Now UP can watch banned ‘My Sandal’, a play based on Maya’s footwear scandal!
Lucknow: in late January this year, a satirical play allegedly depicting the extravagant lifestyle of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati was banned by her government. Now that she has been unseated, reports say that the play will unveil itself soon on the UP stage. Even though the director of the play Mukesh Kumar denied any connection with the chief minister, Lucknow district magistrate had then declared “the play titled ‘My Sandal’ was in utter violation of the election model code of conduct and therefore its staging could not be permitted”.
The story line of the play is a dead giveaway that the play depicts none other than Mayawati. Even the names of characters are similar to those close to the CM. The play is about ‘Maya’, a queen who rules a country called ‘Mayanagri’ . She is obsessed about high-quality sandals, which are bought from the Arab world. Her sycophants gift her sandals. One such precious pair is bought by her devoted nobles as gift for her birthday. But since the event is still some time away, the nobles decide to keep the priceless gift in the queen’s treasury.
However, the sandals are accidentally gobbled up by Maya’s favourite elephant, who necessarily feeds on jewels stacked in the treasury to which the animal has free access. The worried nobles seek the good offices of the kingdom’s exiled doctor, widely known for doing the impossible. They implore him to give the elephant some drug so that the sandals come out of the elephant together with the jewels. The medicines do the magic and the sandals slip out. But the jewels are missing. Instead, what comes out are documents exposing the Queen’s corrupt practices, which triggers a revolt.
Raw material for the play?
What else but the Wikileaks! Confidential US Embassy cables leaked by WikiLeaks in September 2011 portrayed UP chief minister as a virtual dictator, who had food tasters to sample her meals and “a security entourage to rival a head of state”. An assessment of the chief minister in an October 2008 cable, ‘Mayawati: Portrait of a Lady’ also describes how she once dispatched a plane to fetch her favourite sandals from Mumbai. “When she needed new sandals, her private jet flew empty to Mumbai to retrieve her preferred brand,” the cable said.
Despite Mayawati’s outrages however, one wonders if a satirical play based on the current government has to wait for a change of regime all over again, or young Akhilesh Yadav would prove more willing to be made fun of!
[Courtesy: The Times of India]