Where does one hide a leaf?

So faint was that frigid starlight that nothing could have been traced about them except that while they both wore black, one man was enormously big, and the other (perhaps by contrast) almost startlingly small. They went up to the great graven tomb of the historic warrior, and stood for a few minutes staring at it. There was no human, perhaps no living, thing for a wide circle; and a morbid fancy might well have wondered if they were human themselves. In any case, the beginning of their conversation might have seemed strange. After the first silence the small man said to the other:

"Where does a wise man hide a pebble?"

And the tall man answered in a low voice: "On the beach."

The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: "Where does a wise man hide a leaf?"

And the other answered: "In the forest."

There was another stillness, and then the tall man resumed: "Do you mean that when a wise man has to hide a real diamond he has been known to hide it among sham ones?"

"No, no," said the little man with a laugh, "we will let bygones be bygones."

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They were soon in the most secret entrails of the wood, and felt close about them foliage that they could not see, when the priest said again:

"Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest?"

"Well, well," cried Flambeau irritably, "what does he do?"

"He grows a forest to hide it in," said the priest in an obscure voice. "A fearful sin."

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There was still no reply, and the priest added still more mildly and quietly:

"And if a man had to hide a dead body, he would make a field of dead bodies to hide it in." (Excerpts from the 'Sign of the Broken Sword' in the book 'The Innocence of Father Brown' by G K Chesterton (Father Brown stories are arguably the finest detective stories ever written. I place Father Brown in a higher pedestial than even Sherlock Holmes))

It looks like our politicians are great favourites of Father Brown Stories. I can almost hear them asking their Flambeaus,

"Where does a crooked politician hide an embarassing problem?"

"He creates a myriad of numerous other problems to hide it in"

The most critical problem facing the country today is the 11% plus inflation which has adversely affected all the people barring none in the country. Instead of talking about it and finding solutions about it, what does the PM and the Congress party do?.

They hid this problem in a host of other problems like the Indo-US nuclear deal (which frankly is of interest to no one other than the silly and stubborn Manmohan Singh and the obstinate Prakash Karat as the deal, if implemented, is not going to make any dent in either the energy security or the life of the common man), transfer of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine by a Governor who is a Congress stooge (the Governor had already been replaced when he executed an order which none of the Hindus ever asked and which even a child knows will create communal discord considering that it is an election year in Kashmir. That the issue exposed once again the ugly side of Islamic non tolerance of other religions is another matter), Prime Minister threatening not to attend the G-8 summit if deal is not operationalised (as if it matters a great deal to us if he chose not to go) and so on.

Look at the main opposition party. They care a fig if there is double digit inflation. Instead of calling for a prolonged agitation against the Government on this issue that has the support of all the people, they called for a Bharath Bandh on thursday to protest against the revoking of order of land transfer to Amarnath Yathra, which is a much trivial issue at this stage.

The venerable communists are no better. When Nandigram was burning, they instigated a few fanatic muslims to throw stones at the Bangladeshi Author Taslima Nasree who was then residing in Calcutta, hounded her first out of the State and finally out of the Country. All to divert the attention.

There are classic cases from the past. Indira Gandhi creating a fictional crisis and imposed Emergency to escape from being disqualified after the Allahabad High Court indicted her and her son Rajiv Gandhi sending Indian Troops to Srilanka for a Peace Keeping Mission which no one asked for (the biggest political and military disaster in post independance India that led to spiralling inflation and death of thousands of our young soldiers) to divert attention from the Bofors problem faced by him.

History repeats...........................

'Where does one hide a leaf?' ...............................................................