The Hindu Business Line : Celebrity cards: The new money-spinners

Naturally, neither you nor I would want to open the mail and find ourselves staring at one of our bete noir. I prefer Christmas cards with Santa Claus on them or New Year cards with the year on them. But our politicians have millions of cha mchas who will rush out and buy these cards.

I HAVE just had a wonderful idea to make money very fast. And this does not even involve a scam.

Well, it is a scam of sorts but certainly not criminal in any way. Someone beat me to the idea but I doubt they have seen the full potential of their brain wave.

This "someone" created greeting cards with the images/phonographs of Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Bihar Boss of Bosses. (I know he is not the CM, for sure, but he figures more in the press than the present CM). According to a news snippet, these cards sold faster than hot chapattis.

Even before they could be displayed, they were "sold out". Now in Bihar "sold out" does not mean what it means in other parts of this country.

Outside Bihar "sold out" means good people went out to pay good money for the hot item.

In Bihar, "sold out" could mean that a person went in with the popular Bihari credit card, usually a rifle or a pistol, and "bought" the cards.

This Bihari credit card can get you brand new cars, brand new furniture, TV sets, refrigerators, air-conditioners, petrol, electricity, telephones or any item in any shop.

And you do not even have to show any ID or wait for the shopkeeper to swipe your rifle/pistol through one of those credit card machines that whirr and clack away to approve the sale.

As these Laloo greeting cards were so popular, even Laloo himself could not "buy" one. This could only mean that Laloo is so popular with his people that they rushed in waving their Bihari credit cards and bought up every Laloo card in sight.

They then wrote their loving messages in them and sent them off to all their loved relatives and friends. (Is there a postal system in Bihar? And if there is, do people buy stamps?).

However, a different scenario is that all the faithful followers of Laloo, seeing the image of their beloved leader on the card, "bought" them up.

As we all know political chamchas, of which there are millions, do such things in order to gain the notice of their leaders.

This in turns gets them party tickets for the elections, free tickets to Elton John concerts and free housing for the rest of their lives in an exclusive Patna suburb.

So you'll see the potential for these cards is immense. Stupendous. Our politicians have immense egos and they would all love to see their photographs on greeting cards very soon.

You could send a Christmas card with Narendra Modi on it, a Diwali card with Advani on it, an Id card with Thackeray sahib on it, a Pongal card with Jaya on it. There are so many festivals and holidays in this country that the permutation for these cards are infinite.

Naturally, neither you nor I would want to open the mail and find ourselves staring at one of our bete-noirs. It would spoil our breakfast. This market would not be for me, certainly.

I prefer Christmas cards with Santa Claus on them or New Year cards with the year on them so I know where I am. But our politicians have these millions of chamchas who will rush out and buy these cards. Admittedly, they will probably all send them to their leader. So Modi can open his Christmas cards from a 1,00,000 faithful and see his face on them. It would really massage his ego (not that it needs to be massaged).

The faithful would also send these cards to each other and to the followers of any other party they are temporary on truce terms with. These cards will prove their loyalty to their beloved leader.

Of course they could also be used to show a revolt against the leader. I am sure Mr Advani would not want to get a Diwali card with Ms Sonia Gandhi's face on it.

He would immediately launch a CBI investigation to discover who is revolting against him with such an insult.

Nor would General Musharaff want to open his Id mail to find Mr Vajpayee smiling up at him. No doubt he'd order a nuclear strike in retaliation.

This being India, if a faithful follower sees that a rival could be favoured above him in some lucrative ministership or scam deal, he could print up cards with his rival's face on it and send it to his leader.

Naturally, his leader, who hates anyone more popular than him or her, would immediately sack the poor man whose face is on the card. As you can see these cards have a huge financial possibilities.

They can be packaged and sold to all the party faithful (and unfaithful) to express their love and adoration of their leader. If you should consider this business proposition, all I ask for is 20 per cent of the profits. That should keep in the style I am accustomed to.

(Contact the writer at: tnmurari@hotmail.com)

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