My dear Iron Man Part II,
Hope you are doing fine and enjoying your characteristic health and vitality by virtue of which, even as an octogenarian, you can give a person in the prime of youth a run for his or her money. Having set the tone with a few good words about your virtues, I would now like to inform you that my heart bleeds at the sight of whatever is happening to you these days. The very people, who once claimed that you were made of steel and bestowed upon you the sobriquet of "Lauh Purush", have now started generating heat around you with the hope that you will melt like wax. Your sycophants may tell you that you are better off than the retired soldier who has been summarily booted out while you had to simply "step down". But I am sure you see the irony of two incomparable men being talked about in the same breath. The man singularly responsible for the organisation's single-digit to three-digit journey, can in no way be compared with the second-rung para-trooper who, whether in or out of office, has done little more than cool his heels at the hill station he has now chosen over his original desert home! Moreover, your personal integrity and good nature has endeared you to many people who do not even agree with you on anything and hence often your misadventures like the infamous chariot ride are viewed with a bit of sympathy. We all understand the anguish of a person who had been rendered homeless by the numerous agreements reached around round tables which ultimately drove away the Empire in which the sun did never set. On the other hand, our latest rabble-rouser is, at the most, realising the inconsequentiality of his life, dabbling in polemics. Every illustrious career has to come to an end but it is painful to see the end coming with so much of disgrace. This disgrace, indeed, is much more unfortunate than the fact that you had to spend your hey days under the shadow of your less industrious but more ingenious senior partner. But please allow me to say that you have invited this disgrace, simply by ignoring a cardinal principle of the very faith your ideologues proclaim to follow. You forgot the virtue of Silence extolled in the tradition you claim to follow. On the other hand, you continued to put your foot in your mouth both through your tongue as well as your pen. What was the need for making incredible claims of ignorance about the bunch of people who were flown, against their wishes, from the Himalayas to the Hindukush? Did your naive explanations convince anybody? They only provoked your detractors and continue to do so. (Just look at the latest ramblings from the retired soldier, who is being joined by the retired bureaucrat). You could have taken a cue from the inhabitants of your native place, who have not tried to explain away their hour of national shame more than three decades ago. This has given your counterparts on the other side of the boundary the opportunity to kick sand in the eyes of their own people who continue to see people on this side as aggressors while remaining mostly oblivious to the threats they face from their own lords. Only recently, you annoyed many admirers of your sobriety by your vitriolic attacks on the turbaned gentleman and his perceived weaknesses. We know you are reticent by nature and this, perhaps, explains why your attempts at loquaciousness are always disasters. Now, that you may be facing the last major challenge of your life, it may not be a bad idea to heed the suggestion by an old comrade of yours who was shown the door for calling a spade a spade (to be precise, a mask a mask). You must now do yourself and your admirers a service by refraining from soiling your hands in the humdrums. People may now benefit more by your advices than your active involvement in the affairs of the power game. Hope you will take this in the right spirit.
With best wishes,
Well-wisher.
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