While the world is talking about the swine flu and the super speed at which it is spreading, everybody seems to be forgetting that just four hours of television viewing- only the news channels mind you- should be good enough to convince you that a far deadlier disease, currently called ramdevitis, is spreading at an even faster rate.Ramdevitis is a disease that scientists found after watching television channels and reading newspaper reports. These scientists say it is mainly found in babas and godmen, most of them as fraudulent as a three rupee note. Its main carriers are television channels like India TV which in case of an absence of any videos showing ‘swarg jka raasta’ fall back on babas and sadhus with ramdevitis.Scientists said the disease is named after Baba Ramdev- the sadhu who does all those body-twisting asanas wearing a lungi and has a permanent twitch in his eye. Now ever since TV channels started showing up at his doorstep, the man, from spouting about the power of yoga, has moved on to trying to rid India of corrupt politicians and also to saving Indian culture now that is expected to fall flat in three months since Section 377 legalized. On Monday (27/7) Mumbai Mirror carried a front page story on the latest baba down with ramdevitis. Some Jain monk- with a mouth mask made popular long before swine flu- has a particular problem with the Indian Navy naming its first nuclear submarine Arihant.Now the chaps at the Navy thought it to be an apt name because Arihant means ‘destroyer of enemies’ in Sanskrit. But who will explain that to our good little Jain muni.He is particularly miffed because Arihant also happens to be the name of a particularly sagely and peaceful tirthankara- or prophet- and giving it to a killer submarine is highly distasteful and hurting to the Jains across India.That is where the problem begins. It like saying calling anyone a lungi or a nariyal paaniwala is hurting to the mallus whereas being one of them I know that you can call a mallu anything- and I mean anything- as long as you give him his visa to Qatar, Kuwait and all the other parts of the Gellfff in time.
At last count more than 90 percent of the Jains in India- a very industrious and wealthy community- could not have been less bothered if the submarine was named Arihant or ‘Phatti Pant’ as long as the share market was doing well and there were enough people to lend money to.But who explains that to the good muni who after all was feeling the pinch of giving a good byte to the accompanying TV and paper chaps.At the time of writing this blog, the name of the submarine is Arihant. But if the Grand Old Party goes back to its old ways of pleasing all for votes, they might change it and name it ‘Rahul baba’. Watch it.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Naam ghum jayega..mere murti hi pehchaan hai
Was just going through an opinion piece in one of the papers where the writer asks why is Mayawati (of the thousand statutes of herself fame) so fixated on memorializing herself? Good question. But I fail to understand what the fuss is all about? Haven’t we heard of the simple fact of life called progression?
If you start something, good or bad- such is the power endowed on the human race to prefect and better a move- that someone somewhere is bound to move towards making it perfect and better.
Just last week the state government announced the opening of the Bandra Worli Sealink in Mumbai, the city where I stay. The Congress government, both at the Centre and the state, thought it fit to make the much-hyped Mumbai seabridge into one quagmire of political sycophancy and opportunism.
So what do both governments do? To inaugurate what is arguably India’s most visible piece of engineering and architecture in the last fifty years, they get Sonia Gandhi. Now may I ask who is Sonia Gandhi? Is she the Prime Minister of India? Officially she isn’t. Is she the President of India? Positively she would never accept such a titular post.
Then why was she called? Because she is the chairperson of the UPA? How would the same glitterati and journalists fattened on Congress dole outs like Padma Shris have reacted if the BJP-led NDA government had invited the sarsangchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh- the RSS- to inaugurate the seabridge if they were in power?
A massive hue and cry? Logically speaking the RSS chief khakhi shorts-and-black-cap wearer has the same position in the BJP scheme of things as Sonia in the Congress. A disgusting façade of authority without responsibility going under the name of mentorship.
So not only do they go ahead and get Sonia Gandhi to inaugurate the bridge, all sycophants including Maharashtra’s tallest political leader- of course now heading the fighting for survival NCP- go ahead and name it after Rajiv Gandhi.
Now Rajiv Gandhi was India’s most progressive Prime Minister who after five years as Prime Minister of a party that had 410 seats in Parliament lead it on a colossal Lok Sabha campaign in 1989 that ended with the party wiped out in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal. Rajasthan, Delhi leaving the Congress with just 140 seats to show. The Raja of Manda had left the scion of India’s first family with the kind of bloody nose that would make Advani’s loss in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections a photo-finish.
Coming back to the point from where I started- about India’s self-styled favourite Dalit daughter.
If one party goes around naming stadiums after the grandfather, educational institutions and sundry indoor swimming pools after the daughter and seabridges and rural development schemes after the grandson, some self=styled daughter is going to come forward and prefect the art of memorializing self.
Mayawati has just gone ahead and done it. She has spent almost half a billion dollars- in dirt poor Uttar Pradesh- to make statues of herself, those of Babasaheb and Kanshi Ram are just to soften the blows that she expected would come her way.
Now if the Congress wants to top it, they would have to somehow get Rahul Gandhi’s mug on the Rs 1000 note. That will take some doing and I am sure Mayawati would come up with something better. The game has begun. Sit back and enjoy it. I have a feeling the Congress government in Maharashtra will name the Rs 1000 crore Shivjai Maharaj memorial in the Arabian Sea after Sonia Gandhi. Fun.
If you start something, good or bad- such is the power endowed on the human race to prefect and better a move- that someone somewhere is bound to move towards making it perfect and better.
Just last week the state government announced the opening of the Bandra Worli Sealink in Mumbai, the city where I stay. The Congress government, both at the Centre and the state, thought it fit to make the much-hyped Mumbai seabridge into one quagmire of political sycophancy and opportunism.
So what do both governments do? To inaugurate what is arguably India’s most visible piece of engineering and architecture in the last fifty years, they get Sonia Gandhi. Now may I ask who is Sonia Gandhi? Is she the Prime Minister of India? Officially she isn’t. Is she the President of India? Positively she would never accept such a titular post.
Then why was she called? Because she is the chairperson of the UPA? How would the same glitterati and journalists fattened on Congress dole outs like Padma Shris have reacted if the BJP-led NDA government had invited the sarsangchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh- the RSS- to inaugurate the seabridge if they were in power?
A massive hue and cry? Logically speaking the RSS chief khakhi shorts-and-black-cap wearer has the same position in the BJP scheme of things as Sonia in the Congress. A disgusting façade of authority without responsibility going under the name of mentorship.
So not only do they go ahead and get Sonia Gandhi to inaugurate the bridge, all sycophants including Maharashtra’s tallest political leader- of course now heading the fighting for survival NCP- go ahead and name it after Rajiv Gandhi.
Now Rajiv Gandhi was India’s most progressive Prime Minister who after five years as Prime Minister of a party that had 410 seats in Parliament lead it on a colossal Lok Sabha campaign in 1989 that ended with the party wiped out in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal. Rajasthan, Delhi leaving the Congress with just 140 seats to show. The Raja of Manda had left the scion of India’s first family with the kind of bloody nose that would make Advani’s loss in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections a photo-finish.
Coming back to the point from where I started- about India’s self-styled favourite Dalit daughter.
If one party goes around naming stadiums after the grandfather, educational institutions and sundry indoor swimming pools after the daughter and seabridges and rural development schemes after the grandson, some self=styled daughter is going to come forward and prefect the art of memorializing self.
Mayawati has just gone ahead and done it. She has spent almost half a billion dollars- in dirt poor Uttar Pradesh- to make statues of herself, those of Babasaheb and Kanshi Ram are just to soften the blows that she expected would come her way.
Now if the Congress wants to top it, they would have to somehow get Rahul Gandhi’s mug on the Rs 1000 note. That will take some doing and I am sure Mayawati would come up with something better. The game has begun. Sit back and enjoy it. I have a feeling the Congress government in Maharashtra will name the Rs 1000 crore Shivjai Maharaj memorial in the Arabian Sea after Sonia Gandhi. Fun.
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