The BigB factor: Kejriwal exudes a giddy appeal of a superstar in Delhi

Having been brought up on a steady diet of Amitabh Bachchan films dished out on single screens in small towns of India, I always get swayed by the filmy drama at election rallies. Thundering dialogue, witty ripostes and a bit of dancing and singing never fail to raise my adrenaline levels. But nothing is more scintillating than a grand entry: the moment the hero appears for the first time on the screen. When Bachchan was at his peak, his first appearance made the audience go berserk. For a few minutes you could only hear rapturous clapping, catcalls and the sound of coins falling in  aisles. Bachchan had the height, persona, voice and charisma to bring theatres to a boil. But could anybody have imagined AK Hangal getting a similar seeti-bajao reception? Imagine my surprise then when I saw the AK of politics get a reception that would have made the noise in a Bachchan film sound like a sigh in comparison. At a rally in Okhla a few days ago, there was so much pandemonium at Arvind Kejriwal’s arrival that it seemed like a mix of a thunderstorm, earthquake and the kind of applause that would have erupted in Pakistan when Javed Miandad hit Chetan Sharma for that famous last-ball six. [caption id=“attachment_2083573” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Arvind Kejriwal. Naresh Sharma/Firstpost[/caption] I have been a politics junkie since my schooldays. I have hazy memories of Indira Gandhi speaking (must have been August 10, 1984) in a small town of Rajasthan and watching Rajiv Gandhi live at a rally in Udaipur a few days before his assassination. In 2013-14, I must have attended dozens of Narendra Modi election meetings. When I saw Modi last, the ground was filled with lakhs of people who he was conducting like an orchestra by using his hands like a baton. But the Kejriwal rally was different. A puny little man in a red-sweater that exaggerated his evolving paunch, Chacha Chaudhary-isque moustache and a spasmodic cough that violently shook his tiny frame was making the crowd go crazy on the streets of Okhla. It seemed like a comical fantasy; a cinematic equivalent of Amol Palekar triggering delirious joy with his dishum-dishum. But this was just quintessential Kejriwal. The crowd clapped, shouted and then jostled so hard that it almost led to a stampede. Asphyxiated, some of the women in the front-rows almost fainted and had to be rescued by the security men accompanying Kejriwal. Amidst this mayhem, his shoulders squared, chest thrust forward, stood Kejriwal almost at the edge of the make-shift platform; toe-to-toe with his fans, eye-to-eye with his foes. This, in essence, is the magic of Kejriwal. He has been slapped in the past, manhandled, ridiculed and abused; his life is just as important as that of any other politician. But, in an age, where politicians hide behind bulletproof vests, cabins and speak to the audience from a distant dais that almost resembles a pulpit; Kejriwal lets nothing come between him and his supporters. He gives the distinct impression of being one of them; with all the vulnerabilities of the aam aadmi but none of his fears. “If I am guilty, come and put me behind bars,” he dared the finance minister, who earlier in the day had alleged that Kejriwal was caught ‘red handed’ in the ‘funding scam.’ And this looks cinematically similar to that famous Bachchan dialogue, “Peter, tum log mujhe dhoond rahe ho aur mein tumhara yahan intezaar kar raha hun.” Or, when his source of finances is questioned, his “I take money only through cheques” sounds almost like ‘Main aaj bhi pheke hue paise nahin uthata.’ Only the baritone is replaced by an apologetic cough. The angry old man, the crusader against the system has always been an Indian hero. Till only a few days ago, Modi had occupied that slot with his relentless fight against the corrupt and unfair Congress. But like Bachchan, who later morphed into an uber rich Sexy Sam in expensive suits from the vigilante coolie in oversized shirts, Modi has ceded that spot to Kejriwal, at least in the streets of Delhi. As every opinion poll reveals, Modi is still the hero of the middle-class and the rich, but Kejriwal has become the messiah of the masses. To carry on with the Bachchan metaphor, Modi is now the Amitabh of the multiplexes while Kejriwal has usurped the role of the Vijay of single-screen cinemas. In this battle of classes, even his fragility is working for Kejriwal. India, after all, is the land of Gandhi. Somewhere deep down in our psyche, we still believe in the image of a ‘semi-naked’ fakir taking on the mighty British without, as the famous song goes, without a kharag or a dhaal (sword or shield). Kejriwal is neither Bachchan nor Gandhi. But in the minds of his fans, the two subconscious images are certainly converging to give rise to a fascinating fantasy.