This has been one of those weeks. The appalling has dovetailed with the absurd. The amusing has merged with the aggravating
This has been one of those weeks. The appalling has dovetailed with the absurd. The amusing has merged with the aggravating.
Don’t know whether to laugh, lament, lampoon or lambast.
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Illustration/ Amit Bandre
For starters, can anyone give me the full dope on this tod-phod nonsense with the toll-booths? I mean, I get the obvious ploy, the vote-gathering angle. But the charade demanding that the Chief Minister give us full transparency of Rs 88, 50 paise we spent? Point is, I’m more concerned with who’s paying the lakhs to repair the damaged premises, the vandalised toll nakas. I need transparency on that.
Guess that’s a rhetorical question, right?
(A side bar, the day the agitation occurred, our spanking new T2 airport was inaugurated, anyone tried getting to the airport?)
Then, there’s the whole hungama over Anushka Sharma’s bee-stung lips. Oh, come on, why is it a national obsession if an actor aiming for the look of a 1960’s jazz singer ends up looking like a ‘70s middle-weight boxer. It is only her business, and Virat Kohli’s. Got it?
Come on, Penguin, come on guys, give me inside info. You fight four years in court against the paperback police. And before the legal judgment kicks in, you pulp the book. Huh? What’s the worst that would have happened? Freedom of expression is one thing, enough’s been said about that by eminent scholars, sociologists and secularists. But methinks you might have opened a door. Maybe not a floodgate. But a door for fanatics to get a foothold in.
How can we forget N Srinivasan? Here is a man who rewrites the handbook of turning pressure into an opportunity.
So the Board of Control for Cricket in India rejects him, his IPL team goes under a match-fixing cloud. And his son-in-law is accused of betting.
Does he hang his head in shame? Does he flee from the spotlight? No way, Jose — he becomes head honcho of the International Cricket Council. Now that’s what I call a Chennai Super King!
And, finally, the saga of the pepper spray...
Here’s my question — I get frisked everywhere I go nowadays — at hawaai addas, hotels, high-end malls. In stark contrast, a bunch of MPs enter parliament armed with enough ammo for the next installment of Die Hard?
And why was this Rajagopal guy carrying pepper spray into the proceedings?
Was he scared he might be groped? Our country is truly in good hands.
All we need is Azam Khan’s buffaloes to go missing again and I’ll feel we had a perfect week!
Rahul da Cunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahuldacunha62 @gmail.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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