It is a truth universally acknowledged that the truth has many versions. Or as Aishwarya Rai’s media advisor put it: “What is this consortium and what does it do?”

Indeed. This is a question as old as the beginning of man’s quest for exploration itself. It is what Darwin asked of the tortoises on the Galapagos — leading to the theory of evolution itself — and more recently, in neighbouring Panama, the same question was raised by The Indian Express (under the aegis of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) to a small shell-moulding firm that was lodging the surreptitious earnings of our film stars and builders, who were asking the same of off-shore companies at a time when the stars and builders were avowedly penniless and rising like phoenixes out of the ashes of spectacularly bad films. But then, if you’d made Boom and Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag, you’d be looking for an offshore excuse too.

 SCREENSHOT OF AMITABH BACHCHAN IN BOOM (2003)

It is a question the right wing trolls ask of the press and that the press and the liberal left ask of everyone but themselves: “What is this consortium and what does it do?” The vast once-Congress-spawned, now-orphaned vote bank ask it beseechingly of the blankness that is the Open Hand. And but everyone in the Bharatiya Janata Party asks it of each other, lest the Shiv Sena butt in during question hour.

The drought-stricken ask this of the tanker lobby and Sharad Pawar-sponsored sugarcane factories waving in the arid winds (and are so disgusted by the answer that they hope severing their land from the rest of the state will bring the rain gods back, not realising it’ll just make them have their own personal non-functioning police and parliament. Just like the rest of us. Oh goody.) Indeed the Indian people, meaning the populace of office-goers (who get their salaries cut to half a day when they are ten minutes late regardless of rick-bus-train-traffic jam, heat wave or high water) ask this of parliament itself every time elected representatives stage a walk out.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent many years wandering in the (domestic) wilderness denied a visa to the United States of America, possibly contemplating this question like the Buddha under the tree. Like Rahul Gandhi at Vipassana camp, he too, let us not forget, came back with answers — now taking the form of a visa stamp from every country known to man (excluding Panama). An error soon to be rectified lest absence be taken for complicity, no doubt? No doubt the Ministry of External Affairs is at this very moment sparing no effort to find a symbol as worthy of Panama as the replica of the Cheraman Juma Masjid that made the gilded connection between Kochi and the Gelf, thus solidifying the bond between two places where in one, women drive the state and in the other, women don’t drive at all. Rumour has it they were last seen attempting to gild the brown striped Panama he wore on the banks of Sabarmati riverfront in 2014 and his speech writer was attempting to word associate “brim” with “brew”. Assam, meanwhile, pragmatic state that it is, is still picking the gold tips over the silver-tongued and minding its business. It’s one of the few states in the country that, courtesy Armed Forces (Special Powers) Acts, knows know what the biggest consortium does and is capable of doing. Sanitation, education, employment, is never on any consortium’s to-do list.

Kanhaiyya Kumar is hopefully on a Yatra to discover what happened in Delhi in 1984 before he was born since he just assumed trees fell and earths shook, but forgot to ask what felled them to begin with (a useful process of questioning to pick up in the college whose classes he generally stands outside of to shout slogans, but never mind…). At least fiery speeches with no thought to consequences are one thing he has in common with the consortium that will eventually adopt him. Or he could renege on fact entirely and defect. India is a land of opportunity after all.

Between him, Irom Sharmila (who is not guilty of suicide, again), SAR Geelani and GN Saibaba, the consortium of those in disagreement with the State is gaining momentum into an underground club. The post of its president is a toss up between Kangana Ranaut, soon to be expected to be sent to custody for crushing on her unnamed beau on an email id which an unrelated actor named Hrithik Roshan had no access to, could not read, but was so disturbed by that he filed a police complaint in lieu of breaking up from said non-existent relationship. Given her subsequent ostracisation from Bollywood, it’s either Ranaut or AIB, who have actually apologised for jokes to the Church and are expected to guide the congregation with their newfound expertise on how to get people to thank them for making a mockery of them. Girliyapa is currently working on a video protesting their lack of being threatened with arrest.
But lest we despair at the state of our nation, the European Union went from removing borders to putting up electric fences. From being refugees in war zones, they’re now shipping them back to war zones. And then there’s that “romantic arms race” between Wendy Deng and Rupert Murdoch, with Jerry Hall and Vladimir Putin as plus-ones. The worst we have are two actors and a builder and a gangster hanging out in the Panama. Hey, I’ve heard bar jokes that begin more convoluted than that.