What’s a crisis without humour? Drab!
The US-Israel offensive on Iran has not only sent energy markets across the globe and India into a tizzy and upended global aviation, but it has also sparked a furious meme war.
Social media users have responded in particular to the LPG crisis by drawing references from politics, culture, history and Bollywood to channel their inner-comedian aura.
While central and state governments claim adequate crude and LPG supply, and people across the country flock to gas distribution centres, forming long queues, India's famed keyboard warriors have dropped humour – and, some might say, truth – bombs one after another at the political class (read the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi).
Under the furious pen – err, sorry, mouse – of the social media content creators, posters of blockbusters like Vicky Donor, KGF, Badlapur, Padman have become LPG Donor, LPG- Chapter 1, Cylinderpur - Don't miss the beginning, LPGman, and so on.
Not just films, the country's top leaders, including PM Modi and Nirmala Sitharaman, became a subject of the classic tongue-in-cheek humour.
We lost count of the many handles that combined an old video clip of Prime Minister Modi talking about the advantages of "gutter gas" with today's pictures of the common people standing in long queues outside of gas distribution centres.
In 2018, the prime minister had shared an anecdote during a World Biofuel Day event about a teaseller who apparently used “gas” from a nearby “gutter” as fuel for his stove.
Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani were also targeted in this Operation Epic Funny, with some social media posts saying that the finance minister is saying that she is not concerned about cylinders since she buys rectangles.
Irani was tagged as 'Lapataa Ladies' as users pointed out the contrast between her outrage during the LPG crisis in the UPA era – when she was in the Opposition – and now.
That’s enough of an ado; over to the memes.