MAFIA!!

Recently I went on a trip to the region of Champagne with my patron saints EGIDE.We were about 20 people from many nationalities-Angola,Egypt,Hungary,Bene,Brazil,Chile,Peurto Rico,Italy and Russia.Now our animator or guide who accompanied us for the trip was just superb!! I havent seen a funnier women in my life.She was always trying to involve us and bring cheer to our faces by making smart remarks and using witty expressions.During our stay in a 3 star hotel in the region,she proposed that we play a game-known as MAFIA.Now it is basically a card game with very simple rules.Each person is allowed to choose a card and the people with knight,queen and jack are termed as Mafia.The person having an ace becomes chief of the village.All others are termed the villagers.The no. of mafia is predecided and accordingly required no. of cards are set aside and dealt.Now the motive of the game is to find the mafia from among the villagers.So initially everyone is supposed to close his/her eyes and then the mafia among them are told to open theirs by the moderator.They choose a villager whom they want to kill and then close their eyes again.Then the chief of village opens his eyes and tries to guess the identity of the mafia with the moderator indicating if the choice is correct or not.All this time everyone must also keep their lips sealed.Then the moderator asks everyone to open their eyes except the person whom the mafia have killed and discuss among themselves who are part of mafia and thus who should be killed/expelled.People must try to reason out their choice and the person accused is given a chance to defend himself/herself.This led to quite an interesting reasoning with the Italian always being the first to be accused with regard to her nationality and Russian because of being a patron of kalashnikovs.

But what was really interesting was the accusation with regard to a person's participation and enthusiasm.After a while I realized that a person who vigorously defended or accused somebody or who showed more interest than most of others was the first one to be accused and disbanded.Because the decision was taken by a majority vote which consisted of mostly timid people who neither took an initiative to accuse nor to defend,it was always easier to put the blame on the over-enthusiastic person and his vendetta deemed to draw itself more out of selfish motives than any perceptible well being that he may desire for the village.And it was the people keeping quiet who proved a person's undoing most of the times.Even if more often than not that person was proved to be innocent,still the suspician always and again rested with the person with a little more energy,expressiveness and enthusiasm.

This made me think about the similar example that is encountered often during the election season at IIT.As many others I couldnt help being left touched by the whole process which leads to new leaders being elected from among their peers.Being a part and product of the same system I could never understand the reason and motivations behind the general disenchantment and distrust faced by a candidate having done something extra or more than others for the hostel.Why are his motives always looked upon with suspician?Is this human nature to put down persons whom they deem somewhat more equal than the others?Does democracy sometimes suffer the bane of protest just for the heck of it?If the so called 'alpha' males are a bit more equal than others than should they be allowed to use this quality to lead people and clubs or should they be stamped out ?The game was just for relaxation and fun with no stakes on winning or losing but after a while I was more interested in the way people collaborated to reach a decision or conclusion.And the above observation made me a bit more wiser on the way human mind works.