5 February 2014

The sense of disconnect continues

The first week of February started on a slap happy note. First a man slapped the Haryana CM, an MLA slapped a man and then a newly anointed new Chief Minister slapped his aide. The last, caught on live TV, proved to be contentious as the CM claimed it was not a slap but a ‘pat’.

A declaration that would have had Winston Smith of 1984 fame occupied for another 30 years pondering on propaganda and historical revisionism.

The cause behind Gujarat’s prosperity has been finally revealed. Elegant in its simplicity, the state had just marked  down the poverty line to Rs 11 per day. This sum, along with lots of goodwill can still not get you two cups of tea.

But just as we were beginning to think this joyous note would continue, the usual sense of disconnect descended on us. Not gently like nectar on upturned lips but with suddenness designed to purge our souls with pity and terror.

TV channels started calling Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent in limbo, RaGa. Which is unusual for they have no space constraints and the astonishing amount of verbiage they spill is ... well, astonishing. You cannot go around calling someone RaGa and expect him to be unaffected.

He pouted and was said to be returning his porridge untouched. Deciding to do something about it, the Congress princeling donned a scruffy look and joined a protest against his own government.

This allows me to perform a rickety segue on the Rahul interview to TIMES NOW. It was replayed and referred to continuously and now a full text has been proffered online. This is akin to a fan of Marquis de Sade deciding to enliven our lives by replaying, in excruciating detail, Gavaskar’s memorable ODI innings of 30 in 60 overs.

The note of disconnect was boosted as media soon poured out a load of factoids, to which the answer was, in one form or the other, “yeah right.”

There was a disclosure that a lobbyist was instructed to target Sonia as she was the main force in India’s decision-making. The note then named seven persons as her aides with Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee as numbers one and three respectively. Maybe Manmohan’s proximity had been misinterpreted as closeness.

The Medical Council of India has announced that doctors’ prescriptions were illegible. The RBI then said that inflation had risen and remained a problem. Yeah right.

There was no let-up in sight. An analysis on India’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Syria started with a quote from the song “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple, which to today’s public could only mean a shade of unisex nail polish. How the title, song, and subject are connected is a puzzling and convoluted train of thought.

The New Indian Express however won the race with a trifecta in its Sunday edition. Three headlines, side by side in its centre-fold, told us that (a) for BCCI Cricket was All About Money and Power, (b) Voters were Useful Idiots For Power Hungry Political Parties and (c) Opportunism Whiff in Left’s Right Leaning. Yeah Right.

But you would think that the top story of the week would be a sportsman and scientist being bestowed with the nation’s top civilian honours. You would be wrong.

In a case of the Wild West meeting cow loving India, police launched a massive hunt for stolen buffaloes. Seven, count with me S-E-V-E-N, buffaloes were robbed from U.P.’s powerful minister Azam Khan's well-protected farmhouse.

Led by the Superintendent of Police, Sadhna Goswami, cops across the district spread out in a massive buffalo hunt, combed fields and took sniffer dogs along to track down the animals. TV reports showed canines, trained to seek explosives, looking at each other saying – now what?

The buffaloes were finally all found but three cops have been suspended for dereliction of duty.

 This is the same state in which 34 children died in a cold wave and 600 more are still reported missing. One wiseass commented that the UP Government could soon offer Z category security to buffaloes.


But Mr Khan may still have the last laugh. Soon after the buffaloes were recovered we have been alerted that prices of milk may rise – cow's to Rs 30 and buffalo's to Rs 40 per litre.

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