🕶️ Que sara sara…whatever will be will be.
A Satirical Short Story (approx. 950 words)
Aunt Selvi’s nephew—whom we affectionately call Kotachadri-anna—landed in Udupi with the swagger of a man who had just returned from a secret conclave at Mount Kailasa. In reality, he’d flown in from Newark, with a suitcase full of turmeric capsules and conspiracy theories.
He was in his mid-fifties, but spoke like a man who had aged in dog years—each year in America adding seven layers of self-importance. Despite atheist grandparents and secular parents, Kotachadri-anna had found spiritual salvation in the saffron-tinted whispers of Nagapur sages. These weren’t your everyday gurus. No, these were the export-grade sages—let’s call them the Nayakas—who apparently moonlighted as political astrologers and prime ministerial talent scouts.
Over filter coffee and jackfruit chips, he leaned in and asked, “So, who do you think will be PM after Modi?”
I, in a moment of poetic mischief, replied, “After Gandhi and Modi, the rhyming successor should be… Chaddi.”
He didn’t laugh. Instead, he gave a smug smile that could curdle milk.
“The sages have already chosen,” he said, as if he’d just returned from a Himalayan Zoom call. “Ten candidates. None from the cowbelt. That’s the new rule.”
He rattled off names like a man reciting mantras: Annamalai, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Phadnavis, and two from Arunachal—whose names he conveniently forgot. He also mentioned someone from Kashmir who, upon further scrutiny, turned out to be from Assam. Geography, it seems, is optional when you’re spiritually enlightened.
“They’re being groomed,” he whispered, “in macroeconomics, geopolitics, and American-style governance. Not in white universities, mind you. But by people who matter—Indian-origin citizens of Uncle Sam’s land.”
I imagined a secret chamber somewhere beneath the Potomac River. Old men in saffron robes, sipping kombucha, discussing GDP growth and how to eliminate all other PM hopefuls. It was like Krishna Udayasankara’s Aryavarta Chronicles meets Ravi Subramanian’s The Prime Minister’s Man, with a dash of Unreal Elections thrown in for comic relief.
Kotachadri-anna spoke as if he had personally organized the training modules. “One major chapter,” he said, “is about eliminating all others who could be PM. It’s strategic. Like Rajasuya Yajna. You offer the first laddu to the man who could have been emperor, so he doesn’t sulk and start a rebellion.”
I nodded, half-impressed, half-horrified. Somewhere in this saffron fantasy, I saw Jyotiraditya Scindia floating like a forgotten bookmark. He had checked every box—pedigree, polish, and princely charm. But post-Ghar Wapsi, he was reduced to a ceremonial role, like a royal peacock in a bureaucratic zoo.
“Pappu pass nahi hua,” Kotachadri-anna declared with finality. “And Pappu can’t dance saala.”
It was a line delivered with such disdain that I almost felt sorry for the collective intellect of the nation. Apparently, democracy was now a game of musical chairs played in a secret chamber, with sages deciding who gets to sit and who gets to chant.
He swore by a book called Jugalbandi, which he claimed held the secrets of political choreography. I, on the other hand, preferred Unreal Elections—written by Unreal Mama and Pagal Patrakar—because at least their satire didn’t pretend to be scripture.
As the conversation spiraled into saffron surrealism, I imagined a Netflix series titled Syndicate of Saffron Futures. Each episode would feature a new candidate being grilled in macroeconomics by a retired IIT professor turned monk, while a diaspora uncle from New Jersey taught them how to smile like Obama and tweet like Elon Musk.
And then came the twist.
“There’s a deep secret,” Kotachadri-anna whispered, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial hum. “Even Deshbhakt couldn’t crack it. The fallout between Modi and Trumper… it’s classified.”
I gasped. Not because I cared, but because it felt like the right dramatic response.
He refused to elaborate. “That’s for another day,” he said, sipping his coffee like a man who knew too much.
As he left, I stared at the empty cup and wondered: Was this man a visionary or just a diaspora uncle with delusions of grandeur? Was the syndicate real, or just saffron fan fiction?
Either way, I knew one thing for sure.
In the land of Uncle Sam, Kotachadri-anna may have found his voice. But in the land of coconut chutney and chaotic democracy, we still believe in the power of the people—even if they occasionally elect a dancing Pappu.
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