Circe, the enchantress of Greek pantheon, transformed the companions of Odysseus into beasts but when she visited the Punjab in the wake of invasion led by wanderlust obsessed Alexander, she strangely did the opposite; she turned our indigenous beasts into men. And as these men in the shape of their offspring roam about this land of rivers, their behaviour is markedly different from that of ordinary mortals, for they still preserve the minds of beasts. Why, despite the change of exterior form, the inner core is maintained intact, is not the subject of the fuming debates we are condemned to watch on our electronic media.

The beasts turned men have power, bequeathed by their pedigree, to inspire awe and shock that enable them to be leaders of the pack called people. Hired media pundits as analysts and experts, concealing the origins of such men and their power, mumble their arcane mantras (read titbits gathered from ‘reliable sources’) that these are special beings endowed with hitherto undiscovered extraordinary human qualities, not found among the ordinary mortals. Being extraordinary, the learned pundits explain, theirs are extraordinary needs and they are endowed by nature to do extraordinary things.

For example, an ordinary mortal needs 16th of an acre to construct a livable house but the extraordinary requires no less than 10 acres to build his residence, perhaps rightly so because of his beastly origins, he needs larger space to snuffle. The former is happy with a bicycle or a motorbike or at the most a small economy car for his travel needs while the latter requires a custom-built limousine to move around, for being what he actually is, he needs a larger space to shuffle.

The ordinary one needs monthly income of less than 1,000 US dollar to be able to live a reasonably good life while the extraordinary requires no less than half a million US dollar every month to ‘pay his bills’, for the bigger the belly the greater the expenses. The former is comfortable with every Joe to talk his heart out using his mother tongue while the latter has disdain for a gathering of less than tens of thousands to enlighten it with his lofty thoughts in a language that is alien but full of codes and ciphers, promising everything to anyone who is ready to follow him.

The extraordinary things our extraordinary man has to do are little more than to give command. Explaining and analysing command, Elias Canetti in his remarkable book ‘Crowds and Power’ writes, “an important part of commands is that they come from outside; they are one of the constituents of life which are imposed on us, not something which develops out of ourselves. Even those solitaries who appear from time to time and, with a whole arsenal of commands -- still retain the appearance of men on whom an alien burden has been laid. It is never in their own name that they speak; what they demand of other is what they have been told to demand and, whatever lies they may tell, are honest in this: they believe that they have been sent”.

Our solitaries, of course believe, they have been sent, forgetting it was Circe who sent them. But unintended happens, for the people, week as they are in mind, take what is ominously unusual as something that is of heavenly origins. Hence the beasts turned men become the chosen ones worthy of being obeyed. ‘Having been sent’ becomes their source of strength with the consequent right to command. And command though an imposition from outside, when unfolds as a sign emanating from above and beyond, assumes the character of an imperative, a categorical order, not to be questioned. So the task of our solitaries to do extraordinary things gets defined: command. Command the people to do the things, not in their name but in the name of higher forces i.e. ideals. So they command the people in the name of nation, state and society. They command the people to work more so that their ilk could work less. They command the people to produce more so that their ilk could produce less. They command the people to pay more taxes so that their ilk could pay less. Perfectly compatible with the minds of beasts that they have, it’s always less when it comes to giving and always more when it comes to taking.

Some of our people who dream dreams have been waiting since long for an Odysseus to appear and force the enchantress to restore the beasts turned men to their original form with the intent of consigning them where they belong; Jungle. Sadly in our age, the age of ordinary human beings, no hero or saviour is strong enough to perform miracles the past history, real and imagined, talks of. Collective strength of the lesser men alone is the way to overwhelm the beasts and demons that have been sent to this land with a view to controlling its destiny. In order to be the masters of their destiny people need Shiva’s third eye; the eye that can see through and beyond, the eye with its retina animated by cosmic consciousness. And they need his trident too, an organised force, to rip apart what reduces men into lesser men.