Mama-tata!

After threatening to leave the government for months, Mamata Banerjee has finally decided that she's had enough, and severed ties with the UPA. This would have been much more dramatic and surprising if she didn't have a history of flip-flopping; this is the seventh time she's up and left an alliance.

I see a pattern in all this; Mamata enters an alliance and tips the scales in its favour; she spends the next few months fighting with everyone in the alliance, and then she leaves in a huff. And does this again, and again, and again. We are lucky that her policies are not taught as strategy to people everywhere, because then we could end up with something like this:

1. The British Royal Family would embrace the paparazzi: For some time, Prince Harry and Kate Middleton would actually send pictures to TMZ instead of waiting for intrusions, but they would change after a few months to their current risk-averse selves, and ban all pictures. After 3 months, they would get bored again and start a website with naughty pictures of themselves. This would keep them entertained for a few hundred days before they went back to sending pictures to the press.

2. People on youtube would say nice things sometimes: As of now, people on youtube mainly make racist and hateful comments on videos. But, in Mamata-world, they would first say nice things, and then start complaining a little, and then a lot, and finally get pissed, talk about how the video is not helping the common man, and then go to another video to begin again.

3. Govinda would broaden his range: Govinda does not act in many different types of movies, preferring to alternate between the silly and very silly. If he learnt from Didi, he would spend a year acting in art movies made by serious directors, and then a year starring in Hollywood blockbusters, and then fight with Sylvester Stallone and come back to India to star in lowest-common-multiple comedies.

4. Tom would get over Jerry: If you think of the classic cartoon, Tom and Jerry are very faithful to each other; they will have no other sworn enemies. If Mamata was a fictional role model, Tom would make up with Jerry and start chasing Spike, or the lady who owns both of them, or his own shadow. Of course, he would ultimately get bored and come back to Jerry, for the good of the common people.

5. The fabric of society would break down: If relationships went the Didi-route, every man and woman in the world would hook up with a new group every few months, before talking to the press about his/her hate of everyone in the group, and then breaking up publicly. And then do it all again. Families and commitment would be things of the past.

6. Indian cricket fans: Would complain about their team all the time, and shift loyalties after a single bad performance. They would be as changeable as the wind, and call for the immediate termination of any player having a bad day. It would be impossible to please them.

Hold on a second, all that is true even now. Are we like Mamata?