Rahul Gandhi - The King Of Comedy

The following lines from the movie ‘The American President’ are some of my most favourite when it comes to describing gullible people:

An aide remarks in very harsh terms:  “…Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand”. To which the President responds: “We've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference”.

Justice Markandeya Katju, the PCI chief, had remarked that 90% of people in India are backward, lack education and it’s the media’s job to bring up the right issues. That is really tall expectations from a media that relishes the backwardness of people as much as politicians do, none more so than Rahul Gandhi the latest troubadour from the dynasty. P. Chidambaram, the man in a cess pool of troubles, remarked sometime back that when RG spoke “he brought back memories of a young Rajiv Gandhi”. Why not? After all, since his early promise Rajiv Gandhi had turned out to be as much a gas bag and mired in scandals except for his dreams for India. Rahul Gandhi shares his penchant for dreams – a dream Lokpal, a dream of uniting two Indias, a dream of this and a dream of that. Not everyone is lucky to have so many wet dreams. In all his utterances I have yet to see one piece of intelligence on any issue. Unless, of course, you missed his comic genius. It all began on November 14, when RG started his election campaign in UP. Let’s sample some of his utterances:

1.   At all rallies: “There is a magic elephant in Lucknow that eats up all the funds provided by Congress”.

2.   At Deoband: “I am blind to caste and religion. I see everyone as Hindustani... If one Hindustani tries to harm another, I promise I will come in between. Please remember that I am the grandson of Indira Gandhi”. Which is why he will promote reservations for minorities and ask why others didn’t do it so far!

3.   On the Babu Singh Kushwaha issue: "We refused to induct any corrupt politicians in the party". Why would he? Aren’t there enough in his own party?

4.   On Lokpal Bill: "They(BJP leaders) were smiling in the Lok Sabha and said Lokpal is not their dream but ours--Manmohan Singhji, Rahul Gandhiji and Sonia Gandhiji's. "I agree. A strong Lokpal is our dream. Just wait and watch, we will bring a Constitutional Lokpal and defeat them". Maybe he forgot he is in the ruling party, with allies!

 

      5. At Balia: "Mulayam Singh once said to me that 'do whatever you want, the Muslims will only vote for me.' If you have the courage put a promise of 18 percent reservation in your manifesto'.

      "Mulayam has been the CM thrice and Mayawati four times. But not once they spoke about reservation (for Muslims) when they were chief ministers, not once did they mention reservation”.

      6. Everywhere: “..But today your leaders don't come to you but fly on helicopters. . And until they understand the sufferings of the people the state cannot progress”.

7.   "They won't talk to you. They won't come amidst you. They won't shake hands with you. They won't come to your house or have food. They will not drink water from your well. They sit in AC rooms. They won't talk about farmers… And when I come to your houses, have your food, I am ridiculed. They ask what happened to Rahul Gandhi. I see strength in you, in rural villages”.

8.   "UPiites have built roads in Maharashtra, they work in Kerala, they help the farmers in Punjab...but they do not have roads, electricity or water in their villages. Who built the Delhi Metro? Who is working in Ladakh?”

9.  You sell your potatoes for Re.1 a Kg. but potato chips are sold for Rs.20/- a packet.

10. The best of them all: For how long will you beg in Maharashtra or work as labourers in Punjab? When asked if he meant it metaphorically RG went on to say that he really meant “beggars” and he also found most of the beggars in Delhi were from UP.

And I am not going to even talk about RG’s previous gems like “Politics is in your pants” or “99% terror averted”. Well, it will surely be criminal of me if I left out “Mao brought development to China”!

Not surprisingly only some in the media have just about woken up to this man with no knowledge, intelligence or any understanding of the nation whatsoever. Imagine, an intellectual like Pratap Bhanu Mehta actually wrote to RG about “Tomorrow’s responsibilities”. Bravo! Much of the real discovery of RG started only after the November 14 Phulpur rally and his “beggar” comment for the media, at least some of them. TOI reports ‘Terai shocker for Rahul Gandhi’. WSJ: ‘More Signs of Rahul Gandhi’s Populism’. M.D. Nalapat: ‘Past is Rahul future in UP’. Venky Vembu: ‘Rahul Gandhi, the gawky, poor little ‘Richie Rich’ politician’. Swapan Dasgupta: “A look at the man who would be India’s King”. The list could go on and on. But I wonder why so many in the mainstream media couldn’t see the comedian for what he is all these years.

The one pic RG wouldnt want farmers or beggars to see

So much for discovering Rahul Gandhi! One has to wonder why it took so long for some in the media to write about the comic genius of RG.  It is really hard to argue with anything he says simply because it’s all so profound. Of course, if you have a hard time understanding the sense behind what he says there’s always a battery of Congress spokespersons ready to explain what exactly he meant. They’re not the only one though. NDTV seems to be the only channel that seems to know all of RG’s travel plans. From travelling on the metro to sudden and secret visits to UP or elsewhere and even his considered views on FDI in retail. Oh, that’s another beauty. The retail-FDI plan got dumped by parliament but RG believe that policy would have been heaven-sent for farmers. So once again he managed to explain that to farmers. And today, January 11, he handed a box of chocolates to a young muslim kid as a token of the sign that Congress will deliver for the muslims. Didn’t mom tell the kid in a movie that “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ll get”? I guess if that served Gump well, it should do the same for others too.

UP - A Muslim Labarotory

 In all the days of his campaign RG has not once been able to outline what his programmes are or what he and his party would do for the state he is campaigning in. Nothing! So in absence of any substance he falls back upon the old and trusted methods instituted by his parents, grandparents and great grandparents; subsidies, doles and, of course, quotas. And from the old school book of Indira Gandhi he even digs out the “Garibi Hatao” slogan. Not having drawn good crowds in many places he now campaigns exclusively in UP towns where muslims are a majority. His cronies desperately try to prove him right in everything he says, like the “game changer” plan but even that came a cropper in parliament. The best part of the whole show is the media which now discusses the ‘minority’ quota as an issue as against the evil of ‘quota’ itself. 

The other trick that he’s learnt from his family is ‘dressing up’, particularly with hats, skull caps with minorities and tribals, something his grandmother excelled in and yet remains a man unwilling to take up any responsibility whatsoever. I am reminded of Govinda in the movie 'Raja Babu', in which he liked taking his pictures in all kinds of costumes of dresses while being a village bumpkin. Along with Digvijay and Khurshid, RG has now turned Uttar Pradesh into a 'Muslim Laboratory'.

Thanks to the Congress policies minorities have come to mean just ‘muslims’ and their demands get more and more outrageous with time. The latest report says a group of muslims burnt an effigy of RG at Azamgarh. This is the town that RG’s mentor Digvijay visited to assure families of those killed in the Batla House encounter would be delivered justice. A professor from the localcollege of the town says:  “He (Digvijaya) had come here two years ago and promised a judicial inquiry, but changed his statement while talking to the media outside the village. The Congress talks of minority reservation, but we are not fools... We are not the only minority..” What the report doesn’t say is that the statement implies the muslims probably want to be recognised as a ‘separate minority’ and not clubbed with all minorities.

Rahul Gandhi's comedy in May 2011 with the ashes and dead bodies has been chronicled under #RahulFacts and his November 14 stupidity chronicled under #YoRahulSoDumb. (Both compiled by @KiranKS). The messages are indicators enough to establish him as the new Laloo.

Atanu Dey, a seasoned observer of Indian issues, sums up RG pretty neatly in a post: “Rahul Gandhi has the “ticket” to become the prime minister. His accomplishment can be summarized in two words: lucky sperm. Other than that, hardly anything else qualifies him — not education, not deep insight, not intelligence (an area he is noted to be particularly lacking in), not some breathtaking deed, . . . To not put too fine a point on it, his accomplishments amount to zilch, zero, shunya, nada. It’s his identity as the great grandson of Nehru, the grandson of Indira Gandhi nee Nehru, the son of Rajiv Gandhi & the Italian mama Antonia Maino aka Sonia Gandhi, that totally sums him up and explains his appeal to a significant number of Indian voters”. They drink the sand, because they cannot tell the difference.

That’s right, “lucky sperm” is the only explanation one can have for a bimbo who believes it’s prime-minister or nothing. I gave up understanding RG long ago and dedicated a song to him: “What a fool believes, wise man doesn’t bother to reason away” and now I just sit back and have a good laugh at the jokes he cracks. Stand-up comedy has become popular on TV only in the last few years with a lot of those laughter shows. You don’t need a special show when RG starts talking or rolling up his sleeves after every sentence. The King of comedy has truly arrived.