Bread & Circuses

Essay- satire



Bread and circuses


“Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things - bread and circuses”.

Translation of Satire X, lines 77 through 80 of Iuvenalis Saturae (Satires of Juvenal), in which nestles the evocative phrase “panem et circenses” - bread and circuses…
By Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (ca. 60 A.D. - 140 A.D.), aka Juvenal


First century A.D. satirist Juvenal lamented the stupefaction of an established Roman empire addicted to instant gratification. He’s entitled to his opinion of course but such disgust with “bread and circuses” is a little difficult to understand. What is wrong with a sloth brought on by a full belly and the burpy anodyne of popular entertainment? For the period under focus, watching Maximus slice up some big-penised Nubian at the Colliseum must have been cracking good fun and politically correct to boot. But Juvenal’s spoil-sportism makes you wonder. It makes you picture him in sado-masochistic hues, a closet militarist perhaps, stabbing at Rome’s perpetually Sunday tripping populace with the end of his sharpened quill. Rome, on its part, tolerated Juvenal’s outpourings with great equanimity, ignoring practically every word he penned. His toga wearing patrician targets stifled yawns at his antics. And absolutely no effort was made to send him to the German front in winter without benefit of fur.

And twenty-one centuries along, just three of his words put to parchment, if you count the et between panem and circenses still resonate. This is a good average. Satirists are generally regarded as a pain in the rear and so are rarely lionised. Juvenal, true to form, was rewarded for his perspicacity with poverty, neglect, the occasional slap and tickle and a pauper’s demise.

But Juvenal’s sly juxtaposition of “bread and circuses” and “votes” however was duly noted. In socialist times the rallying cries embraced “garibi hatao” and “roti, kapda aur makaan” with a patrician Indira Priyadarshini promoting the former and Manoj Kaka raking it in, thanks, in some measure, to the latter. Remember those were sorry Hindu rate of growth times (not to exceed 2% p.a.).

Now, with a GDP growth upwards of 7.5% per annum, the picturisation has changed somewhat. Free rice and midday meals are looking a little passé though Mr. Karunanidhi, who’s just won his umpteenth election may beg to differ. Even Mandal II looks like a staged shadow of its former self. Staged for the 24x7 cameras and the one-trick-pony water cannons. White lab coats don’t cut it. There’s no Goswami-size spark to it. No gas light that burns so well. No Prime Minister who paints water colours and wears Astrakhan fur hats in mid-summer. Instead, there’s a mumbling, shambling HRD minister with a chip on his shoulder, a latter-day caliph consumed by the fact that he’s not, in fact, the caliph.

No, now the jollies (aka bread and circuses), involve updated aspirations. Talk mega profits on the stock market on every news channel, newspaper and disposable napkin, photograph cars, bars, short skirts and large bosoms, flatten viewing on plasma TVs, test your knees on the duplex in penthouses, take lifts on cruises, buy third homes on beaches and mountaintops. Also transpose Changi to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata as well as to Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. Drive the Golden Quadrilateral, ride the Metro Rail or double-decker AC trains (Garib Raths), make power, complete dam, build nuclear power, take Bush for buddy and worry not at all about Mush...

There’s a communist makeover too. Maoists are taking their seats in the Nepal Assembly, and Buddhadeb Bhattacharya wants to know: “Why should we oppose foreign companies if they create jobs?” Wah Deng!

When we go up to 10% on the GDP, maybe we’ll stop rotting a third of our fruit and vegetables for want of a proper cold chain and consume our way to a humongous retail revolution. Things change when you get richer. Bread and circuses indeed. Juvenal had no idea!

(689 words)

By Ghatotkach
Wednesday 24th May 2006

This and all original essays on GHATOTKACHSERIES are copyright 2005-2006 by Gautam Mukherjee. All Rights Reserved.