The Man from Madras Musings has never visited RK Nagar, the locality that is forever in the throes of an election. He did toy with the idea of visiting this hotspot some days ago, but then along came the news that the election had been cancelled and, so, MMM decided to do the same to his planned visit.
One of the chief reasons that MMM wanted to go to RK Nagar was that he had come to know that the place rained cash. Apparently, the Gross Domestic Product of this particular constituency of India has risen so sharply in one week or so that there were rumours of it soon declaring itself an independent nation and, if that was not feasible, looking at the possibility of electing a representative to the US Senate. Families of, say, four, suddenly found themselves earning in five figures, each member being showered with cash. Whoever disbursed the moolah was most democratic, for the money was given to all, irrespective of caste, creed, gender and age. With the money coming in, daughters could be married off, children educated and men could open accounts at the local liquor outlet. In short, happiness abounded. Talks had commenced on the possibility of RK Nagar buying up land in other and better laid out parts of Chennai where a new RK Nagar could be built. That idea was, however, rendered unnecessary when one of the electoral hopefuls declared that, if elected, he would so institutionalise the Tamil Nadu sport of land grab that RK Nagar denizens need not think of spending their hard-earned cash on such frivolous pursuits as buying land. They merely needed to indicate the property of their choice and it would be theirs.
Nobody is quite sure as to where the cash was coming from. Some said a mysterious hat was being passed around and, rather like the ones used by magicians, people needed to merely dip their hand in it to take out the money. Those that opposed the hat smelt a rat. Chief among these was a group that when it was not dancing around an electric pole was busy carting around a rather ghastly effigy of its late leader lying in a coffin. A smaller group that rowed a boat in search of the vote was not happy either. Those that swore by the rising sun opined that dark deeds were done in the dark alone and not by their group. Let’s fight the honest fight, they said. There was, however, a strong rumour that a cashless man from Delhi was not too happy with the quantity of cash floating around in RK Nagar. This way, he feared, RK Nagar could become a tax haven of sorts rather like those shady islands and tiny European nations.
And that led to the RK Nagar elections being cancelled.

Lesson not learnt from RK Nagar poll cancellation

The people of RK Nagar are happy. They get to keep their rupees and, as and when the elections happen again, there will be more money. Not so happy is the rest of the city for it never saw the colour of the money and, what’s more, lost the one opportunity of a public holiday.
The hat party is, so MMM understands, hopping mad. The electrical pole group is looking for a warehouse to store the effigy and coffin. The boat has at present weighed anchor. As for rising sun, it is temporarily in eclipse, but hopes for better times.