The Maanga

Since Slumdogging has been given a break till the Oscar fever returns, Media and blogging now have pink. Apart from waging wars on terror, Pakistan and Australian cricket. Meanwhile, there is a discussion on the pages that no one who wears panties or pink reads. The CEC, being named Gopalaswami and preferring a darker shade, cannot not read the esteemed newspaper. The Editor-in-Chief, cannot not respond to the CEC’s pointed questions with a ramble that makes readers skip to Sudhish Kamath. Who, in turn, rejected theories that mating rituals in mammals were less predictable, citing his own example.

If one does manage to get to the Editor-in-Chief’s response to the second question, it turns out, his defense is that the CEC went ahead with his own assumptions and not The Hindu’s. Stunned by the stinging indifference to the esteem, quotes from the paper’s own assumptions have been provided as evidence to why the CEC’s assumptions based on his own previous assumptions cannot be assumed.

Enraged readers of the newspaper, have rightly been hurt by the sting to the esteem built over six decades of reading every printed word. The Reader’s Editor, meanwhile, was reported to have requested Google to help sort his email.

Don’t attempt satire when the subject of it is such.

And, on that note, why do right wing nuts let such an opportunity pass? Can’t there be a case of hurt sentiments here?,

It also acknowledges the inherent inequalities of the Hindu faith and the fact that it was possible that people might choose to exit that faith.

Since readers have been called Hindutva goons by the Editor-in-Chief, isn’t that in order?

And, isn’t investment scarce in these times? Shouldn’t it be a policy of the nation to replace FDI with missionaries?

By definition, growing up is confused with having grown up. And Indian business sentiment is possibly the single greatest example[1]. Sevanti Ninan rightly castigates the media at the wrong place. Somehow, one always expects something worthwhile on a Sunday Magazine. Pointing how stupid the stupids are is best left to The Maanga. One thinks.

In an NDTV discussion late last week, predictably, the spokespersons of the CPI(M) and the Indian National Congress were restating their stated positions forcefully. Nilotpal Basu, cleverly started his statement by declaring that the day they were discussing was in fact the thirty third anniversary of the declaration of emergency by Mrs Indira Gandhi. And reminded everyone how the nation should remember what the price of overriding Democracy is. Jayanthi Natrajan, cleverer still, completely side-stepped that allusion and restated her party’s stated position in present tense. After fifteen minutes, Shekar Gupta, the journalist on the panel, in his closing remark, reminded Mr Basu that his party was the only one that vociferously supported Mrs Gandhi’s promulgation of Emergency at that time. NDTV moved on to another program.

In a CNN-IBN program called Devil’s Advocate, where the host is given a license to be probing and the permit is taken quite seriously, Finance Minister P Chidambaram was interviewed. During the interview, when the Finance Minister was answering a specific question, the host tried to ask another question assuming the answer that was just being given out. The interviewee told the interviewer, “listen to me” and went on to explain monetary policy and variables.

Barkha Dutt, in yet another discussion, had Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah from Kashmir say something about how Kashmir’s people will decide their own levels of tolerance. To a Rajeev Pratap Rudy and a host in Delhi who thought Democracy does not work as rule by majority in one context or the other. Respectively.

[1] — See what I did there?