NAME OF THE ROSE

Cinders of frustration and disillusion have burned the CPI (M) to the bone. So say the media sharks. That the water canons of discipline are not going to douse the lingering flames anytime soon remains their favorite refrain. Virtually every day we read the party is going to come at seams tomorrow, probably by the same evening. All of them, who have always harbored entrenched anti-communist and socialist sentiments to the marrow, are now busy with shedding tears over the deterioration in communist values!! Of course there are issues. When past stalks you like a cunning cop, you can’t help being monomaniac and paranoiac, fussing and fretting, always in desperate bids to flee the specter. Floating in a space unstrung from time is the most cherished of dreams. Perhaps Henry Ford’s famous remark “We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today” best suits the legatees of vibrant past and hallowed traditions, who find themselves hunchbacked with the scary memories of a meaningful past and fruitful existence. Nothing is more welcome than a space where you don’t get stuffed into the ideologies of production line and scientific socialism. But with a name that constantly evokes memories, the task is outright impossible. All you need is this: rechristen the party. Words like communism, Marxism, socialism, egalitarianism and the stuff are kept at bay. Hey presto, the whole vexing trouble is over in a jiffy. You will have broken out in goose pimples!! Then like the Congress and Socialist parties you can split, transmute, transfigure and reunite in a state of flux—indefinitely. More importantly you the get the absolute, unconditional and lifelong license to wallow in corruption. All these for a few spelling changes!! Nobody gives a damn when a glib television anchor overwhelms a panicky guest by rattling off a string of facts and figures related to the socialist eruptions in India: JP, V.P., Chandrasekhar, Lalu, Gujral, Gowda, Veeru. Does any one think of DICK while effusively discussing the fate of K. Muraledharan and the fall of his dear dad? Who dares to chronicle the exploits veterans from Brigadier K.M. Mani to Lieutenant P.C. Thomas have performed? Plotting, kidnapping, sabotage, camouflage, flying, diving, retreats, fortification and ambush have redefined and refined the party/parties. Every faction is flourishing and at any given point of time can boast of at least one ministerial berth. We did nothing but laughed uproariously to hear Colonel P.J. Joseph molesting a cow and milking a woman. We were moved to tears when the Prodigal son Major T.M. Jacob returned to his home giving up General (Retd) Karunakaran’s camp. (“And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’) Who cares son? Why should the political nomenclature come in the way of the CPI (M) from buying and frying bigger fish?