Heir apparent

One octogenarian is an unhappy man. Just when he had made a blueprint for his retirement, the very blueprint of his being has been brought out in the open.

The ones to blame are the heartless court, the remorseless media and a persistent young man. There he was, a veritable James Bond, always working for the sake of the weaker sex…sorry… sections. And suddenly, the court has decreed that he shares a bond with the young man. Talk about being shaken and stirred by a Shekhar.

This is no country for old men, he broods. He regrets that people have forgotten his illustrious career in public office. His troubles started when some pesky TV channel came poking its camera into his Royal Bhavan in Hyderabad. Even after he had resigned so graciously, everyone was baying for his blood. The court especially ordered him to give a blood sample or else.

People seem to have become so blood-thirsty—especially that young man who claims to be his son. Fancy that….he’s sure he neither has senile dementia nor any children. Well, some 30-odd years ago, in his youthful fifties, he may have committed some indiscretions. But hey, these things happen when one is young and full of vim and vigour. Besides, those days were so safe— there was only faithful Doordarshan. Spy cameras didn’t spitefully pop out at you from every corner and all this new-fangled nonsense of DNA fingerprinting to confirm paternity didn’t exist.

Now one of the wild oats he had sowed in the olden days has mutated into a wild oaf….err… an angry young man. That the young man should complain is a mystery… one must agree that after this tamasha, he has pedigree as well as a law degree. The law school must have put him on to this whole scheme of troubling a poor old man. Well, he is a law unto himself and has the right to live the way he wants. Children these days don’t respect their elders – calling him an illegitimate father. Bah…then does that make the young man an illegal eagle?