In the food chain, no issue is low enough

Legend has it that Harun al-Rashid, the 8th-century caliph of Baghdad, would often walk among the city's people in disguise to find out first-hand how they lived, so that he could improve their lives. Actor Prosenjit Chatterjee may not be a 2021 Indian equivalent of an ordinary Baghdadi citizen, but he has sought out Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee to invoke their inner Harun al-Rashids and do something so that the calamitous event he faced does not happen to others under the PM's and West Bengal CM's watch: food ordered via a food delivery app not reaching a hungry customer.

While there has been reaction from titters to outrage to Chatterjee's wish to draw the attention of the two leaders of opposite camps via Twitter to the matter of non-delivery of food, political leaders - even those on top of the food-delivery chain - would do well knowing about such apolitical problems faced by people, instead of just the 'usual' political ones. If problems in the PDS can be worth political intervention, so can food delivery failure by a private company. In fact, it's time our citizens - and politicians - stop treating only some issues 'worthy' of complaining about and consider missing manholes as grievous a problem as missing mandates. Let us live in a Harun al-Rashid Rajya that is high up in the 'ease of doing life' index.