Monday, September 21, 2009

Holy cow err bison err nothing!

I guess we have all heard about the Shashi Tharoor Tweet incident by now. So I am not going to talk much about the tweet. However the incident gave me hours of fun and entertainment as people after people made laughing stock of themselves. From bloggers who jumped the gun without understanding the fine wordplay to politicians who conveniently forgot that puns, idioms and phrases exists in their language too, in their haste to grab any opportunity however ridiculous to bring down a man due to their inferiority complexes. Everyone involved in the verbal wrestle-o-mania must be rubbing their burning ears by now…or not.

If people had paused to think and reflect they would have realized that Tharoor used some clever puns in his reply and a literary nerd like him will make use of advanced English due to his proficiency in the same. If you are a simpleton who cannot distinguish between literal language and figurative language then the best possible solution is to JUST SHUT UP! Unless of course you think the general population are dimwits whom you can rile to some bile over a non issue.

Let us not get into the inappropriateness of the timing of the remark, or Tharoors naiveté, that’s been discussed to death and resurrection. Let us instead look at the whole drama and the fools who figured in it. A crucial player and the only non-fools in this brouhaha (I am not laughing at brewers, please do not sue me) was the electronic media. The media consists of journalists, whose core skill besides reporting, is a command over the English language. So what did our esteemed and educated journalist do in this situation? Educate the people about the meaning of such phrases? Of course not! That would make the issue a non issue and zilch news to air. So they add fuel to the fire with debates on the same lead by people who have no clue on the topic! Wonderful! What next? A discussion on marriage with a panel consisting of Nuns and Priests only? Or a debate on Valentines Day with panelists drawn from the Shive Sena, Al Qaeda and Ram Sene! That would lead to a very heated debate indeed! No, I do not mean a debate where the panelists sit on heaters please!

It was a relief to hear the voice of reason from the voters of Trivandrum. While they dismissed the tweet as a non issue, they asked pertinent questions about Tharoor’s work record as an MP. That I feel is the mood of the nation today. Inflating non issues, personal attacks, moral policing and rabble rousing does not impress anyone anymore. People want the right to live as they want and they want to know what the people they voted to power are doing!

Like it or lump it, the people of Trivandrum have voted Tharoor to power. Running him down is not going to work. He is here to stay till his electorate decides to give him the boot. It is high time some quarters accepted that!

20 comments:

thomas said...

To be perfectly honest, I didn't know the figurative meaning of cattle class; but after a simple google search, wiki sprang up and gave the definition. Now, journalists are the ones who should cross check facts and then translate and give it to the general public; instead they played the role of rabble rousers; they transliterated instead of translating and made a whole fuss of it. Day after day, such trivial affairs are blown out of proportion by the media. We should not be rats and follow these Pipers. And btw, I'm proud to have had the opportunity to vote for Mr.Tharoor.

thomas said...

I don't often comment on Thinkpad; mostly coz I consider myself not-so-knowledgeable or worthy enough to comment on certain issues. :) Stay put!

Ni said...

see, people like Thomas and me would never know the meaning of cattle class had it not been our very responsible media.
:P

Vivek Menon said...

Tharoor is able to connect with ppl on Twitter. He encourages queries from his constituency and has someone look into it. Wish more ministers looked into issues or responded to the public thru Twitter :P

Nitin Sisupalan said...

about the thing. It's sad. I thought mny of our pticians n news ppl were retarded..... But I never guesed there were so many...(even tabloid ppl..sheesh!)

:)

anyway.. Hail TVM!!! \m/

Dreamer said...

Oh! This tweet gave us so many hours of comedy. I have not laughed so much other than when i watched "Friends" back to back. Did you see the prize winning quote by the Tom Vadakkan bloke - "Tweet is a lonely man in need of psychiatric counselling".

Abhi said...

Whatever happened it again showed that the journalists and the media in general which has been touted as the 4th estate and the protectors of democracy won't wait too long to twist a decent statement from a non-controversial politician(a very rare find in itself)

scorpiogenius said...

Was wondering why Think Pad was silent on this issue, you've put up the facts as good as it could get in your own style; packed with a punch! :)

Less said the better, people in kaangress are getting cold feet over the rising stature of this elite man, so what do they do? Play the game they are best at: poli-tricks.. Its heartening to see the populace of my city Trivandrum, not yet losing their marbles over a simple joke.

And about Vadakkan, what can one say? He seems to have become the real superstar (read joker) out of Twittergate!

skar said...

The journalism was either ignorant or irresponsible. Neither speaks well of our media. Anyway, when all the idiots of both parties were making noise I am glad he got the support of the high office of the prime minister who lightly dismissed it as a joke :)

p.s: shocker of a PJ :D@brouhaha (I am not laughing at brewers, please do not sue me)

YOSEE said...

Shows again that desi politics today is no place for people of refinement and wit. Poor Tharoor. A case of pearls before swine ...and the man din't even cast them for the swine. The latter poked their noses into fields not meant for them.

Kamini said...

Alas! Our sense of humor is long dead and buried deep. Surely there are bigger issues to get riled about!

Capt. Anup Murthy said...

Good one! Funny, we've been using the word cattle class for decades now. Was funny to see the reactions from politicos who had no clue (of the word nor about Twitter!). Even the Congress had their spokesperson with enlarged nostrils "condemn" Sashi's choice of words. I thought these "spokespersons" were a bit articulate to begin with. I guess not.

Not related, but here is a joke I heard on live broadcast of the Emmy Awards yesterday. It says that the promoters of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook have joined hands to promote a new "time wasting" website called You Twit Face! I wonder if this is what our politicians need to be on (the ones who don't understand Tharoor, the insecure ones, I mean the Holy cows!)

blah said...

This is what today's media does to commons... Teach us absolute rubbish... A few years ago, the British media taught the world what a meta tarsal was. Some footballer named Beckham broke a bone then.

Media tries to come up with sensations out of crap.

Something of similar sort that i came across couple of months was when a news channel was showing reports of a serious danger averted at Mumbai airport and 200 lives saved. The director of the airport who was later interviewed asked a couple of questions - Did the airport authority or AAI give out something. Did either of the air flight companies involved come out with a release. Just the word of some one who was sitting inside a flight negligent of what was happening outside, gets these channels to come out with absolute non sense.

Ashwin said...

LOL. You use a lot of humor. I just hope, you don't get attacked for that :) Nice post.

Useless Bugger said...

Amid all the hullabaloo that ensued becuase of Tharoor's mooing tweet, I was especially glad to see that our PM was erudite enough to dismiss it as a joke. Thankfully that shut the other cronies up.

And regarding the journalists, the less said the better. May be some needs to send them back to school and make them study a chapter titled "How to distinguish cattle piss from Breaking News"

S A J I T H said...

We are used to this, bt you donot deserve this s-h-!-t man.Go bck 2 where you came. Here words speak more than action-sadly!

Anonymous said...

A politician getting nailed for his sense of humor and literary usage of words! Tharoor must have taken a while in figuring out where he went wrong!!

silverine said...

Thank you for your comments dear friends! Mucho appreciated! :)

silverine said...

Thomas: Me too a not-so-knowledgeable or worthy enough to comment on certain issues kinda person. So I blog. So pliss to comment.

Vinod/Kakka said...

Well, I felt the same - but after following him more on twitter, I do think he has an elitist streak.

Dinner speech to elite Indian-American audience. Qsns ranged from Indn pols to Afghanistan, Pak, China, Iran, nukes, water, plan implementn
6:50 PM Oct 13th from UberTwitter

Abbreviated Sunday w wife, then appearance before evening reception of several Kerala orgs. 25 groups came together, lots of speeches!
1:36 PM Oct 12th from web