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Valentine's Daze... During Prem Saptah |
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1.Imagine Rastapopulous, the notorious Tintin villain with a shorter nose 2.Now replace Rastapopulous' cartoon eyes with Amrish Puri's eyes in a rape scene 3.Now drape the image in a Dhoti, a white kurta, a vermilion tikka and a saffron tinged Gamcha. 4.Now conjure up the hamming (the finger pointing, tremulous voice and popping eyeballs) of any of the legendary South Indian heroes 5.Now remove the clever dialogues of Herge and replace it with inflammatory tone of Hitler or Mussolini Well the snapshot that you see is of "Myself Toggadiya". Pravin Toggadiya is the spokesperson of the VHP and at the forefront of the "Mandir hum banayenge" movement. A zap through of news channels will reveal this rotund surgeon, laying claim to be the sole representative of Hindu sentiment in this country. He is a master of the Oxymoron and uses it with scant regard to the rules of English idiom or grammar when cornered, by accusing anchormen, rivals of being part of "The Secular Taliban". Given the way he dissects his opponents' arguments or points of debate in an issue it is easy to see why he failed as surgeon. Not for him are the tiny scalpel and nimble dexterity of fingers and the joy of saving lives. He prefers the meat cleaver, the butcher's mighty blow and the ephemeral promise of liberating souls from their earthly bodies. Seemingly inspired by the 80's classic "Pump up the volume", (also released in Punjabi by Malkiat Singh as "Awaaz Oonchi karde") he is a GD terror or as the Competition Success Review GD evaluators would say, "Candidate Toggadiya lacks coherence of thought, has no originality and is a troublemaker. It is unlikely that this candidate will be able to work constructively and is likely to have a negative effect on the harmony of any team. Candidate Rejected!" This true Ram Bhakt, rather than encourage the culture of "Jai Ramji Ki", is more likely to be the cause of "Ram Naam Satya hai".  Bombay is confused this Valentine's Day. The huge hoardings with hearts all over them and imploring you to show your love in the form of diamonds, visits to Australia and candlelit dinners among other things that mushroom with all over the city are missing. No it has nothing do with recession and economic downturn and tightened consumer spending. The ageing tiger, the Big B or whatever else you want to call him - Bal Thackeray- has declared that Valentine's Day is alien to Indian culture and therefore should not be celebrated in Bombay. Now the card companies and the hoteliers are miffed. They believe that tigers know little or nothing about love and as the old saying goes, "Those who do not play the game should not make the rules!" They claim that they are building a society where there is more love. In these troubled times they have taken it upon themselves to ensures that people do not forget the "value" of love. Thru billboards and ads, which say, "Your love is worth 24 carats…" "This Valentine's Lots of Love and a Little diamond…" "Candlelight dinner, sparkling champagne and an evening of Love…" they make sure that everyone realizes that there is no price too high to pay for love. As for the culture thing they claim love is a universal emotion and not a western one. To back this up they mention that they have Valentine packages to South Africa, Italian dinners and Hallmark cards that are being used globally for the occasion. I asked them why don't they put up the billboards anyways and they retorted that while they would love too, Love would not save them from the tiger's wrath. I could not get to the tiger and therefore asked his cubs as to what exactly their objection was. They said well love is very clearly defined in Indian culture. They said whatever was there in Bollywood films is reflective of Indian culture. Bollywood clearly says that, you can run around trees, you can sing lewd songs, you can dream of your boyfriend while you are in a waterfall, you can send flying kisses, you can whistle and you can drive in a car together. Now where do they ever show people having candlelit dinners, and gifting each other cards? This they point out is a clearly western influence and thereby alien to Indian culture. Lastly they said they felt that somehow this whole this defamed the famous Indian holy man Sant Valenthe whom the foreigners have made into Saint Valentine and now claimed as their own. Now I decided to bring the two warring parties together and here is the agreement that they reached sealed with a tiger's pugmark. 1.Saint Valentine's day will become a week long festival of song and dance called "Prem Saptah". This will ensure that the love can be blared through loudspeakers and that politicians too can make money. 2.The Tiger shall inaugurate this festival and his cubs will be given complimentary passes to all the fancy restaurants in towns and discounts at prominent jewelers. Thus the marketer's can display their love for the tiger. 3.Lanterns, to ensure that our glorious traditions stay alive, will replace candles. 4.Lovers will be not be allowed to go to lands with western culture to celebrate Prem Saptah but will be encouraged to go to places in India which are brimming with culture, filth and touts. The true test of love after all is in adverse circumstances! PS I finally got the tiger and asked him what his real objection to Valentines was and he said, "Well I have a weak heart and somehow those hearts with arrows thru them on billboards keep reminding me of my condition. All they have to do is change the shape of the heart and show a square with an arrow thru it as the symbol of love." I mentioned meekly that even in our culture since time immemorial the heart had been heart shaped. He glowered at me and said, "In our culture Heart square, rectangle all are the same. Don't you know Sab Maya Hai!" RECENTLY ON JAAL: The God Of Fried Things Kabhi Mushy, Kabhi Rough The Worst Of 2001 Omni-Laden The New ISI Chief Is A Pathan!! Osama And Veerappan The US Strikes Out Bush Talks Tough TN Wants A New CEO Code Red And The Blue Book Sucking Up To Musharraf The Tamasha In Tamil Nadu The Agra Assignment Going Ape Over Kashmir Bad Dream Factory Ballot Boxing Borderline Patriotism Bill Clinton's Hidden Agenda The Tapes: Replay The Naked Truth About Sinha's Dream Budget Give Us This Day Our Daily Disaster A Dip Into The Kumbh Hype Hype Hurray The A 2 Z Of Y2K What's Behind Bush? 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