India, This Past Fortnight

By Niyantha Shekar 5 February 2009 271 views 5 Comments

Recently, activists of the Sri Ram Sena attacked women who were at a pub in Mangalore, India. The chief of the Sri Ram Sena, Mr. Muthalik, had this to say, “We condemn the pub culture. In our culture, we respect and salute women and give them the status of mother”.¹ Muthalik’s mother was unavailable for comment since in Muthalik’s culture, women can only be seen and not heard.

Slumdog Millionaire is a huge success, so it was only natural that people started suing the producers of the film. The protests center around the title of the movie. ‘Slumdog’ apparently offends the sentiments of some slum dwellers and so they are demanding that it be changed. Rumors abound that by a simple exchange of letters, a reasonable compromise can be achieved. Don’t be surprised if you see ‘Slumgod Millionaire’ plastered about cinema halls in the coming weeks.

Following the success of Sinngh is Kinng and Chandni Chowk to China, Bollywood producers have agreed that they can save money and time by not hiring writers. Akshay Kumar had this to say about the success of his last two films: “When I saw the titles of these movies, I knew I had to act in them. In this industry, you’ve got to be quick to sign movies with good titles. Shahrukh is working with Karan Johar on My Name Is Khan. If only I was a bit more alert, My Name Is Kumar would be out in theaters now.”

On January 26th, Indian President, Pratibha Patil made an appearance before the Indian public as she watched and occasionally saluted at the Republic Day celebrations at the Red Fort. It took a while for the troops marching to realize that the person saluting them was in fact the President of their country. “You see, I spend a lot of my time talking to the dead. So I cannot come out into the sun too often. But the Republic Day celebrations were nice. I was told to occasionally wave my hand in a horizontal manner by Sonia-ji and it was nice to see those young men do the exact same thing in my direction. To be completely honest, I felt bad for those men. To walk around in such poorly designed outfits must be gut-wrenching for them.”

There have been a sudden spate of incidents involving young men slapping other young men. Ever since it was announced that Harbhajan Singh was being offered the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian honor, the youth of India are starting to follow in Harbhajan’s footsteps. Sreesanth, Harbhajan’s most famous slap victim, had this to say: “Sniff.”

Indian Railway Minister and Parliamentary jester, Lalu Prasad Yadav, recently said, “When I can control buffalos, then managing Railways is not a big deal.”² It’s good to know that he came to the job with prior expertise.

To read more ‘India, This Past Fortnight’, click here.

Footnotes:

1 - http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/935A78D81D253F976525754B0051A8F2?OpenDocument
2 - http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200901271920.htm\

Photo Courtesy: Pankaj, FadedYouthBlog, CC2C-TheFilm, Abhi_flick, wikimedia, Sid Nair