At the height of Beatlemania in March 1966 John Lennon was quoted as saying the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”. This was enough to cause a world-wide Christian outrage.
Beatles’ concerts were threatened, their records burned in southern US, Mexico,
South Africa, Spain. Later, Lennon did express regret to pacify the Christians.
Lennon had only responded to a question on the decline of Christianity which
was being widely discussed at that time. His actual statement was: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't
argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than
Jesus now; I don't know which will go first—rock 'n' roll or Christianity.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them
twisting it that ruins it for me”. Factually, Lennon was right; Beatles
were popular in every corner of the world (beyond Christians) and had more
influence on kids and youth. The Pope even chose to forgive Lennon years after
he was killed as if anybody gave a damn. Frankly, the Vatican has more to
apologise for than Lennon, as later events have shown. Lennon didn’t really ‘abuse’ Jesus in any way for so much
outrage. Can you imagine Hindus outraging like that? Lennon did have the
choicest words to frequently describe the “establishment cronies” and even
returned the MBE awarded by the Queen in protest of some war.
I have lost count of the number of times I’ve said there are two Rajdeep Sardesais. One is the guy on TV
and the other is off it. On TV is the man driven by compulsions of business and
the ‘agenda’. Off TV the man is
often thoughtful in his writings and quite introspective when he tweets. So on
November 10 when he tweeted seeking to understand how to make up with
Twitterati it was amazing to see someone seeking vicarious pleasure in hunting
down certain people and informing their workplace. Haha! I’m surprised why this
bitchy woman didn’t go a step further and seek to write a complaint to moms and
dads of some Tweeple. I honestly didn’t know much about Priya Ramani before but I learn that she runs something called Mint-Lounge, a section of Mint, a paper
that Hindustan Trolls tries to sell. Now what exactly is Mint Lounge? It’s one
of those extras for women with money and nothing to do. It shows them the
philosophical way of ‘baking a Pizza’ at home or how SRK doesn’t want to be a
lover-boy, art of the grotesque and so on.
What does strike me is not that Ramani wants to hunt down these “persnarltees”.
She figured in an earlier post of mine (From my inbox to Fiberals) on
her mindless rant against NitiCentral
and the 499 crores of Rajesh Jain. In that post I had shared how some
journalists feel about their work. It makes me wonder how the people working
around Ramani really feel. Forget the persnarltees on Twitter or SM, those around
Ramani may be on constant surveillance for every word and sentence they utter
everywhere. Ramani probably spies on all her co-workers and employees of Lounge
to make sure they’re behaving. I wonder if she reports every silly tweet of her
co-workers to their parents or their spouses.
Who knows, she might even add a note on how to spank such people. I
wonder if online behaviour is a factor for salary hikes or cuts at Lounge or
Mint itself. Come to think of it they might even have an annexure to the appraisal
form where an employee's good and bad behaviour instances are listed. Like,
you know, number of accolades for Ramani might get +10 each, and number of
times the employee calls her a bitch gets a -20. Damn! This woman could truly
revolutionise behaviour assessment in media outlets.
We’ll get back to Ramani’s extraordinary brilliance but in the meantime
I would like you to find out what Balvenie
is. I’ve often said that certain TV channels and magazines are meant only for
those with a ‘Mini-bar’ at home. You can pronounce Balvenie as ‘Bal-when-ee’ or
‘Bal-ween-ee’. Both are acceptable. See? I’m learning, why don’t you start too?
More Mint! On November 8 Madhu
Trehan was at a debate at the World Economic Forum hosted on NDTV. She was
battling ‘Nothing’! I mean she was battling Kapil Sibal over Internet freedom,
hooliganism and stuff like that. Doing a running commentary, Mint put out these
two tweets attributing statements to Madhu. Turns out both statements were
absolute LIES. It sounds like the Mint editor, Suku, was playing Sudoku. So he quietly
deletes the tweets and privately apologises to Madhu. Mint value system: Tar in public and apologise in private. Most
companies have that in reverse, don’t they? The tweets were to public at large
and there was no apology to readers for misleading them. Many tweeple were not
very kind to Madhu after reading the Livemint tweets. Worse, Mint stupidly
deletes those tweets hoping the crime will disappear. I guess they are yet
to learn that not even Kapil Sibal can wipe the footprints off the internet.
Then there are other writers at Mint. There is one Aakar Patel who writes mostly about nothing but Narendra Modi. This
one is not sure whether he’s in love with Modi or not. Er. somewhat like those “he
loves me, he loves me not” games with clover leaves. Modi has been called a lot
of names but it’s only Aakar Patel who finds him a “sex symbol”. Some call it an obsession and some call it infatuation
with Modi. One hopes AakTel will someday make a confession. Then there’s Samar Halarnkar (actually with
Hindustan Trolls) and he is accused of plagiarising the works of Frances Moore
Lappé in his articles on fighting hunger and food shortages. Ah, I think that
had something to do with Brazil. I guess guy doesn’t know even Wiki has an
entry on him to that effect. It’s a long story that will take up too much
space. What’s the short story? Samar is also reportedly the husband of Priya
Ramani. Yeah, the one that wants to hunt down people. In all the posts so far I’ve
never found the need to use any expletives. I think I can be bad enough without
the use of those. I once used the ‘f’ word but that was an actual tweet of
Rajdeep I quoted. This Ramani takes it further than hatred can possibly take
anyone. She calls Lord Ram a loser.
Her friend calls him a “C***” and
typically, like the American woman she is, she corrects him: It’s “D***”. Ramani is not alone. She has a
sister-in-arms in Sagarika Ghose who
frequently abuses Ram and Hinduism.
Where does such hatred and loathing of a Hindu icon come from? That too
with no particular provocation! Ah, for that we’ll have to go back two years to
an article Ramani wrote in the same Mint. That was called: “I may not be an Indian” (June 2010).
Yeah.. you leave us in no doubt about that. She hates being Indian, she hates
Ram for being a loser; in short she hates everything about herself.
Technically, for all her stupid utterances Ramani could well be charged with
sections 294, 295 and 295A for deliberately insulting religious sentiments
under the Indian Penal Code. A glimpse of her self-hate can be seen in the
image from her article. She hates
Diwali, she thinks Holi is a time for ‘molestation’.
I believe it would be
easier to make a list of things she doesn’t hate about India or Indians. That
would probably equal to ‘Sibal’. And then, this stupid moron claims she is a
victim of abuse on Twitter. Who in his right mind would want to abuse her when
she abuses herself so much? She is probably one of those failed journalists or
writers who couldn’t make it to the top like Chetan Bhagat. She probably wonders why she had to be born Indian. I
have lived abroad for a short while and have seen western culture too. I love
many of their good practices but don’t hate them for what could be called bad
practices. We are here because India isn’t perfect. Some people take that
imperfection as a chance to correct our faults. Some people simply choose to
hate the country and her people. Ramani leaves us in no doubt which category
she belongs to. But hey, sure as hell, she can probably tell you how to bake a
cake with her magazine. And you can guess her favourite drink: Balvenie! The single-malt Scotch
whiskey which probably inspires her writings and tweets!
There are many interpretations to Lord Ram’s response to the utterances
of a washer-man. That is not even important here. Ram could have slashed the
man’s head, imprisoned him, maybe he put his people above family. It can go on
and on. What do you know, if Ram were
with us today all he would have to do is send an email to Kapil Sibal and the
washer-man would be in prison under 66A in a flash. But it would most
certainly take an extreme moron to call him a loser or a D*** or C***.
Some wonder what would happen if Ramani were to make similar statements
about Islam or Islamic icons. Not just her, the entire bunch of media morons wouldn’t
dare. I’ve no doubt the swords would be out, her family would be dead and her
house burned to the ground. But that’s hardly the issue here. Even Christians
outraged over Lennon’s largely innocuous remark. My answer to this particular
moron who passes as Priya Ramani is this: You
didn’t become who you are all by yourself. The self-hate and loathing didn’t
come to you all by yourself. No one said it better than John Adams: “Our individuality we so, so revere is not entirely our own…
We ARE, who we WERE”. So I’m in no doubt those with such extreme
hatred didn’t get it all by themselves. They are, who they were.
Their forefathers, ancestors, friends, family and co-workers probably invested in
them with such hatred. Hindus will no doubt be angered but they’re definitely
not going to draw swords.
Most of us “Are who we Were”. Most Hindus are brought up with some
spiritual principles and tolerance. That is the foundation of this country. I
have travelled to the smallest corners of India. In many rural towns life is
terrible. In a bus for 22 they usually pack a 100 and even add another 50 sacks
of vegetables and grains. While I did find it alarming and discomforting, I don’t
regret living the lives of those people and with them for a while. They didn’t choose
that life and live in hope things will change for their children. The uncouth,
uncivilised aren’t the ones who only spit or litter. The Ramanis can sip their
Balvenie and keep hating Ram and India. John Lennon said to an audience once: “Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the
rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery”. So why do I have
write about these idiots at Mint? That’s a good question. Let me again quote the
last verse from a song Lennon-McCartney wrote many years ago (A day in the life – One can find it
easily on Youtube):
“I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I'd love to turn you on” ....
Well, the song was banned for radio play because the British
establishment thought the phrase “turn you on” alluded to drugs. But they
totally missed something else. It is known that the 4000 holes refer to the
potholes in Blackburn’s streets with relevance to a council election. But what’s
the reference to those holes filling the Royal Albert Hall? There are many
interpretations and one of them is of decaying flesh and another is
assholes in the system. That’s the reason I had to count all the morons at
Mint. Now we know how many holes there
are in the Mint.
