Faces of the leader

The chief minister of Tamil Nadu fathered Stalin. Nope. I am not talking about the Russian who sent millions of his countrymen to the gulags but not quite unlike his namesake Stalin knows how to make his presence felt. There must be around a million cutouts, hoardings, posters of him in Chennai. We have Stalin grinning, smiling, and frowning in his spotless white shirt and dhothi at every major and non major junction. He vies for advertising space with the likes of Abhishek, Sharukh, Asin, Trisha and Rajnikant and beats them hands down. Education must be very dear to him as there are many hoardings of Stalin receiving a degree. And from the looks of it a multiple degree holder as he is receiving a degree from different people.

Now that his dad is about to complete 50 years as a legislator there are now another million cutouts of Karunanithi.Both father and son are now getting more eyeball hits per hour than any other filmy/political figure in Tamil Nadu.

What I have observed is that whatever be the posture these two have the same
expression on their face. Let me name it the leadership expression, LE for short.
LE's are of two types, one is in which the protagonist appears to be looking far away into the future with a troubled expression on his face as if he just peeped into the crystal ball and saw an onslaught of mighty troubles on his people. The other is one in which he is much more relaxed appearing, to enjoy a quiet chuckle with himself as if the crystal ball just told him that happier times are in store for his people.

These LE's make themselves available at any point of time in their daily lives so even if we have a hoarding of Stalin adjusting his dhothi we get to see an LE on his face. These LE's start appearing very early in the career of a politician as is evident with the cutouts of a young, cherubic Karunanithi lit up with a 1000 watt LE.

So it makes me wonder what if I join politics at some point of time and I become a great leader. What if my followers ask me to give them LE snaps of my youth?
The types of snaps I have around with me are of me staring hungrily at a muffin, me washing dishes, me playing gully cricket. Not quite LE material.

The only times that I have LE's are in office where I can’t carry a camera. For example when my manager comes to have a word with me and I am thinking 'You know I am not listening to you so let me entertain myself by examining my reflection in your bald pate' or when I am in the break out area having coffee by myself where I carry a serene expression suggesting that I am thinking about world peace whereas I am thinking about much more earthly issues like ‘Will she slap me if I propose to her’ ‘Should I ask boss for a raise’ ‘What would happen if I added some tea to my cofee’.So many LE’s gone down the drain.

I just noticed that I have an LE right now while composing this post. Lemme call someone to take a snap before the moment passes away:-)