Tera hero idhar hai: 5 alternative careers for AAP's Kejriwal

Arvind Kejriwal’s ‘one dharna a day, keeps the big brothers at bay’ mantra worked fabulously in a poll-bound Delhi. The city’s romance with the Aam Aadmi Party was straight out of a college freshers’ slam-book – uncritical, un-cynical and even enamoured with idiosyncrasies as disturbing as Kejriwal’s public bathroom-singing. And oh, the jhadu, which never had any place in civilised political discourse, was suddenly the epitome of pop chic. Then Somnath Bharti decided to play moral vigilante and turned up at Khirkee Extension. The rest is history – the kind AAP seems to be in a hurry to forget. Till the day before the Lok Sabha polls, the AAP chief went to town crying how he quit the government, not because Varanasi promised a juicier political pie, but on moral grounds. However, with the Lok Sabha poll results ringing the alarm bell loud and clear for him, Arvind Kejriwal decided to do a course correction for himself and the party. And how? By going to jail. While he may love playing martyr, Kejriwal’s lock-up antics no more invokes the kind of Gandhian nostalgia that it used to. The crusader for the truth is now seen with the kind of wariness people reserve for half-celebrities who sign up for reality shows like the Bigg Boss. Given that his theatrics might just cost Kejriwal his political career, here are a list of options floating around in social media that AAP chief can explore. 1. Owning an IPL team [caption id=“attachment_1539435” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Arvind Kejriwal. Agencies.[/caption] Given his never-diminishing penchant for drama, Arvind Kejriwal treats politics exactly the way IPL team owners view cricket - one giant spectacle. Like IPL has almost erased the memory of staid old one-day cricket, Kejriwal’s daily dharna rituals have almost made us forget how real political battles are fought – preferably without usurping footpath space from the street dogs. Before Kejriwal makes Didi, far away in Kolkata, nostalgic about her past -and sends her back to rolling on the streets – we ask someone quickly get AK-47 his own IPL team.  With the league worried about losing audience interest, they will welcome Kejriwal’s special brand of cricket activism. And all he’ll need is to wrap his head in a muffler and plonk himself right in the centre of a cricket pitch! 2. Rahul Gandhi’ speech trainer Rahul Gandhi may not have a gift for winning elections, but he certainly has a talent for unintended comedy thanks to his bizarre metaphors. But now he will have to do better if he wants to remain the leader of the Congress – and avoid escape velocity of a different kind. With Kejriwal away from politics, Gandhi can hire him as a speech trainer - so that when he opens his mouth next, India is not likened to some kind of insect. Unlike Narendra Modi, who rummaged through the Urdu dictionary to find nicknames for the Gandhis and Rahul Gandhi, who used all his hours of watching Animal Planet, Kejriwal has kept it simple and yet managed to run a party for two straight years, and a government for a month and half! In fact, he must have said, ‘brashtachar’ more times than Modi said ‘mitron’ and no one complained. So in case the Gandhi boy is keen on a career in politics instead of preparing to steal Katrina Kaif’s endorsement deals, Kejriwal is possibly the right man to help him choose his words. 3. Host Newshour … And ask Meenakshi Lekhi to shut up - and watch in dazed wonder as she obeys!  What could work better for Kejriwal’s bruised ego at this moment than have one person each from his much hated parties turn up all powdered and happy in a televised debate, only to be put down like tiffin-stealing seven-year-olds in school. If anyone can top Arnab’s capacity for over-the-top moral outrage it is the ultimate aam aadmi. A news channel debate, come to think of it, is Arvind Kejriwal’s dream come true. Yeah, he will miss the live action of being dragged away by the police, but there should be enough tamasha around to remind him of good old pre-Modi days! Sure, he isn’t exactly loud, but Kejriwal makes up for the lack of volume with that relentless, unceasing squeaky monotone. And on a particularly memorable day at the job, he may even have his own rap remix on YouTube! 4. Sign up to be the Bigg Boss You have always suspected it, but his new-found predilection for Tihar is probably damning evidence that you were right all along! Bigg Boss presents Kejriwal with thrilling challenges right up his alley - like making sure everyone gets an omelette of the same size for breakfast, everyone has taken the same number of turns to occupy a bean bag beside the pool and separate fellow contestants as they call each other  ‘animal’. This is the most excruciating test of governance that Kejriwal will ever face. And anyone who says Narendra Modi is a bigger challenge than Dolly Bindra has evidently been living in a parallel Congress universe! 5. Bollywood - and Prakash Jha is waiting! Chances are that after Satyagraha, most actors in their right minds and with Rohit Shetty in plain sight, might refuse to act in another Prakash Jha film.  Kejriwal would be the perfect B-wood replacement for Jha. He can make up better dialogues, as for instance, “Yeh jeet Arvind Kerjriwal ki nahin hai, Delhi ki janta ki hai.”  Add to that his routine ‘main to ek bahut chhota insaan hoon’ and you have a box office busting potboiler that will make Manoj Kumar happy. Alternatively, Madhur Bhandarkar is also looking for a post-Heroine comeback. And ‘Parliament’ seems like just what he needs at this moment. Now if only Kejriwal would agree to slide into a ganji, and talk to the jhadu in a drunken moment of self-realisation.