Finally the hype of the Railway Budget and the Budget itself has died down. Lalu was damned by majority of the press for doing nothing innovative, for being populist, as though it?s a dirty word! Endless whining from the stockbrokers who can?t bear to part with even a penny…a bit more of the whine and their demands will be ignored hereon. One man referred to Chidambaram?s as a Mother Teresa-type budget. Sic, to say the least. Had I been the anchor of that show, I would have tied the fellow up in knots. He was an upstart and was allowed to get away with it.
Then there is the other type ? the anchor that mocks the person he or she is interviewing, usually with a supercilious grin. One example is the condescension with which some senior television anchors address Lalu Yadav. It makes one squirm. They seem to forget that their own little breed is truly little. They, for a start, cannot communicate with Indians outside of their circle of a few hundred. Lalu communicates with all, let?s not forget that. Judge him by his actions not by his mannerisms and accent. Let us be a trifle more sophisticated.
These anchors scoff and mock the present political grouping because they were all so utterly wrong about the outcome of the last election. They do not know what to attack Sonia Gandhi with any more. She has taken the rug out from under their feet. Their snide asides carry no weight at all. They want to squirm for being so off the mark, so unconnected, but cannot. That is the impression they give. This is what comes across. This is what seems to be the reason for the put on arrogance, arrogance with a defensive smirk.
Where are our lot of truly great and unforgettable anchors? Why are we so wimp-like? Why so transparent about our partisan positions? It is easy to know from the manner which anchor likes which guest. When will our communicators on the small screen come of age?
Then there is this delicious story, revealed by Strobe Talbott, about our then Defence minister George Fernandes being stripped, frisked, call it what you may, on his arrival as an official guest of the US of A. It is truly surprising that we tolerate such insults only because the perpetrators are Americans! Where is our dignity? How come we have reduced ourselves to this grovelling and untenable position? Where is our pride and inte-grity? Or have we just become greedy, inconsequential lackeys of a morally questionable State?
Why has our media not done a story? Is it that they believe insults of this nature are acceptable because we come from a lesser privileged part of the world? When will we begin to hold our heads up high? Surely morality is as important if not more important than wealth? Where are the statesmen amongst us? Going back in time, Indira Gandhi would never have tolerated this treatment towards her or her colleagues. There would have been an international scandal. What led us to reduce our stature on the world?s stage?
It has become tiresome to go to some ambassadorial dinners in Delhi where the band of gurkha chowkidars are rude to you at the gate, stop your car from entering if it is not chauffeur driven! Easier to go home, drink a good malt whisky and read a book instead of having to make polite, in-ane conversation after having been insulted by a creepy gate keeper. Owner-driven cars have to park on the street while drivers of the sahibs hang about inside the compound.
There are two embassies that function in this skewed and unacceptable manner, the mega one and its poodle! How I long to reciprocate the same uncivilised treatment to them on my territory. How Gandhiji would have given them hell. How crass. Now, it is the non-mega countries, the civilised and cultured ones, that are attractive. They are not pretentious but rather warm and welcoming and have so much more in common politically, culturally and socially.
And finally, that hideous monstrosity, the National Police Memorial. It epitomises a tasteless structure, non-aesthetic, lacking all sensibility, symbolising the breaking of all urban rules and norms. Maybe it does represent what the police force in Delhi is all about ? corrupted. Where are the great voices in the Press, all those who are trying to tell us that kullars are non-biodegradable, plastic is better! Instead of being condescending to Lalu because he speaks an Indian language better than most of them can ever, why don?t these reps of public perception, who adorn the pages of our papers, damn the daily horrors that confront our cities and towns perpetrated by those who rule? Who was responsible for this monster of a memorial?