Shoed Away

Akash was working hard on being successful at the family business. Politics was the “family business”.
His grandparents had to wear khadi, look like one of the masses, and ensure they went to jail during the freedom struggle….and viola they had it made. His parents too had to be seen in the typical politician attire, talk a bit about scientific progression of our country(like computers and ATMs being available to all) to get in the modern feel for the vast majority of rural masses, and they had it made. However, in this day & age, being a politician and maintaining a smart image was a tough thing to do. Akash had to take a public stand on some matters which the youth (and this class was a very smart class) believed in. He had to look smart – just khadi & topi wouldn’t do, he had to speak smart, be tech savy.

His big test (elections) was a month away, and he’d enrolled himself for most of the classes a successful politician would. Shastriji came to teach him chaste Hindi – often different dialects. The speech writer got him up to speed with the latest happenings. A techie wizard kept Akash knowledgeable about the latest gizmos. A style guru, and a yoga instructor took care of his image, diet, posture and what not.
All was being taken care of.

However a new scenario has emerged now…….the shoe scene. Akash had to be “shoed” to make news and get noticed. After Bush & Chidambaram, any politician worth his salt needed to be pelted, atleast once, with a shoe. Then and only then was he considered a pucca politician with a strong stand on a controversial issue.
The shoe dodge project became Akash’s mother’s mission. A plot was hatched……
Step 1 was getting Akash to have a controversial speech. His mother found an issue and semi wrote the speech. It was all about anti reservations for students
Step 2 involved getting the correct “thrower”. After careful sorting through likely candidates, the gardener’s son was chosen. He was to appear as a college student who believed strongly on reservations for backward classes.
Step 3 was getting the venue for delivering the speech. Couple of “meaningful” telephone calls from Akash’s mother’s office and one of the private universities called Akash to deliver the speech in its hallowed portals. The students of the college were inundated with advertisements about Akash’s speech, and lectured on how important it was to attend .
Step 4 was to enact the entire drama. So each morning Akash stood at the make shift podium in his garden. The gardener’s son was placed at a correct distance and angle. And the correct timing for the shoe attack was drawn up. For a week the thrower practiced the length & force of his throw. Such was the zeal, and so rigorous was the training, even an Aussie pacer would be put to shame. Akash learnt to duck the shoe with much more agility than say a Ganguly would show against a rising delivery.

Soon the all important day dawned. The garderner’s son was given a light, fashionable looking sterilized shoe. Akash was dressed up in smart casuals, and turned on his entire charm with the college students. Before the speech he joked and laughed with them. The scene was set perfectly. Akash started the speech with all earnest, the tempo built up. He could see most of the crowd agreeing with him. It was going great guns. He even risked a look at his speech writer, and got a warm smile and a thumbs up in response. Akash’s confidence was at a all time high. He was nearing the famous line after which he would have to duck. He’d arched up his body and was almost swaying on his toes while uttering the famous line. But wait, whats was going on – he had completed the line, but o object came flying at him.
Akash paused, and for effect repeated his earlier line. Still nothing. He again paused and actually took a sip from the glass of water placed before him. Nothing happened. Akash started to sweat, his sulk came on. He no longer cared for the speech……something was wrong. Why didn’t the shoe came hurtling at him. Why on earth was his “make him famous speech” not happening the way he wanted it to. Morosely Akash continued his speech. He barely heard the students, and stormed out of the room after finishing. His plan had literally been shoed away.
Once in his car, he rang up the entire team and demanded an explanation about the non incident. He needed to know where the gardener’s son was and why the shoe wasn’t hurled. People scurried about trying to trace the culprit, and the reason of his absence.

After a couple of hours the gardener’s son was traced and hauled up in front of a furious Akash and his stony mother. The poor chap managed to blabber out that when he was presented the swanky sterilized shoe, he fell in love with it so much that parting with it seemed a crime. He decided to use his old shoe, the one with which he had practiced. However Akash’s security team would just not allow him to carry the old tattered shoe. And so the plan had to be skittled.

Akash didn’t utter anything. His plan had been shoed out, but he thought that he had learnt an important lesson…….the needy junta needed to get their miniscule need fulfilled to enable him to get into bigger shoes.