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Kiss and wink


1 Richard Gere kisses Shilpa Shetty
2 Iranian President Ahmedinijad kisses his childhood teacher’s hand.
3 President Bush winks at the Queen.

The above has hogged the headlines for the last couple of weeks and it is all for the good. Why? Well, here’s why:-

1. Richard Gere kisses Shilpa Shetty
It’s good. Brings Shilpa back in the headlines (and Gere also, for the guy is pretty much a has-been now). So it’s good for them. Gets a presumptuous publicity seeking Judge transferred from Jaipur to the obscurity of Kishangarh - good for the judiciary. Exposes the shallowness of the country’s moral police – that makes it good for the country and society, and …this is important…allows warped minds such as mine to fantasise on what it would have been like to be in Gere’s place (especially considering Shilpa’s height, the average Indian male would not have reached as far as her cheeks…) which makes it good for, well, me.

2. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad kisses his child hood teacher’s hand.
This is also mostly good. The President makes a ‘fundamental mistake’ and probably realises that fundamentalism has its pitfalls. It may just have a humbling effect on him and help him turn the corner. The Iranian fundamentalists display their intolerance and find little support. So it’s good for the moderates in Iran. The whole world gets to crack a few jokes about it. Thankfully no fatwas are issued and the President goes back to more socially acceptable activities like denying the Holocaust, building a N Bomb and patronising global terrorism.

3. President Bush winks at the Queen.
Now this is really good just because it is so funny. It is funny especially because everyone was expecting some blooper from the American Warlord (a term used by Borat) during the Queen’s visit. And he was true to form. Of course unlike the other two cases, this is not a kiss but only a wink…but then when you consider the protagonists, it is no less (if not more) than the other two on the social outrage meter. So it is good for the media, good for Bush (he continues to look stupid) as the American public prefer a predictable President rather than one who is not. It is good for the Queen, yes it is, she must be thanking her lucky stars she did not visit the White House during Clinton’s tenure… who knows what could have happened then.

And you know what is really good when you take all three together. For a change you have headline news that makes you laugh. Not news that makes you snicker as one did at the expose of Indian Cricket team’s dressing room squabbles during the world cup, nor recoil in horror at another suicide blast in Baghdad killing innocents, nor sigh when we read about our elected representatives indulging in ‘kabootarbaazi’ and what not.

Lets have more of this kind of news, they are a welcome change. And when you don’t have news, make some, here are a few suggestions:-
  • Sonia Gandhi winks at President Kalam.
  • Siddhu kisses Sheila Dixit.
  • Mayawati pinches PM Manmohan Singh’s bottom (can’t imagine someone wanting to pinch Mayawati’s).

    More Suggestions?
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Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 17, 2007 at 6:12 AM

    You got that right! They sure do make you laugh.Your super-cool, post-modern take on people hogging the headlines has been ingenious, to say the least. Yes, it's chaotic and irreverent and ultra-cynical about the state of affairs today, but it's obvious that the people at the thick of things have thrown themselves into this mayhem with a great degree of enthusiasm, at least some of them :))

    -Louise ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 10, 2008 at 10:46 PM

    Good words.

    ReplyDelete

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