Behold the Digital Durga: She tweets, eats buff and joins politics

Guess what's trending on the Bangla Twitter? What did you say, there's no such thing? Ugh, for the love of ileesh, have you been living under a rock? (FYI, everything non-Bengali lives under a rock. Yes, even Narendra Modi's New Delhi, excepting that sole oasis of Punjabified Bangaliyana, aka, CR Park!) After Bengalimatrimony.com, Bangla Twitter and Banglabook (especially for the buxom, selfie-flaunting Bongololonas) have followed. Why? Because Mamata Banerjee has decided to oust all the Left Front supporters from Facebook and Twitter and she has also criminalised "not liking" or "unliking" her elaborate Facebook updates (despite the lifting of Section 66A of the IT Act, which is a no-brainer for Didi).

Because Didi has already patented "Ma, Mati, Manush" under her Trinamool banner, Dugga Ma herself has decided to descend on Poshchim Bongo and remedy the error. So, coming back to my original question, what's trending on Bangla Twitter, well phellows it's this: Dugga Ma's Cyber Makeover.

Chhi chhi, what did you say? Dugga Ma caught doing cybershex with Shib Thakur? Arrey baba, what a dumbo you are! How many times have you been to the Beltawla? Has your ghilu completely vapourised? I mentioned "makeover" you moron, not "makeout"! Blaaddy phool. No English Vinglish, only bidghute Benglish.

So Bangla Twitter is abuzz with Dugga Ma's extreme makeover: pujo edition. It's a prime time show now, aired by ABP Ananda and 24 Ghanta. (Along with the "sickular" English newschannels, who find it absolutely symbolic of India's digital religiosity). Dugga Ma gave a special interview to ABP Ananda's Suman De and NDTV's Barkha Dutt (she also wanted Sagarika Ghose, but the latter is too busy with her "Bloody Mary") detailing her strategy to counter Didi's relentless march towards India's primeministarship. Dugga Ma was reportedly very upset with Didi's once-upon-a-time Facebook post: a painting depicting Dugga Ma wearing a sobuj-paar-shada-sari, in the true blue TMC colours. Ma has taken major umbrage to Didi's mixing of communal politics with art; said it hurts Dugga Ma's "secular cross-party credentials".

Didi has also, reportedly, planned to disallow CPM supporters to participate in the pujo, buy new clothes, perform pushpanjalis, and most gruesome of all, prevent them from devouring thala after thala of khichuri and laabra during bhog. This means no galauti kebabs, buff burgers (okay, what do you think is done after Mahishasur - the buffalo demon - is "slain"? huh? Keep your beef ban to your pitifully inexperienced palate!) and moglai parotas (that reminds me, Dugga Ma is absolutely aghast at the rechristening of Aurangzeb Road to Abdul Kalam Azad Marg - the morons of the "Establishment" have no sense of culinary history, and how the Mughals and the Awadhis, especially that cute fatso Wajid, spiced it all up!) during the extensive extracurricular feasting. So, Dugga Ma might be boycotting the TMC-sponsored (and BJP/RSS-inflected) pujos herself. This has been suggested to Dugga Ma by the triad of Suman De, Kabir Suman and Soumitra Chatterjee, who have lately discovered a devoutly religious streak in them. Kabir Suman has even advised Dugga Ma to convert to Islam as an act of defiance and in her bid to woo the Muslim vote bank that TMC now claims belongs to them.

Banglabook (rumoured to be actually a social media outfit of the disgraced and now battered Left Front, who are always conspiring, along with the Maoists, the Modi-fied Centre and the blip-blip Congress Party, to overthrow the mighty TMC) has posted some latest images from Dugga Ma's recent photoshoot. Dugga Ma, along with Lokhkhi, Saraswati, Ganesh and Kartik, was initially photographed wearing Manish Malhotra lehengas and sherwanis and Sabyasachi saris and dhuti-panjabis, until Prakash Jha intervened and Dugga underwent a "revolutionary" transformation. She now looks ready to have a town hall rendezvous with Mark Zuckerberg at Menlo Park, where she intends to chide him for his "parallel internet for the poor". No parallels, only intersections and interjections under Dugga Ma's supervision.

Further, Dugga Ma's personal advisory board, aka the abovementioned triad, has called for an overhaul of the prayers recited during the pushpanjalis. The Sanskrit shlokas are to be replaced by extracts from the Communist Manifesto, and writings of Lenin and Mao. (Naturally, RSS and Shiv Sena, along with VHP and the assorted Senas and Vahinis of Sangh Parivar have strongly condemned this decision.) On the other hand, the eighty-plus Soumitra Chatterjee has also managed to squeeze in some of his Feluda dialogues from Jai Baba Felunath. And finally, the last words of the divine incantation, to be repeated thrice after every anjali, will be Mukul's famous dialogue from Sonar Kella, "Dushtu Lok, Vanish!"

However, appearances are deceitful. It might seem that Dugga Ma is siding with the Left Front/Congress/even the Grand Alliance, but that is not true. In fact, the terrific triad has already steered clear of the establishment, past and present. Extending sympathy to the ordinary cadres during pujo is one matter, hobnobbing with Buddha/Nitish/Lalu and Sonia/Rahul and their ilk is simply another. Dugga Ma had been mulling over a meeting that was requested for by the triad (plus Prakash and Brinda Karat, Sitaram Yechury and Digvijay Singh) had arranged it to be live telecast (looks like they have learnt a few tricks from Narendra Modi, Mohan Bhagwat and Arvind Kejriwal) at 5 pm on Bijaya Dashami. But Mohan Bhagwat's morning speech made Dugga Ma so nauseous that she backed out.

Instead, Dugga Ma has decided to float a political party of her own, contest elections and become the unrivalled minister of Bongistan, which, by the way, includes Chittaranjan Park of New Delhi. She was about to call it Oktoberfest Party, paying tribute to Russian Revolution and the German beer festival (Dugga Ma is bhery bhery cosmopolitan you see, glug glug), but was talked out of the thing by the whiskey-loving politicos. The dashing Bengali directors duo - Srijit Mukherjee and Qaushik Mukherjee - were invited to give suggestions. But Dugga Ma picked the mardani and now pregnant Rani Mukherjee instead, who proposed "Wakda Party" and "Aiyya Party", both of which have been rejected by the uberchic and size zero Dugga Ma ("Rani has puppy fat: belly dance or no belly dance!" said the self-conscious and self-reflexive Dugga Ma, while trying out a Kareena Kapoor-Khan itsy-bitsy from Heroine and Tashan.)

It is not clear when Dugga Ma will go public with her decision, but if sources close to the self-prolaimed champion of the other backward beasts, OBBs, Mahishashur (who's eyeing an exit from Dugga Ma's entourage and join TMC, the traitor!) are to be believed, it might be later in the evening on Bijaya Dashami. Dugga Ma has jumped at the prospect of the symbolic reversal of fortune played out by the Dashami ritual: idol immersion followed by a resurrection from the dirty waters of Hooghly. The triad has agreed to this arrangement, reportedly. They think this might appeal to the Christians, led by the haggard and harrowing John Dayal, who might find a Christ doppelganger in the resurrected Dugga Ma. Some had even suggested that the Dashami be postponed to Sunday to correspond with Easter Sunday, albeit that comes in April.

Meanwhile, sickular newschannels and their supremos - Prannoy Roy and Arnab Goswami - have called for a cross-media campaign to champion Dugga Ma's imminent political mukhebhaat. Viewers have been invited to send in their suggestions via ultra-costly SMS and phone services. Suggestions over the free emails are welcome, although those wouldn't be read by humans, only Banglabots. Suggestions are already pouring in: Dugga Dugga Party, Communist Congress of India (Maoist), Durga Suman Sangha, Nirmool Congress, and the most bloodthirsty of all, Trinamool Nirbangsha Party.

Presently, Didi has not made her stand clear as to how she plans to counter the divine intervention from Dugga Ma. She's treading familiar lines dubbing it a conspiracy by the CPM's harmaad bahini and a certain TV channel. Ostensibly, Didi is keeping her cool, but if rumours are to be believed, she has been hurt by Dugga Ma's blatant rejection of her party and her slogan. But the shard that pierced her heart was the goddess' rebuke of her painting, "Ota bhishon gaaiyaa!" (It's very uncouth!)