A young mother went to fetch her seven-year-old son from school and asked him how he had spent the `20 that she had given him in the morning. The kid wondered and when he could not recollect, he simply retorted, “Haathi kha gaya.”
UP chief minister Mayawati’s elephant may not be much sought after in the coming elections but Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s “Jadoo ka haathi” (magic elephant) is already a super hit in Uttar Pradesh.
Children, teenagers, office-goers, housewives and even government servants are happily using “haathi” in their daily lingo to underline excess and unaccounted for expenditure.
“Kya karen bhaisahib? Jitna kamata hoon, kam pad jata hai — lagta ki sab haathi kha jata hai (What to do brother? No matter how much I earn, there is always a shortfall. Seems like the elephant gobbles it all up),” a senior journalist was overheard telling a colleague the other day.
It was at a rally in Kushinagar on November 26 that Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, for the first time, spoke about Ms Mayawati’s magic elephant in Lucknow that did not eat grass but gorged on money instead. Mr Gandhi, thereafter, kept referring to the “haathi” — also the BSP symbol — in each of his meetings and used it as a symbol of corruption.
His constant reference to the “haathi” in his speech, initially invited a measure of ridicule from veteran Congressmen and a section of journalists who felt that Mr Gandhi was “trivialising” the issue.
The success of Mr Rahul Gandhi’s “haathi” was evident at his rally in Saharanpur on Friday. Mr Gandhi, in his speech, spoke of how the Centre had given a package of `3,000 to weavers. “The weavers, however, told me not to send the money through government agencies because...”
Before he could even conclude his sentence, the