The land of rising sons (and daughters and wives and other assorted relatives) is what came to my mind after the recent elections in India. In Kerala we have 5 or 6 sons (and one wife) who got elected this time, another who was made his party's head by his dad (who also tried hard to get his daughter elected). We have the Nehru dude’s dynasty still doling out its largesse, even though the language senora bahu uses to shriek at Advani (she perhaps thinks he's Italian, like Fellini) is Hindaliano. There's Laloo and wife and brothers-in-law ruling Bihar, Bal Thackeray and family ruling Mumbai, one guy's mistress ballooning down in Chennai, another guy's son-in-law in Andhra and Devi Lal and family up north. We have a pseudo-monarchy in place now and public loves it.
When you think of it, it's not just in South Asia that this phenomenon is seen. In the land of the rising sun, sons and daughters more often than not end up as natural successors to Dad's seat in the parliament. The current Foreign minister, Ms. Tanaka, is a former PM’s daughter. In S'pore, Lee Kuan Yew has his son as deputy PM, waiting in line to be the next PM, Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia, self-proclaimed Great Leader Kim Jong Il in North Korea and the most famous of them all, the self-proclaimed Supreme Super-Duper leader of the free world (?)- Dubya- outdoing Dad's"I want to make sure everybody who has a job wants a job" with his own "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family" quotes every other day when not worrying about rogue states like Polandia who might nuke Washington if he doesn't build his new toy shield. We also shouldn't forget the Kennedys, the Gores and the Clintons etc., who are the American pseudo-royalty.
I think it's high time we brought back the monarchy in place of democracy. Like Mencken, the American journalist, said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard", and the common people have shown their devotion for royalty. We should give them back those Maharajas, Ranis (can't forget those harems, can we?) and Rajkumars. Make the current PM the king and the ministers into some kind of Lords or Counts. Anyway the common bloke seems to like it that way as they vote for the progenies of powerful people. I have a vested interest in putting forward such an idea as this might give me a backdoor entry into the nobility.
In the name of the Daddies, juniors and the holy spirits (of the liquid variety), Amen.
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