The myth of power is self-explanatory: power draws from myths. A sense of reality, on the contrary, acts as a check. Young David’s sling when he took on the giant Goliath, Birsa Munda’s professed power to turn bullets to powder: history is replete with such examples. The steed of power has always galloped on the spur of the moment.

Truly speaking, a second thought would not have allowed press council of India chief justice Markandey Katju, who  recently shot off a letter to Maharashtra CM, threatening to ask the president for dismissal of his government (for the state government’s inability to check attacks on journalists) to continue with his impudence. His chair so woefully lacks the powers he claims. But that speaks nothing about the man.

These are the times when the country’s PM has no power over the PMO (in the 2G case, the court found fault with PMO for sitting over the plea to prosecute former telecom minister A Raja and a brazen PMO grinned over that fact that the PM had been vindicated). Policymakers make no policies (whenever in the line of fire, be it 2G spectrum or the national counter-terrorism centre, the UPA claims the policy is a continuation of the earlier NDA regime). In these times of an eerie calmness, an irritating (policy) paralysis and a frustrating powerlessness, there is at least somebody who gets angry and acts (emphasis) — maybe on an impulse. True that it is simple to be difficult, but simpletons have seldom done that. It takes rock-solid guts, gall and loads of gravel. Katju has those.

Of his various statements, the inimitable undertone is the style. The epitome of angry young man — not afraid of speaking his mind. Those typical Bachchanian moments of ultimate heroism: reclining on gunny bags in a godown, matchstick rolling between teeth, saying “Peter main yahan kab se tumhara intezar kar rahan hoon”.  That breed, that heroism is passé. Today’s stars (Shah Rukh Khan and Ranbir Kapoor) dressed in drag look voluptuous and talk filthy to make us laugh (this happened at this year’s Filmfare awards function in Mumbai). Vulgarity isn’t our aim, they clarified on the stage, though it didn’t look anything else.

Back to Katju, though the PCI chief’s many audacious statements may have won him barbs all along, they make one small tiara he so proudly wears. And all the incongruity arising out of his office points at one anomaly: the smallness of his chair. He needs (and perhaps is working for) a bigger one.