By Aditya Aamir
Congress is like ‘Get off my lawn’ since May 2014. Congress without power is like jail without parole. Jailbreak, the only option. Overpower the jail superintendent. That is Mani Shankar Aiyar and Salman Khurshid in 2015. They crossed the border to lay out the plan – ‘Get off my lawn, Pakistan please help’. Last week Navjot Sidhu took the turn. He hugged Gen Qamar Bajwa, felt the electricity run up his spine, ‘Qayanat Mil Gaya!’
“Pakistani’s have large hearts, Indians’ are ‘small’,” he told scribes shouting in Motherland. Imran tweeted back in support. Must be the reason why Pakistanis with weak hearts queue up at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad for Indian visas and Sushma Swaraj ‘shoos’ them ‘in’ with a hearty tweet. This is not funny. Sidhu is a clown. A joker. But even that doesn’t make it funny. Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar should count blessings. They almost got conscripted in Bajwa’s army in which Sidhu is honorary captain. Imran Khan got Sidhu to bat for Pakistan. Sidhu thinks he now has the ball(s). Sidhu is not any Tom or Harry, just Dick.
Moving on, to coordinates south, Suresh and Sidin are playing ‘Clear Orf’ in Kerala-silt deposited there by flood waters. Left of centre and right of centre don’t take too much time to Kabadi. Suresh is alt-right ‘Whatsapp Viral’ and Sidin is left-liberal ‘Facebook Wonder’. The two are at loggerheads on who bore the brunt – the ‘Yajaman’ or the ‘Adiyan’ – the rich Mallu or the poor Malayali. Suresh being vanguard of alleged ‘right bigots’ is affirmative the rich got the stick, so don’t donate, your money will end up in wrong hands; the poor poverty-stricken will not get a dime, the rich will wet their beaks in muddy plunder. Suresh wants to corner glory for ‘Seva-done’.
Sidin says hogwash, this ain’t about the rich leaching; Kerala has excellent PDS; that efficiency will show in the distribution of donations, relief. “This is not some scam by the Malayali rich to leech donations. I assure you there are poor people thronging relief camps all over the state. Donations do get leaked out. Choose a route and donate wisely, whether cash or goods. Or if you’d rather wait for now, and donate carefully later, that is great too… Don’t let a WhatsApp forward destroy your conscience. Switch on your TVs, switch to a Malayalam news channel. See the feed for yourself. Or go online, browse the photos on the Army’s Additional Directorate General of Public Information’s twitter feed. Kerala needs help. Do what you can friends. Help Kerala. Ignore Kerala. But please don’t cause us more harm than we have already suffered.”
Powerful words. Nobody heard of Sidin Vadukut before. Came in with the flood. A rich voice. Kind of takes the dollars for Suresh’s dime. The Modi government is not impressed. It has politely refused UAE’s Rs. 700 crore donation. This, the day after Pinarayi Vijayan thanked the sheikhs for their large hearts and Malayalis in UAE changed social media profiles to ‘Seven Sheikhs’. Ah! There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. India will battle crocs and snakes in Kerala homes. India has snake-charmers. The best of them. Ayurveda rejuvenation is not up Arab Street. Even the Emirati Arab doesn’t fancy a camel anymore. Hell, Lulu is such an un-Indian name.
Journalist Binoo John asks why the gloom? Yep, why the drooping moustache? This is a new beginning. The clouds will lift. The snakes will find their way holes. Crocs will be shown water. Fishermen will catch. Have a whale of a time. Silt will once again gather dust in dams. Madhav Gadgil will be forgotten all over again. Environment doesn’t belong to Silent Valley. The elephant will cross tree-lined highways. Wayanad will be Wayanad. Idukki will dam. Munnar will reopen to afternoon cups of tea. Life will go on like there will be no deluge for another 100 years – 2118 here we come. Till then ‘Get off my lawn’, ‘Clear Orf! (IPA Service)
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