Never a dull moment in Indian politics, is there? Just when the whole Jan Lokpal bill furore was starting to die down, comes Harvinder Singh’s claim to fame - the Sharad Pawar slap episode! Although the incident lasted for all of 15 seconds, it felt a lot longer with the media going on and on about it. Reactions coming in from every political party from every little nook and corner in the country! Facebook and Twitter were buzzing with the Sikh’s heroics. The aam junta just went wild that, finally, someone had the guts to do this!
I think the funniest reaction came from the man of the moment in Indian politics – Anna Hazare. His reaction on hearing this news was, “Acha! Ek hi maara?”. For me, that was a candid and humourous comment, and should’ve been left at that! But, would we ever be able to do that? Arnab Goswami, the irritating loudmouth that he is, goes about cornering a pro-Anna politico about what Anna actually meant? Did the Gandhian now support violence? I mean, really? What’s worse is that Hazare comes out with a “formal statement” to salvage the whole situation! Come on, man! So, you have a sense of humour – be proud of it!
Sure, Hazare is a man that a lot of Indians now look up to as their idol. “Young, impressionable minds regard him as a person they would want to emulate. What path was he leading these young minds on?” Well, a path of sarcasm with a dash of wit? What’s wrong with that? For me, that was one positive from Team Anna after all the hoopla about Kiran Bedi and her infamous flight tickets, or Kejriwal with his tax evasion. I think they should’ve used this to get some positive mileage out of the whole episode! Something like “Team Anna may be corrupt, but they still have their sense of humour!”
Then there was the Chamaat Song. I’m not sure how many of you must have seen this. But if you haven’t, you should definitely give this one a look. It is a spoof on the Tamil song - Kolaveri Di, with Harvinder and Pawar dishing out a fairly decent rendition. Youtube it – now!
Like I have said in some of my earlier posts, we Indians have become far too sensitive about everything. Imagine a political leader, a highly corrupt one at that, getting slapped in Delhi and buses getting their windshields smashed in all the way in Pune. Road blocks and traffic jams in Bombay. Protests all across Maharashtra. The only good thing for us bored office-goers was that they demanded for a bundh in Pune the next day. Not that they succeeded in closing down the Pune IT world, but for that brief moment of hearing the news, we were all overjoyed. Immediate thought that crosses my mind – when does someone slap Kalmadi now?
