It has been such an eventful
week for the media. Eventful enough to keep them running around in
circles and make ‘Jack of all trades’
like me feel complete enough to pen a ‘Middle’. Just that the ‘Middle’ has
moved on in the scheme of the way newspapers are turned out. We have now more pages residing in the vast expanse of cyberspace than perched
in the middle of the editorial page. They
say that the pen is mightier than a sword, its that much more lethal in the
hands of know it all’s like me. But then its a free world so I though why not key in my frustration. So lets have a round-up of the key happenings
of this week.
To begin with a little homage to the lives lost, Suchitra
Sen, whose Hindi hit, ‘Tere bina zinda gi mei’ remains my all time favourite,
I never tire of watching Áandhi’ for the nth time. Sunanda the tragedy of Page 3 proportions, the 18
people who lost their lives in Mumbai while paying homage to their religious
leader. May these souls rest in peace.
Coming to the high profile UN designate. When one is confused whether one is in polity on
the way to page 3 or on page 3 because
they are in polity, it makes for strange bed fellows. What happened to Shashi
was maybe something similar. To be fair
to him he was one of the first to start the trend of ‘Tweeting’ in India. It
looks like the Tweets finally ended up drowning all other sane voices in his
life. God help him in these difficult times.
Just a few kilometres away a similar voice
made its mark. Finally the Baba spoke, no I do not refer to any god-man. The reference
was more towards our own RG baba. After
years of breaking bread with dalits, the king-in-making has woken up and is
trying to roar, and what a roar it was. Reminds
me of the lion kink, oops ! I mean ‘The Lion King’. Resembling little Simba, on a self
realisation mode. A tentative cough followed by a full throated roar. Will it
end waking up the Scars(or should I say
comb sellers) of the world is yet to be seen.
On comb sellers and lesser haired people, the little king, did
not seem to realise that he himself seems to be fast loosing hair at quite a
fast pace and I would not be surprised if he himself finds himself in the
custody of one comb too many, before he realises, that he has no use for one. But right now he
has more to worry than about losing his hair, perhaps saving his shirt in the next
elections should be a focus. He did paint quite a pretty picture of himself ,
up there on the podium.
Not often do you see, a prime-ministerial candidate flaunting
a pair of dimples. So what if his face seemed more paler than a Icelander gone pale. Grimaces,
don’t go well with the chocolate faced and it was showing that he was trying hard to
put on one. By the way our prince would be one of few candidates for the PM
post to have been blessed with dimples,
the closest someone would have come to competing with the prince on this
front was the venerated PV Naramsimha
Rao. Except that PV’s dimples were more like cheeks that had sunk in to make way for his extended pout.
On dimples, there is no doubt that it would have been more
entertaining to have the other king, the King Khan, flaunting his dimples, up there on the stage instead of RG, and there is no doubt that the original Khan could
have displayed a far better IQ that our very own prince
Quite a week I must say,
our own Mani (Shankar Iyer ) put his foot once again where it always
finds its place, right up there in his
mouth, when he took a dig at a tea vendor trying to becoming a PM. Whether this
quote will keep him in a soup for some more time is yet to be seen. Unfortunately
he is one person who seems to do very little introspection on his own behaviour
and actions. He behaves neither like a Mani nor a Iyer.
When these events were making news, some blocks away there was a mob led
by a over zealous minister trying to put an end to robust African women from
earning their livelihood. The women did not realise that when wizards come
riding their broom-stick, a la Harry
Potter, all hell breaks loose. More so when these guys seems to think that any
thing which is commercial or corporate in nature must stink, similar to how
electricity must be distributed free, and grocery stores are more convenient
than Super Marts, and that Auto rickshaw Unions deserve more sympathy than the
general public which remain at the mercy of these drivers. Its another matter that with the speed with
which these first timers are tying themselves in knots on policy matters, it
may not be long before the public quite rightly wield the broom once again to show them their rightful
place.
Finally there was this little piece of medical research
published in one of the latter pages of the newspaper, a research proved as to how comedians and satirist
are Psychos who are mentally deranged and about to go bonkers. Did not seem too
far fetched a idea, given that many friends had already labelled me raving mad,
after reading the stuff that I write around in face book and elsewhere.
