Sanctimonia Binocs, Bhubaneswar, 5 August 2025
Hark, ye perpetually bewildered and increasingly cynical citizens of Sanctimonia! A strange and unsettling calm has descended upon our kingdom. Our king, a man whose soul is as easily soothed as his royal coffers are drained, is reportedly a relieved figure. The two young girls, whose tragic immolation had cast a pall of grief and outrage over the land, are now gone. Their death rituals are complete, and with it, a certain royal expediency has been achieved. The grapevine, that ever-vigilant messenger of uncomfortable truths, whispers that the king had paid a hefty sum to the girls’ guardians, a final, grim transaction to ensure their public plea was to “not politicize the matter.” And so they did, their words a hollow echo of a sorrow that could never truly be bought off.
Meanwhile, our Deputy CM, a man whose grasp of statistics is as tenuous as a kite string in a hurricane, has presented a new, bewildering set of “facts.” He proudly declares that the Kharif crop saw a glorious 35% decline in chemical usage! A triumph for organic farming, one might think, until one realizes he is utterly unable to provide data on the number of acres actually cultivated. Did the decline in chemicals correspond with a decline in crops? The netizens are left to wonder, their heads spinning with agricultural algebra that defies all logic.
The Urban Minister, a man now permanently in a tizzy, finds himself entangled in a losing battle. His grand plans for land consolidation, a noble pursuit to bring order to Sanctimonia’s chaotic urban sprawl, are being thwarted at every turn. Land mafias, emboldened by the king’s distracted leadership, are pulling his clothes every time he even utters the words “land consolidation,” leaving him in a perpetual state of undress and public humiliation.
Our Law Minister, that sulking Cassius, has gone completely off the grid. Reports place him in a star palace, a grand domicile belonging to the ex-coal minister, where he and Brutus are engaged in a secretive and quite literal “drinking on the job” session. The irony, however, is that he is blissfully unaware of the king’s latest grand decree: a final, desperate order for more courts to clear the backlog of pending cases. He schemes for betrayal while the very system he presides over is being fundamentally restructured without his knowledge.
The netizens, caught between a morally bankrupt king, a mathematically challenged minister, and a disrobed urban planner, are not amused. And neither is the Jester. He, whose dancing had once brought such joy to the kingdom, is now grounded, his movements curtailed by a far more pressing issue: his shoes have torn. He is seen in a quiet corner, meticulously trying to repair the worn-out soles, a poignant symbol of a kingdom where even laughter is now a strenuous, wearisome effort.
Sanctimonia, it seems, is a kingdom where justice is bought off, agricultural data is an enigma, and ministers plot betrayal over fine spirits, while the king’s decrees pass unnoticed and the jester’s shoes fall apart. The future, dear netizens, remains as uncertain as the contents of the Law Minister’s next drink.
