Kejriwal and the battle of Thermopylae

In an unforgettable, goose-bumps raising sequence in 2007 blockbuster 300, King Leonidas delivers a full-blooded kick in to chest of a Persian messenger sending him flying into the well of death.

A coughing, dimunitive Arvind Kejriwal may be no match to the Gerard Butler's (playing Leonidas in the movie) Greek god physique, but his last week's FIR and the events that followed appear to me the modern equivalent of that ancient, fictional kick.

Like some commentators and rivals trying to analyse the technicality of the moves, the terrorised messenger cries "this is blasphemy, this is madness..," having read the anger brimming up in the King's eyes, "...nobody does this to a messenger."

The king probably knew it was madness; he even takes a moment to look at his queen, his subjects and reflect. But, he goes through with the kick because he wants to pick the fight - he wants to take on the most feared ruler of Persia, Emperor Xerxes. He wants to drag him out of his comfort.

Butler then gets to bark the most famous line of his career yet, "Madness? This is Sparta."

Kejriwal calls this Imaandari ki Rajneeti.

Can the Street digest such an idealistic position? What does such an uncorrupt polity amount to? Will it start by demolishing whatever the so-called 'corrupt polity' has built in the past sixty years?

Kejriwal says he is not as much against the corporate world as the corruption in it. Now, is corruption an identifiable outgrowth in our corporations that can be surgically removed? Or, is it a way of life, which can be addressed through lifestyle changes?

What happens to past sins? Will Kejriwal go about undoing these? Or will he come up with an amnesty scheme?

Victory has often had strange effects on great warriors. King Ashoka gave up war; the communists became worse than the bourgeois they sought to displace, going by Orwellian classics like Animal Farm.

Gas, iron ore, coal, spectrum, infra structure contracts and the banks that funded these - each of the building blocks of our trillion-dollar market capitalisation is well immersed in corruption, at least going by Kejriwal standards. What will be left of it after an impartial sweep of a bleaching powder laden jharu?

Information Technology may stand out. But, given that some from the sector have funded it and others are slated to get tickets, wont they leave themselves open to accusations of being neo-cronies?

I am already getting nightmares of Sensex in four digits. But, then I forgot that the Battle of Thermopylae is still not won.

Leonidas' kick in the movie did not bring him victory. It led to the battle of Thermopylae. To reach Sparta, the Persians had to pass through a coastal path with mountain on one side and ocean on the other.

Xerxes' marauding army of millions lost its numerical advantage having to pass through the narrow road where they became ready fodder for Leonidas' determined and battle-hardened 300 warriors.

Kejriwal was candid in his weekend interviews that he doesn't even have enough candidates. He is hopelessly outnumbered. And, he knows it. He seems to be hoping that corruption would be his Thermopylae, the narrow, coastal road, where he can play it man-to-man. But, like in the movie, his adversaries would find alternative routes, open new flanks. At least, the Street which has no stomach for a four-digit Sensex, seems to be hoping so.