#PappuDiwas: Happy 44th Birthday Rahul Gandhi!

Hey! Baba! Happy Birthday!

I hear you are abroad as usual on your birthday.

What to do? People in India would not have let you celebrate your 44^th. Media would have kept a hawkish eye on your movements. They would have lined up OB vans in front of your party venue and would have broadcasted live the cake-cutting ceremony with your mum. Plus, it would have revealed who and who is your ‘close’ friend.

In fact, some hard-liner veterans would have raised questions – whether you visited a temple in the morning on your birthday or went to mosque to seek blessings. You know it is a culture in India to do so, right? Yeah, this is the problem when there are too many confusions about your origin (err..) and family.

By the way, which country have you gone to? I hear you travel to countries only having ‘I’ of India in them. So, are you in Italy? Or Indonesia? Yeah, we know Bali is very close to your heart where you are closest to nature and are at your natural best too.

Do you have friends there to celebrate your birthday? Or someone special? I celebrated my birthday last year in office. So much work, no chhutti. But my friends had come to my place in the evening. By the way, they give chhutti in the parliament easily? Afterall, it is such an important post – of an MP – representative of people.

Do you know your fans are going to celebrate your birthday here? Yeah, they plan to offer coke…oops…cake to your photograph and sing “tum jiyo hazaron saal…” at 10 Janpath or 24 Ashoka Road. But you do not worry. There are only a few left.

But how does it feel to celebrate your 44^th? When UPA had come to power in 2004, you had celebrated your 34^th birthday. Did you notice 10 years go by? You were hardly in the parliament. And you hardly raised any question about dear Manmohan Singh’s government in the house or about opposition parties or any issue of public importance for that matter. What did you do in these 10 years?

We saw so many ups and downs. Rupee was on a high, economy was in shambles, gold climbed the heights of the sky and there was no food to buy in Rs 12. We had difficulty finding a decent place to stay in. Did you face any of these? Oh I forgot, you live with your mom and you have a government accommodation.

We saw you travelling across the country, and yes travelling is quite essential to know your country, but what did you learn? Apart from tearing papers, eating at dalit homes, calling policies of your party’s government ‘nonsense’, what did you learn?

After 10 years, you have reduced the number of MPs to the exact numerals of your birthday. Was it the plan? I do not think so. But how does it feel to have achieved nothing at 44? How does it feel to be called a prince of the ruins?

Don’t worry, you may answer later. You are a lucky lad. I at 25 have to work hard to earn money and save equally hard to secure my future. Mom and Dad want me to get married soon. For them, I am too old now. But you are still Rahul Baba.

Live your youth.

Happy birthday once again!