For a time much longer than I can retain, I’ve been trying to figure out an enigma.

Rather, it’s more like a jigsaw puzzle where all things fit together oh-so-perfectly. No socio-economic theories, no political conventions and Esteinian dogmas could solve this jigsaw.

Even the Cabinet memos are silent on this- that, why do I land, as a matter of pattern, 24 hours electricity whenever T. Phungzathang comes a calling? The ‘I’ here is a proxy for all denizens of light forsaken CCpur.

Eureka! I’ve found the answer in the unlikeliest of all sources.

In PR Ehrlich and AE Ehrlich’s book The Population Explosion. The commentary pertains to the burden various lifestyles impose upon environment, humans included.

In their attempt to quantify environmental burden, they arrived at the following diagnosis: the life of one U.S. citizen represents twice the environmental burden of a Swedish citizen, 3 times that of an Italian, 13 times that of a Brazilian, 35 times that of an Indian and 280 times that of a citizen of Chad or Haiti.

There, you see, lies the answer. How some are fodder for another! It’s not so bad either for life itself is a food chain where the top order is coveted by the inferiors.

So, we can deduce that Mr Tonsing dropping on CCpur would exert an additional load upon voltage, wattage et al. That, why the electorates who voted for him to power must continue to exist in utter darkness is the high-voltage question.

We are the class who has to stand in queue at the LPG Distributor’s, folks who must form a file and wait for eternity for Scholarship Forms and we’re that class who pays the ‘cut’ to Treasury staffs for an act they are recruited to execute.

To us, a John Players’ shirt is a luxury and Air Deccan’s low-fare heaven sent. Needless to say but all the more worthwhile, the proletariat needed no escort unless, of course, between Tahamzam and BOC when there’s bandh in Sadar Hills.

In times like ours, to be powerless is a powerful craving. The Chair is shaking, so are every prop that buttresses it from beneath. Bureaucrat, technocrat or small-time Netas: they’re facing the same dice that is still in the air and is about to settle who’s in or out.

Our Netas are on needles and pins. For once.

In the meanwhile, the lesser citizens can make a dash to the post office to avoid late deliverance of vital documents, or simply waits for the Clerk whose office timing does not start even at 1100 hours. What a tortuous mechanism of power relation.

High up in the power class, the stakes are enormous and its demonstrations are deafening. One has to admit that the idea of power is comprehended without much ado by the plebeians.

Under or over the ground, power displays utter disregards for the powerless. Like this commissioner who did a Sreesanth to a helpless needy. With paperweight. No, sir, we don’t argue with you, we only disagree.

Not that a plebeian is all blessed. We are given a task- to grease powerful palms that have become begrimed over the years.

What with the new breed of SSIs read terror groups, our chores are piling day after day. And, by the way, there’s another take on terror groups.

If you can’t out-compete them or crush them to submission, why not buy them out? You know, Mittal and Arcelor? But then, again, who’s Mittal and who’s Arcelor has unfortunately become both subjective and relative in days like ours.

To decide is as easy as reading Greek. This is exactly when being the proletariat is an Achilles’ Heels.

Still, better by many light years than receiving grenade-mails. What do you say?