Mr. Tambourine Man

Everything the Light Touches

I stood on the top floor of the Civil Courts Complex today and looked at Bangalore spread out in three directions around me. "Everything the light touches..." from The Lion King just flashed through my mind.

Let me be brutally honest - I've always been a power-hungry freak. From the quiet, reassuring power of Vito Corleone, to the violent, aggressive power of Hitler, and from the economically driven power of a corporate magnate to the ever-so-fragile power of the leader of an Indian coalition, power has always intrigued and fascinated me.

People have always had a tendency to advertise against power - "With great power comes great responsibility", all those news reports about powerful people being killed, (People even had the balls to take at shot at the Godfather!) and how power can get to you...

I've still loved the thought of being in power. The thought of being able to control. The entire Big Brother effect. The thought of having people respect you, fear you, despise you. It fascinates me.

I've spent hours planning out my strategies to dominate the world - how I will rise in the Indian political scenario. My coalition partners in the different states, and how I'll get more powerful than all of them and bring non-coalition politics back into India. There is no great moral motive behind this - frankly, I think coalition politics keeps a check on the dictatoral tendencies that a particular Government might have (Especially considering the Opposition only stages walkouts and does no other 'watchdog' role).

I also love digressing... Getting back to where I started - it was when I looked at Bangalore from that height that those pictures from movies where people are always shown at a height when someone wants to depict power and control over an area struck me.

I could almost see the day when I would take my son to the top of the Utility Building in Bangalore and say, "Everything the Light Touches", just like Muffasa said to Simba atop Pride Rock. (pardon me if I got the names wrong - haven't seen the movie in ages)

posted by aandthirtyeights @ 9:46 AM