If California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger meets Sonia Gandhi (mother of India’s future), they will have a common topic to talk about. As per American laws, Arnold cannot be the President of United States since he is a citizen by naturalization. In India, the Supreme Court has asked the Government’s opinion on the issue of registered citizens holding constitutional posts. By registered citizens’ everyone means Sonia Gandhi.
Let us say by some miracle, the court finds that Sonia cannot hold any constitutional post, it still does not prevent the next generation of the Royal Family from giving us that world class governance. More effective that this PIL business would be to plead with Rahul Gandhi to give a public speech every day.
If there has been one news which has denied front page coverage of Abhishek Bachchan’s marriage to some Ms. Rai for at least one day, it has been the kissing (not on lips) of Shilpa Shetty by that foreigner Richard Gere. Apparently this is not Indian Culture and I agree for it provides excellent business opportunity for my effigy making startup. Due to this Richard Gere-Culture-Vulture thing, I am missing all those wonderful Rakhi Sawant, Mallika Sherawat, Emraan Hashami movies on TV which were instilling Indian culture into us.
The last foreigner issue comes from the Infosys Campus in Mysore where they decided not to sing the national anthem in a function attended by the President of India. Instead they decided to play the instrumental version. So far so good. Then Mr. Narayana Murthy made the statement that they decided not to sing the Indian National Anthem in India because the foreigners present would feel embarrassed.
President Abdul Kalam thinks Mr. Narayana Murthy would be a good candidate for the post of President of India. As President, Narayana Murthy will have to receive many foreign dignitaries and there is a 100% chance that the national anthem will be played in all those occasions. To avoid embarrassing situations for foreigners, President Narayana Murthy will have to enforce a new rule – visitors can bring their own songs which will be played instead of the national anthem. This could sometimes result in the Teletubbies theme song being played when President Bush visits India, but hey Athithi Devo Bhavah!
What would we do without foreigners?
Seriously, Emram Hashmi should be made brand ambassador of Indian Culture.
LOL!! Good post JK.
For a society who has been deeply damaged by colonialism can one think of a more offensive image of a white guy grabbing a daughter of India and forcing himself upon her? It is so symbolic. It is right in line with the image of the white colonist forcing himself upon a country and just taking whatever he wants.
Richard Gere should pay the ultimate price for this.
What bothers me however is those who would blame Shilpa Shetty for this.
Too often women victims of rape in India are blamed for what happened like they wanted the rape to happen or it was their fault the rape happened even when the truth might be that the rapists brutalized them and they couldn’t stop the rape from happening.
While of course Richard Gere didn’t actually rape Shilpa Shetty, I still see this whole “Blame the Woman Victim” dynamic in place. From what I saw from the video Shilpa Shetty did nothing to cause Richard Gere to act the way he did, and was in fact as shocked as everyone else was that he would act in such a disgraceful manner.
We need to defend this daughter of India, not blame her for this white man’s assault upon her.
The Non-Violent Chicken
“Myself and my daughters would never like Sarabjit freed inexchange for any hardcore Pakistani terrorist lodged in Indian jails,” Sarabjit’s wife, Sukhpreet Kaur, told PTI. Ms. Kaur said that for the family, “nothing is above the nation and we…