Minor measures

When we talk of kilos and metres, we are considering measuring units under the International System of Units, or SI as it is often called. This metric system is also the most accepted benchmarking set-up across the world, though trust America to cock its snook and continue with foot, miles and gallons. India, of course, is in sync with the world and we say, for instance, that Rahul Gandhi travelled 523 kilometres to meet a Dalit woman and that Jayalalithaa was weighed against 80 kilograms of gold. All this is fine, but the SI is sorely lacking in some measures of a crucial kind. Of course, these relate mainly to India, but we could export them to the rest of the universe. After all, don't forget India gave the zero to the world. Here are some proposals.

AAYA-GAYA: To be designated AG in short. This will be the unit to measure the number of times a politician changes parties. One change, without attracting punishment under the anti-defection law, will constitute 1 AG. To clarify, Amar Singh will be rated at 3 AG (Congress-Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal). His friend, Jaya Prada, is on an equal footing with 3 AG (Telugu Desam-Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal). Delhi legislator Vinod Kumar Binny has an AG rating hovering around 1.5. The announcement of the Lok Sabha polls has sent thousands into a frenzy in a bid to up their AG quotients. One question for quizzers: which Indian politician has the highest AG rating? Send in your answer. The winner will get the right to change his political affiliation.

SIYAHI: This can be abbreviated to Siya and will be used to denote the number of times someone has had ink thrown at him or smeared on his face. The measure can be used in all fields, from political to corporate to legal. Baba Ramdev, Arvind Kejriwal, Yogendra Yadav and Subroto Roy, among others, all rated 1 Siya. Rorschach test buffs are natural fans of people with high Siya ratings.

YOG: Since it is a short word, it does not necessitate the use of a shortened form. The yog is a unit that measures the equanimity of a person on whom ink has been thrown. It is named after Yogendra Yadav, who not only refused to file an FIR against the partyman who inked him, but also accepted it as part of his lot as a politician. He, therefore, rates a full yog. Kejriwal rates 0.9 yog for having forgiven the man who blackened his face. Baba Ramdev has a very low 0.2 yog rating for not having stopped his supporters from beating his inker. As for the Sahara Group head, he logs in at a good 0.6 yog for having grinned through it all.

HAZ: This is a unit for a fairly new phenomenon of someone travelling thousands of miles to find out that he or she has been had. Like when Mamata Banerjee came all the way from Kolkata to Delhi to find that her joint meeting with Anna Hazare (after whom the unit is named) only had one-tenth of the expected crowd and 50 per cent of the main speakers. Naturally, therefore, Didi can be counted as 1 Haz. Keep an eye out for more such Haz events.

YSR: Pronounced 'yessir', it is the unit that measures the number of supporters who say 'yes' to a person who wants them to leave a parent organisation or a coalition.

YS Jaganmohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh has a high YSR rating of over one million. His fellow Andhraite, Kiran Kumar Reddy, thinks he also has a very high YSR rating, but no verification has been done and experts put the actual figure at somewhere close to 100 YSR. Nitish Kumar of Bihar and Naveen Patnaik of Odisha too have commendable YSR ratings.

Free Run is a fortnightly look at alternate realities joel.rai@bsmail.in