Health of the nation

If corruption is a malady, many VVIPs seem overly illness-prone. Is that why our politicos know exactly when to develop tummy turmoil, cardio-capers, lung collapses, pancreatic perforations, lily-liver malfunction and - lest we forget - expedient amnesia? Accused of moral malaise, where do VIPs go? To ICU. In that well-chosen operation theatre, they take intensive care to avoid extensive probing. Call it our netas' self-love in the time of cholera. Or is it dementia?

But hold on to your stethoscopes. "My mind, my brain is all okay," declares ex-Commonwealth Games organising committee boss Suresh Kalmadi, rubbishing reports of suffering from dementia, a disease linked to memory loss. Can he claim otherwise, with all those kambakht MRI scans showing little evidence of his losing total recall? No mental bhool-bhulaiyya afflicts this Congressman accused of Games-related shenanigans. That's a pity, some say. Isn't forgetfulness a fortuitous medical emergency for politicos kept in jail? Grill them on alleged acts of omission and commission. They'll omit everything and commit to nothing. On spin doctor's orders.

Since his fall from grace, Kalmadi's been examined for the three Ds: dementia, diabetes, dil ka daura. Going from CWG to ECG fits with hallowed tradition. When ex-Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda was accused of illicit moneymaking, he got a tummy bug of crampingly long duration. Timely indispositions go beyond politics. Diagnosed as ailing, ex-Satyam chairman Ramalinga Raju - charged with corporate fraud - graced a hospital's VIP suite till the judiciary rapped him out of it. Indeed, health monitoring is now our national mission. Don't we need to fathom the elusive allergies, undetectable ulcers and new-fangled neuroses of the scam-hit on life support?

There can be three remedies. One, let's attach our prisons to super-speciality hospitals. After all, the list of tainted celebrities getting arrested is growing by the day. As are their exotic disorders - from competitive foot-in-mouth to rent-a-colic, from moral abscess to amoral contagion. Two, VIPs-at-risk can SOS Baba Ramdev. His followers swear by his panaceas for everything from baldness to swine flu. Why, if love is a pathological condition, he has even unwittingly cured glam-girl Rakhi Sawant of her crush on Rahul baba. True, she now looks upon the Swami as a hoped-for swami. But that's another - perhaps less treatable - heart flutter.

Three, floored by the yoga guru's anti-corruption crusade, the 'It' girl can join his camp. That'll boost national immunity. Here's how. Team Anna will lose the crowds to Baba Ramdev's oomph-aided public dos and be compelled to join him. That will unify the anti-graft ranks. Plus, police raids of the Ramlila Maidan-type won't happen: tear-gassers and lathi-chargers will watch rather than disrupt Rakhi's anti-bhrashtachaar reality show. Finally, with cops not breaking up fasts and protests, their political masters' doctor-patient games will be stymied. Corruption will become less of an active virus. The ultrasound and the fury will subside.

The upshot? Political convalescents will come to view moral health as - you guessed it - common wealth. What say, Kalmadi?