These are some 'reflections' on the issue of fasting, which has assumed proportions of gimmickry. 'Fast politics' is a craze these days and surprisingly you can hold people to ransom with your fast.
Fasting, today is the best weapon to arouse hysteria, tears, and even laughter. Look at Team A and his cohorts. I want to laugh till I die when I see them. Fasting has such a life and death question. It is also sad, when we have to break it with lime juice? Why not with kebabs, biriyani and mutton or chicken rolls? Why such a measly thing as lime juice, and then just a sip with a little boy or girl holding out a glass, after all the stupendous effeort, the rabble rousing and the cat calling?
I'll tell you there is more to fasting than meets the eye. It is a weapon for obedience, civil obedience, not disobedience. You are obeying everyone surrounding you and making a fool out of you and getting popular mileage. So always have a coterie around you, a strong effective, if possible boisterous coterie who will speak on your behalf - they can do the talking, you can do the sleeping, you will be quite tired and a spent force, physically I mean.
Morally, intellectually and spiritually you should be alert. And be sure to erect pandals and shamianas, you will need rest, in the afternoons and evenings. In fact better still you can sleep out the entire exercise. You may not feel the pangs of hunger then. So, friends, Indians and countrymen, fasting is the lasting effort towards peace, salvation, moral victory both for the incorruptible and the corrupt. You will touch the conscience of the corrupt, and reawaken the smouldering conscience of the not so- corrupt. So yes god men may also surround you, yoga men, spiritualists, and their likes.
But beware one or two could also be in the espionage system, by leaking out your dark secrets. It is also a potential source of income. If you are hospitalized (which you should be, that is one of the achievable targets, and avowed objective), then don't worry there will be many to pay your bills, even airlift you. There is every chance that you will land up in the poshest of hospitals (they can also be posh, close to hotels). So be prepared to be lifted up, before it is too late to pick you up.