Chapter 2: Pandy and Gargantua
There were many things in common between PC and Gargantua. For one, they were both featured generously in school textbooks; both their early lives and current statuses were important exam questions. Gargantuan TV had a weekly one hour special documentary called Growing to love Gargantua; Gargantuan TV also had a weekly one hour special documentary called Parle with PC. While PC had a livery of servants to assist him, Gargantua had its Group Of Ministers. Gargantua had ever growing wealth and so did PC. In terms of personal characteristics too, they were very much alike. Both had a very high opinion of their own abilities. Both were powerful. Both wanted to become even more powerful. Both hated people who disagreed with them.
But there was one very significant point of commonality between them, one that truly made them twins. The people were reminded of it often. PC never failed to talk of this particular commonality because it made him inextricably linked to Gargantua. A link that no one could dispute. A link that gave him certain inalienable rights over Gargantua and its people. And, as analysts have pointed out, a link that was the mainstay of his power in Gargantua. You see, he was born the same year and the same day that Gargantua was born.
He used it to threaten his opposition into submission, “…I was born the same year as Gargantua and I will not be trifled with” he would say. Addressing some accusations that were made against him, he used it to assert his integrity and commitment towards Gargantua, “ Would I be capable of such a thing? I was born in the same year as Gargantua” he would gently admonish. At a luncheon of industrialists he would wind up his speech with, “ so, I conclude, Gargantua needs industry like never before. I should know. I was born the year Gargantua was born.” When there was rising trouble from the Anti-Gargantua Organization (AGO) he threatened, “ Do not think I will rest in peace before I wipe you out to defend the nation, after all I was born in the year of our nation”. People, now, knew PC was Gargantua.
However, according to PC, it was the people’s mandate that made him synonymous with the nation. Not surprising, considering Gargantua was a democracy. The people chose everything. They chose the brand of cereal they wanted to eat every morning at breakfast; they chose the kind of toothpaste they wanted to use; they chose the brand of tea they wanted to drink in the afternoon; teens chose the kind of fastfood restaurant they wanted to meet friends in; children chose the brand of energy drink they wanted to drink; old people chose the kind of institutions they wanted to settle down in; women chose their brand of make up; men chose the kind of ties they wanted to wear. The beauty of democracy, PC told his people once, was that it presented the people with innumerable options always.
Which is why Gargantua was so carefully chosen by the people. Gargantua was an island of about 700,000 sq km, located on the edge of the Assinian Sea. 
Map of Gargantua
The Assinian sea stretched out in three directions. And the Limitless Universe bordered Gargantua on its fourth side. Impastor had colonized Gargantua for 500 years. But when PC was born, Gargantua broke away from her imperial fetters and began her lone democratic career. The people of Gargantua were excited. Never before had they been allowed to choose. They were apprehensive. Would they choose right? Would they opt for all the good? They were enthusiastic. No longer any poverty, they thought. No longer this difference between rich and poor, they thought.
One of the first significant decisions they had to make was to choose a suitable name for their democratic country. The contenders were Gargantua and Assinian Land. Gargantua, it was felt, was a fitting name for a country that wished to grow in reputation to a gigantic size. The more prosaic Assinian Land, named after the adjacent Assinian Sea, was dismissed because it gave a little too much importance to that sea. To the Gargantuans, the sea was where all evil originated. For one, it brought conquering voyagers to their island leading to colonisation for so many years. For another, tectonic plate motions were becoming unpredictable. Gargantua could either move further inworld and join the Elite Group of Nations (EGN) that were conglomerating at the centre of the world or move the other direction and fall off the face of the world into the Limitless Universe. (Even tectonics had a choice!). The Gargantuans obviously wanted to move inworld and the Assinian Sea was the only thing that lay between them and their goal. So Gargantua it was.
Yes, PC’s twin was facing extinction. Yes, the people were trying to save their country. And yes, as Minister for Home Decor, PC was in the thick of things.
