“Laughter is an instant vacation,” said Milton Berle. Here at NK, we would like to contribute to lightening your mood in preparation for a meaningful and relaxed weekend. So here’s the tongue-in-cheek look at the events of the week gone by that you’ve been waiting for :)
Let’s begin this week’s satire with an irony: 272 is the halfway mark in the Indian Lok Sabha and the full way mark in the Pakistan assembly. So metaphorically speaking India was ahead by an innings and 272 runs… before Pakistan went to the polls this week.
The state of the game may change with Imran Khan joining the league of extraordinary sportsmen that have made a mark in politics this week – He follows in the eminent (real eminence my friend, not planned eminence) footsteps of Liberian footballer George Weah, Indian Shooter Rajawardhan Singh Rathore, American Body Builder Arnold Schwarzenegger, American footballer Jack Kemp, Ugandan Boxer Idi Amin, Brazilian Footballer Romario, Fijian cricketer Kamsese Mara, and Philippine Boxer, Manny Pacquiao. A new body line series is expected to commence 86 years after the first, if he does become Prime Minister and he might well have become one as this piece goes online –As of now, they are still marking the score sheets like they do at a club cricket match harking back to the days when he was the captain of a real cricket team playing a real cricket match…
However, in his remarks at the toss, especially after seeing the two-faced pitch, he promised to vary his pace according to the situation of the game. That could be even more damaging to India, as he is a master of the reverse swing, and is a decent all-rounder (in more ways than one). Mission Impossible: Fallout has just been released – let’s watch and wait :)
But, the Indian leadership is already looking towards Meerut for a 56 inch bat (an oversized chest even with a chest guard won’t do perhaps) – even if it is disallowed by the ICC – to hook the bouncers that are sure to emanate from across the western border, given Khan’s political compulsions and vision for a “Naya Pakistan” vis-à-vis our political leadership’s vision of a New India. With Imran as captain, they will have a cover in the ISI, the third man in Hafiz Saeed and a long off in the form of the United Nations. But, India needs to be wary of the Square Leg on the line of control especially as it’s a 5-year test match and India will be testing its bench strength early next year.
So it’s Naya vs Naya: Naya Pakistan vs Naya India. An all new ball game with no ball tampering – though the allegations are rife in both the new countries. It’s clear that paper doesn’t help prevent allegations… as long as there is a paper to report them. The main difference in the style of play, however, is that the elections cannot be fought on religious lines in Pakistan, because there is almost no other religion there, save for one – it’s a social engineering miracle because generally, religion knows no earthly boundaries!
With the setting up of a group of ministers on lynch groups by PM Modi, it’s now become a group game! The increase in incidents of lynching by groups of people was a cause of concern expressed by many (other than the ruling party) during the parliamentary debate on the no confidence motion against the Central Government last week. It was a verbal lynch by another group. The PM in his reply to the debate told the states to take strict action against such lynchings, and they did! Soon afterwards, a group of people in the state of Rajasthan (some say it is a civilian group, some say it is a police group and some say both!) lynched a poor guy who had gone to purchase cattle to enhance his meagre living and the autopsy said he died because of it. Now, we must wait and see the outcome of the group game – clinch the lynch!
On July 23rd 2018, theprint.in, an online web portal carried an article with the headline “Can Rahul Gandhi put 292 dead cats on the table?” 292 being the number of days from the date of the article to the next General Elections in 2019.
Again I quote from the same article by Shivam Vij: “Also known as dead catting, it is a strategy in business and politics, used most famously by Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby. In the words of British politician Boris Johnson, one of Crosby’s clients, ‘There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’”
He has a point, and a point well taken by Rahul Gandhi – He began with a hug, wink and a fighter jet and carried it over to a book launch by Karan Thapar, at which the book’s key crowd puller was missing. At the event, Rahul Gandhi launched a love vs hate tirade that made the internet stop… another dead cat thrown on the table. He said fight, but don’t hate. Now, how do you do that – where from will come the killer instinct? Learn from the Vietnamese boat man!
Love can’t make a dead cat come alive, and hate can’t kill it – it has 9 lives – but you need dead cats to win an election – the coal black cat that helped the current ruling party rule in 2014 is proof enough. But, dead cats on the table is not the same as food on the table and the mother of three children who died of hunger in the national capital will certainly endorse this.
292 dead cats is not only a tall ask but might create outrage in PETA, unlike when formalin is found in dead imported fish in Goa. That indeed is a fishy tale! Reports have it that with fish unavailable or beyond the pocket of most, liquid diets are on a high!
Statism vs nationalism was on show last week, with the Marathas on the march to the maximum city for a share of the jobs on offer by the State Government. En route perhaps, other stakeholders joined in and fired up the mob and vehicles… And the march fizzled out without an immediate solution – which was the aim of the march in July in the first place.
The moral of the story perhaps is that one can be a nationalist only if one can first take care of himself, and then his family, financially. Then one is willing to stand in queues for his own money or give up his gas subsidy or pay tax willingly, or make all the other sacrifices the government (not the nation – there is a difference, though the line of control is often purposely blurred) asks of him.
Last word
News: Another Warrier found in Kerala. A hard-working one. She doesn’t wink, doesn’t shoot, but works hard from 3 am to midnight to make ends meet, to look after her ailing mother and fund her studies in chemistry (she’s a third year BSc student). She’s up at 3 am to go to the fish market, to buy fish at wholesale rates, and sell the same after college, and possibly is able to sleep only late in the night after her daily household chores and studies. In between, she does a lot of other things like, give tuitions, a little bit of voice dubbing, singing and learning kalaripayattu – a Kerala style martial art – all to sustain and grow into an asset this nation can be proud of. Her principal attested to this. And what do we do as a nation? Troll her. Mercilessly. We don’t know how to appreciate.
Trolling is judgemental and easy – there’s no need to study, there’s no need to work, there’s no need to find out the truth – all that one needs is a calumnious attitude and a mobile phone with internet – and that’s a steal with a sim of eminence.
Bacche din kab ayenge? Woh be poochna hai kya?
Hopefully (after the last word) you can still have a good weekend and a great week ahead.
The author can be contacted at brian@newskarntaka.com
