Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani seems to have discerned in a nursery rhyme an eloquent symbolism of her own rise to fame, and which, in all probability, inspired her to consult a Rajasthan-based astrologer for four hours.
Recall the lines that tiny tots love to recite: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. It is only the jealous or the absurdly rational who would not know that the stars “up above the world so high” are shining only for Smriti Irani.
This you may dismiss outright, but not Irani. She was the “traveller in the dark” who “could not see which way to go” had the star “not twinkle(d) so”. She is not one of us ungrateful souls who, when they make it big, discount the role of stars in their fate.
Irani is humble. She is aware of her limitations. Like all of us, she has that familiar question dogging her: Has she already scaled the pinnacle of her glory? It is an inevitable question to ask of the future, which appears impenetrably dark to all those who are not clairvoyant.
To comprehend the future, therefore, we all turn to the stars, as Irani did too, perhaps reminded as she was of those lines from the nursery rhyme: When the blazing sun is gone/When he nothing shines upon/Then you (the little star) show your light.
Journey in the dark
But this light is not visible to us ordinary mortals, as it is not to Irani either. Therefore, she swept aside the protocol, stepped down from the high perch all ministers invariably occupy, willingly suspended her disbelief, a virtue considered necessary for anyone supervising the country’s education system, and went down all the way to Karoi village in Bhilwara, Rajasthan.
There lives Pandit Nathulal Vyas, who possesses the skills to read the twinkle, twinkle of little stars. He is an astrologer, and he correctly read Irani’s stars once in the past. He predicted she would lose Amethi (now don’t say every political pundit did) and yet become minister, though just about everyone took it for granted that there had to be a quid pro quo in her daring to fight yet another Lok Sabha election that she was doomed to lose again.
Alright, nobody thought she would make it to the Cabinet, that she would head the Human Resource Development Ministry. And because she resembles the “traveller in the dark” of the nursery rhyme she has to decipher the little star’s “tiny spark” for her journey into the future.
TV made a political star
To understand Irani’s psychology you have to track her story from its beginning, or from that point in her life it has been narrated to us. She quit studies after Class XII, worked as a waiter at a fast food outlet, modelled a bit, and did an odd video or two. Her neighbours in Delhi must have cited the example of Irani to underline to their children the perils of not taking studies seriously.
It was then the stars, like that little one in the nursery rhyme, began to “twinkle, twinkle, all the night”, guiding Irani to climb the “stairway to heaven”, which is the title of a song the rock group Led Zeppelin could well have composed in her honour. She was chosen to essay the role of Tulsi Mihir Virani in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bhau Thi, a soap which just would not end. She became the model daughter-in-law every mother-in-law desired, and a model mother-in-law every daughter-in-law wished for, a feat never achieved in the history of marriage in India.
Irani’s popularity zoomed overnight, prompting the Bharatiya Janata Party to pit her against Congress leader Kapil Sabil from the Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi. She lost. It seemed she was destined to have a fall Humpty Dumpty-style, which is the fate of most when the “blazing sun” of success no longer shines.
For Irani, though, there was the little star shining its “little light” on her. The BJP continued to entrust responsibilities upon her and, among other things, deployed her to defend the party’s corner in television studios. In 2011, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, against whose chief minister, Narendra Modi, she had once threatened to go on hunger strike until he resigned. The reason? She thought the 2002 riots in Gujarat were the principal reason behind the BJP’s surprise debacle in the parliamentary elections in 2004.
But Modi forgave her, quite surprising for a man whose instinct it is to provide no quarters to his rivals. What else but the stars shining above could have saved her from a blowback? And Irani, unlike all of us in our moments of success, has not forgotten the powers the stars exercise over all of us.
Education Schmeducation
Even all the headlines she generates have not turned her swollen-headed or into one who believes talent and effort are the only determinants of success. Not for Irani these lines from Julius Caesar: “Men at some time are masters of their fates/The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.” So what if in consulting Vyas the astrologer, she thumbs her nose at all those who quote Shakespeare to say: “Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck.” And, anyway, Shakespeare can count himself lucky if he survives the ongoing purge of languages.
Indeed, Irani was right in reprimanding those nosey newshounds who were overly inquisitive about her consultations with Pandit Vyas. So what if her visit to the astrologer is perceived as a poor advertisement for the modern system of education, about which she and her party has anyway serious reservations. Astrology is an ancient Indian science waiting for the masses to master. Quite clearly, as far as Irani is concerned, Vyas is among the select few who have already mastered it.
It was unjust to pillory Irani for visiting Vyas. She is not an exception among politicians whose wont it is to consult soothsayers and godmen. Remember, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao took a trip to Burkina Faso to evade the inimical influence of a solar eclipse. You have to sympathise with politicians – they are required to take decisions in tremendous uncertainty, and the price to be paid for a wrong call is enormous. In such a scenario, it is inevitable, even rational, to fathom the celestial arrangement. Really, what sense does it make to commit to a course of action that the stars have already predetermined will fail?
It is to penetrate the opaqueness of the future that politicians consult astrologers, as Irani did in Karoi village. We do not know the questions Irani posed to Vyas about her future. Yet we can say that in predicting Irani would become India’s president, Vyas did her a damn good turn.
Why? Well, you got to think this one out – had Vyas predicted the post of prime minister for her, rest assured all the ambitious men and women in the BJP would have rallied together to clip her wings. Indeed, the little star of the nursery rhyme continues to shine for Irani the political traveller.
And so with her you must recite:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
As for all those who don’t wish to join her, they have the option of reciting these lines of Pablo Neruda:
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
Recall the lines that tiny tots love to recite: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. It is only the jealous or the absurdly rational who would not know that the stars “up above the world so high” are shining only for Smriti Irani.
This you may dismiss outright, but not Irani. She was the “traveller in the dark” who “could not see which way to go” had the star “not twinkle(d) so”. She is not one of us ungrateful souls who, when they make it big, discount the role of stars in their fate.
Irani is humble. She is aware of her limitations. Like all of us, she has that familiar question dogging her: Has she already scaled the pinnacle of her glory? It is an inevitable question to ask of the future, which appears impenetrably dark to all those who are not clairvoyant.
To comprehend the future, therefore, we all turn to the stars, as Irani did too, perhaps reminded as she was of those lines from the nursery rhyme: When the blazing sun is gone/When he nothing shines upon/Then you (the little star) show your light.
Journey in the dark
But this light is not visible to us ordinary mortals, as it is not to Irani either. Therefore, she swept aside the protocol, stepped down from the high perch all ministers invariably occupy, willingly suspended her disbelief, a virtue considered necessary for anyone supervising the country’s education system, and went down all the way to Karoi village in Bhilwara, Rajasthan.
There lives Pandit Nathulal Vyas, who possesses the skills to read the twinkle, twinkle of little stars. He is an astrologer, and he correctly read Irani’s stars once in the past. He predicted she would lose Amethi (now don’t say every political pundit did) and yet become minister, though just about everyone took it for granted that there had to be a quid pro quo in her daring to fight yet another Lok Sabha election that she was doomed to lose again.
Alright, nobody thought she would make it to the Cabinet, that she would head the Human Resource Development Ministry. And because she resembles the “traveller in the dark” of the nursery rhyme she has to decipher the little star’s “tiny spark” for her journey into the future.
TV made a political star
To understand Irani’s psychology you have to track her story from its beginning, or from that point in her life it has been narrated to us. She quit studies after Class XII, worked as a waiter at a fast food outlet, modelled a bit, and did an odd video or two. Her neighbours in Delhi must have cited the example of Irani to underline to their children the perils of not taking studies seriously.
It was then the stars, like that little one in the nursery rhyme, began to “twinkle, twinkle, all the night”, guiding Irani to climb the “stairway to heaven”, which is the title of a song the rock group Led Zeppelin could well have composed in her honour. She was chosen to essay the role of Tulsi Mihir Virani in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bhau Thi, a soap which just would not end. She became the model daughter-in-law every mother-in-law desired, and a model mother-in-law every daughter-in-law wished for, a feat never achieved in the history of marriage in India.
Irani’s popularity zoomed overnight, prompting the Bharatiya Janata Party to pit her against Congress leader Kapil Sabil from the Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi. She lost. It seemed she was destined to have a fall Humpty Dumpty-style, which is the fate of most when the “blazing sun” of success no longer shines.
For Irani, though, there was the little star shining its “little light” on her. The BJP continued to entrust responsibilities upon her and, among other things, deployed her to defend the party’s corner in television studios. In 2011, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, against whose chief minister, Narendra Modi, she had once threatened to go on hunger strike until he resigned. The reason? She thought the 2002 riots in Gujarat were the principal reason behind the BJP’s surprise debacle in the parliamentary elections in 2004.
But Modi forgave her, quite surprising for a man whose instinct it is to provide no quarters to his rivals. What else but the stars shining above could have saved her from a blowback? And Irani, unlike all of us in our moments of success, has not forgotten the powers the stars exercise over all of us.
Education Schmeducation
Even all the headlines she generates have not turned her swollen-headed or into one who believes talent and effort are the only determinants of success. Not for Irani these lines from Julius Caesar: “Men at some time are masters of their fates/The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.” So what if in consulting Vyas the astrologer, she thumbs her nose at all those who quote Shakespeare to say: “Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck.” And, anyway, Shakespeare can count himself lucky if he survives the ongoing purge of languages.
Indeed, Irani was right in reprimanding those nosey newshounds who were overly inquisitive about her consultations with Pandit Vyas. So what if her visit to the astrologer is perceived as a poor advertisement for the modern system of education, about which she and her party has anyway serious reservations. Astrology is an ancient Indian science waiting for the masses to master. Quite clearly, as far as Irani is concerned, Vyas is among the select few who have already mastered it.
It was unjust to pillory Irani for visiting Vyas. She is not an exception among politicians whose wont it is to consult soothsayers and godmen. Remember, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao took a trip to Burkina Faso to evade the inimical influence of a solar eclipse. You have to sympathise with politicians – they are required to take decisions in tremendous uncertainty, and the price to be paid for a wrong call is enormous. In such a scenario, it is inevitable, even rational, to fathom the celestial arrangement. Really, what sense does it make to commit to a course of action that the stars have already predetermined will fail?
It is to penetrate the opaqueness of the future that politicians consult astrologers, as Irani did in Karoi village. We do not know the questions Irani posed to Vyas about her future. Yet we can say that in predicting Irani would become India’s president, Vyas did her a damn good turn.
Why? Well, you got to think this one out – had Vyas predicted the post of prime minister for her, rest assured all the ambitious men and women in the BJP would have rallied together to clip her wings. Indeed, the little star of the nursery rhyme continues to shine for Irani the political traveller.
And so with her you must recite:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
As for all those who don’t wish to join her, they have the option of reciting these lines of Pablo Neruda:
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
