Sanctimonia Binocs, Bhubaneswar, 14 August 2025
Hark, ye perpetually bewildered and linguistically besieged citizens of Sanctimonia! Our king, a man whose mind is as cluttered as his royal desk (from which, one presumes, the snakes have been temporarily removed), has found a novel way to address the kingdom’s profound malaise. To bring “some consolation,” he has issued a final, baffling decree: all citizens are hereby forbidden from using the words “suicide” and “self-immolation.” In the royal mind, if the words are erased, the problem itself will simply cease to exist. This has, of course, caught the netizens entirely by surprise, as every one of their petitions and grievances, from the crumbling education system to the rising despair, had hinged on these very terms.
The minister of revenue, in a display of bureaucratic brilliance only possible in Sanctimonia, has a plan to deal with the striking revenue inspectors. He has threatened to cut their quota of milk! The logic, it seems, is that if milk prices are already skyrocketing, then a shortage of the precious liquid will surely force the inspectors back to work.
But wait! A new, equally perplexing declaration has emerged. Our Urban Minister, a man whose promises are as fleeting as a passing cloud, has announced that the metro railway project is back on track and, even more astonishingly, the Super King is going to fund it! This comes as a shock to the netizens, who had long since resigned themselves to the Jester’s shelved plans.
Amidst this chaos, our Forest Minister is still on a futile quest, his eyes darting from shadow to shadow as he looks for the elusive snakes that slithered into the king’s office. His official duties, like the rest of the kingdom’s pressing issues, have been placed on a back burner.
The Deputy CM, a woman of once-unflinching determination, is now a portrait of distress. She watches, helpless, as female suicides and other heinous crimes against women continue to rise in her constituency. The king, however, is a man of grand visions and even grander pronouncements. He has proudly declared that Sanctimonia is poised to become the best kingdom of all, for it will soon have a new semiconductor factory! The netizens, in their weary state, are left to ponder the same question: Where, oh where, is the land going to be given for this factory, given the sheer size and stringent requirements for such a facility?
The citizens, caught in this whirlpool of bizarre decrees, unkept promises, and rising despair, are completely confused. How can they possibly tackle the price rise when the minister is threatening to cut milk quotas? How can they address the soaring crime rate when the king simply orders them to change their vocabulary? The police, for their part, have thrown up their hands in a gesture of collective defeat. They can no longer control the situation.
Their only hope, their last recourse, is to look up to the Holy Triad, their silent prayers a desperate plea for salvation. God save the kingdom, indeed, from its leaders and from a future where words are banned, promises are empty, and hope is as scarce as a cool glass of affordable milk.
