loyalty and were clamouring for wreath of currency notes around CM’s neck instead of Honey (Mayawati) itself.