I posted a picture of currency notes on Picturejockey and Prashant suggested that we should have a competition to replace Gandhi as well and he has a point. 8-10 years ago the face of Gandhi was only on the 500 rupee note but now it is on every note, from 5 bucks to a grand, there are seven notes and his picture is on every one of them. Don't we have any other leader worthwhile of featuring on a note? It is not only about the the currency notes, we find it hard to find anyone of substance in a population of more than a billion.
We can't find people who can wind medals in Olympics and as the elections are coming, I can see we can't even find people to contest election. Jarnail Singh-whose claim to fame is throwing a shoe at P Chidambram has been offered a ticket to contest election by BJP.
A colleague suggested that he may be chucked out of Dainik Jagran, the news paper that employs him. I find it unlikely. Actually I feel they will ask him to write a daily column on politics or elections or the 84 riots and hope to cash in on his fame. More circulation, more ads that is what they would be thinking about. Even if he shown the door by Dainik Jagran, I am sure he will be snatched by any of these TV channels and be asked to host a prime time show for them on politics and the art of show throwing. Actually as we are talking about throwing the shoe, this seems to have become a craze with another guy throwing a shoe on Friday.
I don't know what this whole excitement is about. A journalist has thrown a shoe at a politician, is it really such a big deal? We all have seen what the MPs and the MLAs get up to in the parliament. We have not only seen those throwing shoes at each others, we have seen them chucking a variety of other things including the microphones and chairs. We have even seen them in fist fight. Or may be they are feeling outraged over someone encroaching on something that was solely their domain till recently. "Main bhala kisi to kursi de maaron, magar kisi aur ki kya mazaal ki kisi politician pe joota fenken."
When I think about the show chucking, I think about Zaidi the original show chucker. He was the pioneer in throwing a shoe at a politician and while he was thrown in jail for three years, people who stole his idea have become instant celebrities, some first mover advantage he had.
I have been an optimist and I always see on the brighter side. India is a land of opportunist entrepreneurs and we have been making money out of things like this, you can see the food stalls outside bottle shops. If there is a large enough gathering of people, you can always find a lot of people outside the venue putting up stalls to sell anything from food to souvenirs. I can visualize shoe stalls coming up outside the parliament or any other place that is going to host anything where a politician will be addressing the crowd.
Tags:
Jarnail singh |
Shoe attack |
P Chidambram |
George Bush |
Shoe chucker
