THE WILLING MARTYR OF COMEDY

In the grand circus of Indian democracy, where the trapeze artists of power swing between sanctimony and savagery, Kunal Kamra, literally armed with a mic and a metaphoric mirror, has chosen to fall, missing the net.

- C P SURENDRAN

N the grand circus of Indian democracy, where the trapeze artists of power swing between sanctimony and savagery, Kunal Kamra, literally armed with a mic and a metaphoric mirror, has chosen to fall, missing the net. The mic is for him. The mirror is for us.

His offence this time? A line delivered with the almost callous candour of a street poet: "I am ready to lose everything but not ready to lose my spine like Eknath Shinde did when he betrayed Uddhav Thackeray and became Maharashtra deputy CM." The word 'betrayal' undid the evening. As a result, writers like me get to repeat the charge.

This writer included, the spine in our existential and political transactions is often missing. The fear of offending—I live in this fear in every word I write. Contemporary civilisation is little more than the nagging fear that someone, somewhere has taken offence at my writing. The fear was installed in our lives by liberals and wokes, but increasingly resorted to by the right wing.

Shinde is powerful enough to ignore the jibe. Instead, his people vandalised the venue in Mumbai, where the scene of the tragi-comedy occurred—as if the place, not the person, was responsible for the loud guffaws, knowing smirks.

Coming to think of it, it was not even a great joke. It was just a kind of truth that guides Indian politics. Recall the casual frequency with which elected representatives change their colours and parties.