TINA

Dear TINA,

You have left me with no alternative (if you'll pardon the puns), except this feeling of helplessness. All we could do was watch whatever was handed out to us. Cynicism had led us to curse you, dear TINA, you who has been there for the past thirty years, right alongside the Left Front government, their bosom pal, whom they strove to preserve. We never realized your presence when we were growing up. Not that we registered any political presence at that time to speak of. But now that we have seen what you imply, our frustration is growing. What do we do? Your presence so effectively erases the ultimate solution a democracy has to its problems. But then again, it seems we have slipped from our position as a democracy. In that case, TINA, your presence has been justified and we were fools not to recognize the threat you pose now, earlier. 

Hope had been lost when we first recognized your face for an inevitability, TINA. But hope is now returning. There are other ways other than the obvious way. We shall find them. For now the time has finally come when people have been too deeply betrayted to be comforted by their apathy anymore and they have thrown down their blankets of endless, cynical, hedging talk and decided enough is enough. Anger is pure and primal. And for us, it spells the re-incarnation of hope. Even in your face, oh TINA.  We don't need the paltry excuses for opposition that you give us to chew on. As far as we are concerned, we are the only opposition this government truly has to fear. There are intelligent courses of action, and we shall take them now. No escapist withdrawal into the arms of polite debate or the mindless tantrum of a bandh shall suffice, for we chafe for action. Your lover has spilt blood on the ground, TINA, and we have smelt it. 

Your love affair is over, TINA and the Left Front. There is a force called civil society which you never had to encounter before, but which has mustered its forces now. And yes, there is a force behind the talk, or atleast, there is a force NOW. And NOW is what matters, is it not TINA? For in anywhen, in any now, you can be deposed. And we are about to make sure that happens......somehow.

TINA, TINA, you bitch, I'm through.