For those who can't recall their biology lessons, here's the definition of dementia. It is a loss of brain function that occurs with Parkinson's disease affecting memory, thinking, language, judgement, and behavior. Uh! don't worry if you forgot your biology lesson. You don't have dementia. Yours is just a natural and universal case of short memory where we may just not remember some of our unpleasant past.
Coming back to Kalmadi's achievement, I would say all Indians should thank their stars for the Commonwealth Games scam and Kalmadi's subsequent arrest. It's only after all these developments, that he thought of seeing a psychiatrist and hence his dementia could be diagnosed. We've been saved of bigger troubles which could've been of the intensity of World War if psychiatrists of international acclaim are to be believed.They've said that WW-II could have been avoided if Woodrow Wilson had bowed to his dementia. They also say that millions of Russians would have been saved if Stalin had seen a psychiatrist. They've figured out that the Yalta negotiations between Franklin D Roosevelt and Stalin at the end of WW-II in 1945 may have been influenced by Roosevelt's dementia. Imagine who all were at the negotiating table? Two world leaders and their respective dementias! No wonder all the devastating consequences of WW-II.
That makes me wonder if the Indian and Pakistani premiers need to spend some time with their psychiatrists. Had we thought of it earlier, we could have avoided all the continuing disturbances between the two countries. Mr Kalmadi is a whole six decades late in enlightening us. But nonetheless.
Now that we've picked up the topic, it occurs to me that the US government officials must have brought in added dementia each time they intervened in peace talks between the two countries. They have better chances of being affected, as they have a history of the disease in their top most leaders like Wilson and Roosevelt. Could federal debt crisis have anything to do with the US' dementia history? I mean maybe George Bush and now President Barack Obama may want to see their shrinks.
Moving away, if shrinks say that dementia of the then world leaders led to WW-II, shall we say that all terrorists at present may have dementia. We can do little about curing all of them, but the Indian government can begin with Ajmal Kasab, the Norwegian administration can begin with Andres Behring Breivik, and the FBI can begin with David Headley. It may give some leads.
Also, the governments concerned should try and make it soon because dementia causes memory loss. What if Kasab, Headley and Breivik were to forget all details about their misdeeds? They should hurry up in case of Kalmadi too. If it's too late, he may not recall in his most natural sanities that there exists in this world something like 'sports' leave alone CWG. On the other hand, Kasab must be secretly wishing that all Indian officials and leaders get dementia, Breivik and Headley would be wishing the same for the Norwegian and the US officials. Ousted IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn is praying that Nafissatou Diallo gets the disease. And President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner maybe wishing dementia for each other even as they exchange 'pleasantries' over the fed debt crisis while I write this piece.
What next? We wake up to the uneasy reality that we are living in a world full of crazy people. Thank God dementia is not contagious.
