Aditya Sinha: Truth: The first casualty of the polls

PM Narendra Modi on the last day of Parliamentrsquos winter session in New Delhi on Friday No doubt after Holi the war will begin for the 2019 election PicPTIOn New Years Day I returned to Mumbai after a 36hour trip to see my daughters who were passing through Delhi on their way back to California and due to the dense fog in the national capital my flight was delayed by four hours two of which were spent in the aircraft before takeoff All passengers were silent throughout the wait but once we were in the air the aircraft turned into a talkfest Everyone in the aisles around me were chattering loudly as if with old friends The amazing thing about talk is that a person of beauty and style can open her mouth to reveal shallowness and fakery The two seats next to me on the other hand were occupied by bluecollar workers of information technology thats how my elder daughter the software engineer describes themThe younger of the two a cloud manager at a wellknown engineering giant asked me what I thought of the Ramayana What an unusual question I struggled to articulate my thoughts because frankly the epic doesnt interest me much though I used to recite the Hanuman Chalisa daily while living in Sewri At times like this I resort to mentioning the nationalist poet C Subramania Bharatis short story in which Ravana is a gentlemanly and scholarly hero who saves Sita from being ravaged by two louts named Rama and Lakshmana they were particularly villainous with Ravanas sister When I told her this my mother said Fake news but I replied saying it was a good change of perspective that preserved the basic timelineThe cloud manager pointed out that most people accepted the original epic mechanically and uncritically They told their children to internalise it as it is without even explaining it as a simple morality play He then spoke of the misunderstandings about other religionsThe other fellow who was moving to Mumbai for a digital job in a mammoth American publishing company opening shop in India jumped in He spoke of how each religion has been diverted from its original purpose etc I didnt want to talk about any of this because a in these highly polarised times you dont want to get into an argument with a stranger and b I simply dont know where to begin Usually I find that if I try to get to the root of the topic at hand my audience loses interest Nonetheless I jumped in talking about the vested power elite of each religion the clergy and how to retain power and influence the elite had corrupted an idea in its original form to something fake and unrecognisableThe two fellows became excited and began talking about the Rothschild family What I said You mean that ancient banking family Yes yes They gushed about the major conspiracy each had read about how the Rothschilds had engineered the financial crisis of 2008 I was taken aback How in the world would the family that invented the banking system benefit from its collapse And more selfishly why werent the Rothschilds recapitalising Indias banks I asked them to explain precisely But they seemed uncertain falling back on a vague argument that the banking systems failure would consolidate the Rothschilds grip on the worlds finances and politics especially that in Washington DC I shook my head in dismay and wondered where it was that these kids were reading such halfbaked conspiracy theoriesOn Facebook of course my friend the screenwriter said when I reached his place in Versova Okay I realised The reason I missed this fake news is because I had deactivated my Facebook account six months ago to work on my book that comes out in MayJune do save up your hardearned money and buy a copy In that swamp of reposted crap is a vast worldwide conspiracy theory involving the Rothschilds that resurfaces from generation to generation But both these youngsters one in his late 20s the other in his late 30s had bought it lock stock and barrelMy conversation ended there as I preferred to dive into a terribly engrossing true crime book but not without noting that while we spoke of religion and global politics no one touched upon Indias most explicit intersection of the two which is our Great Leader and his gang They run Indias biggest sausage factory of fake news Perhaps these two young gentlemen did not want to touch on that subject because while their minds may believe him to be a charlatan their hearts tell them to stick with him No doubt after Holi the big yearlong war will begin for the 2019 parliamentary election The battlefield will be Indian hearts and minds the weaponry will be fake news We will need to attune our senses to what constitutes the fuzzy truthAditya Sinhas crime novel The CEO Who Lost His Head is available now He tweets autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news current affairs from Mumbai local news crime news and breaking headlines hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest 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