The Hindu Business Line : The curious cat that smelt a rat

THE latest diversion on TV channels is the rat-and-cat game with Lalu and Modi as the key players. Each of the two has been notoriously newsworthy, so it's now a double sundae of sorts to see one pitted against the other.

Sordidly though, the recent incident of one calling the other rat, with the predictable knock-on effect of more rattle from political parties, is all in the wake of a train accident that caused many fatalities and injuries. Not something unusual because our netas like to fish in troubled waters, as it happened post-tsunami too, delivering thus the second whammy to victims of any calamity. But there are a few questions from those who like to catch up with rats.

Chuha kaun?

Lalu told the media at Vadodara airport, "This country belongs to all of us and that rat cannot stop me from coming to Gujarat." Now you know who's who.

Rat! Where?

You mean, chuha kahan? If you search for `rat' using Microsoft Word's ctrl+F, it stops at: `Gujarat' where things happened, `operations' for rescue and relief, `wrath' of relatives of victims, passengers `recuperating' in hospitals, `generation' of needless controversy, `administration' that didn't protect the Minister, `demonstration' against Lalu, `democratic' principles in danger, `Bharatiya' Janata Party, `bureaucrat' who advises the CM, `concentration' that's diverted from attending to patients, `orchestrated' as the attack is alleged to be, and Naranbhai `Rathwa' who is Lalu's deputy.

Is this a new phobia?

I click www.phobiascured.com and learn that fear of mice is called musophobia, murophobia or suriphobia; and that zemmiphobia is fear of rat. Politicophobia is fear of manic politicians and those with Lalu-phobia are said to be suffering from siderodromophobia, or fear of trains or train travel, because they say safety is in danger under the present Minister. Or is that a fear of cats, a.k.a. aclurophobia, ailurophobia, elurophobia or felinophobia?

Why worry about a rat?

That's what Rathwa asked of his boss: "Why be like Shylock who, in The Merchant of Venice, agonised: `What if my house be troubled with a rat.'" Rabri called up to recite a Mother Goose rhyme: "You're not Jerry Hall! He was so small, a rat could eat him, hat and all." But like Hamlet, Lalu whipped out his rapier in `brainish apprehension,' and cried, `A rat, a rat!' A crony adds a line from King Lear to rub in: "Such smiling rogues as these, like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain."

Cat seems to be angry?

Yes, very much! Especially after many mice in shorts and bandicoots sporting bandanas attacked his car and also heckled him. Curiosity almost killed the cat; and he smelt a rat. He said there must be a big chuha that's `masterminding' all `hooliganism' leading to `collapsed law and order situation.' But they're saying he's `callous, indifferent and politically motivated' and that that "those in public life have to face both demonstrations and protests."

Who will bell the rat?

That's the problem, because "By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation," as Edmund Burke cautioned. Another warning is from Winston Churchill: `It is all right to rat, but you can't re-rat.' Hating people is not the solution because Harry Emerson Fosdick would liken that to `burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.' This is a race against rats, rather than a rat race where the trouble is that even if you win, you're still a rat, as Lily Tomlin said. Likewise, nothing may ever come out of games such as these that politicians play.

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in

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The curious cat that smelt a rat