Will Kamal bloom for Kejri?

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal resurfaced after months of hibernation to call on superstar Kamal Haasan to declare their joint resolve to fight corruption and communalism. Clearly, the Aam Aadmi has acquired some filmi chakkar. Kejriwal is known to be allergic to kamal ka phool but is a different kamal set to bloom south of the Vindhyas? Kamal Haasan has played so many different roles, a neta may not be difficult. In MGR and Jayalalithaa’s land, movie actors generally deliver political super hits. Kejriwal may be hoping that Kamal Haasan doesn’t play Chachi 420 with him, and Kamal must be hoping that Kejriwal’s friendship is not just a photo-op but a case of ek duuje ke liye.

There seems to be a North-South divide between Kejriwal and Kamal Hasan, but then politics is full of odd couples. Remember even Mayawati and Mulayam Singh were once allies before elephant and cycle had such a head-on collision that mercifully there were no fatalities on either side. The oddest political couple is Subramanian Swamy and Sonia Gandhi. Today Swamy is hell bent on bringing down the House of Gandhi but was once spotted with Sonia Gandhi trying to bring down the house of Vajpayee. After that famous tea party Jayalalithaa, who was also Swamy’s guest, did pull down Vajpayee showing that in politics, opposites attract because of power in their stars. Another odd couple is PM Narendra Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar whose relationship is secular one day and communal the next, leaving both singing kabhi khushi kabhi gham. There seem to be no made-for-each-other couples in politics: even the original jodi of BJP and Shiv Sena is troubled. Too much saffron seems to be spoiling the vegetarian biryani.

It’s not just Kejriwal, Kamal Haasan wants to bring Rajnikant into his star cast. If that happens, the event will be such a multi-starrer, it will have to be named Baahubali 3. At the moment, there are too many odds and evens in the Dravidian landscape. Jaya departed, Sasikala in jail, the TTV men in resorts, EPS-OPS increasingly sounding like alphabet soup, and DMK’s Stalin the senior-citizen dynast whose time, like Prince Charles, never comes. In this situation a Kamal-Rajini jodi could be more explosive than gunpowder. When it comes to shotgun marriages in politics, if miya and biwi are razi, the voter has no option but to play qazi.