A Video Clip And An Enveloping Innuendo

While indecency has been rife in the campaign speeches of various political leaders in poll-bound states, Karnataka has been conjuring obscenity of a different order

- Sugata Srinivasaraju

Power is an aphrodisiac’ is a saying that has been deliberately converted into an axiom and a banality. The casualness of its dressing is made to condone the transgressions of men who constantly hunt while in power. But there is another part of this quote, in the earlier Napoleon Bonaparte version (not the later Henry Kissinger edition), which assembles better its naked ambition and vulgarity. It says: “Women! They belong to the highest bidder. Power is what they like— it is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs … As for me, I take them and forget them.” If one has to watch a gory adaptation of every syllable of this quote in recent days, one has to visit Karnataka. The whole of last month, male sexuality has been discussed not just on the streets and television studios but also on the floor of the state legislature.