An optimist is someone who, while falling from Eiffel Tower, says mid-air, “See I’m not injured.” Shah Rukh Khan has reason to be optimistic even if his team has made an inglorious exit from the IPL. At least this puts an end to the haggling for exemption in entertainment tax from the Bengal government. You may wonder why individuals who can buy cricketers for over a million dollars apiece become so stingy when it comes to entertainment tax. Take Mukesh Ambani for instance. One day you read about his under-construction residence which has three helipads, and the next day you hear that he is pleading for tax exemption for the matches played by the Mumbai Indians in Mumbai or Greater Mumbai. To grant him the tax waiver would cost the state exchequer no less than Rs 10 crore. Surely the über-rich man can afford that? Especially when he can hire a private jet exclusively for his team’s star player, Dwayne Bravo. The latter turned out for Mumbai against the Deccan Chargers on May 18 and then, thanks to the kindness of the owner, flew back home immediately afterwards to join the West Indian Test team against the Aussies.
In the Chhattisgarh capital, Raipur, the locals have organized their own cricket league along the lines of IPL. It may be the poor man’s IPL, but it cannot be accused of lacking in glitz or glamour. The names of star players and their going rates have not reached us yet. But we can tell you that the cheer-leading brigade is very much in place, though in the BJP-ruled state, it is a ‘boys-only’ domain. The sangh parivar doesn’t mind spaghetti-strap vests and tights as long as they adorn the male body. But one suspects that the crowd does not like the idea quite as much.
Call it coincidence. Call it a message from above. Just as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh got up to speak on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the UPA regime, the rain gods struck. So hard was the rain that the soft-spoken politician had to raise his voice considerably. Which made a member of the audience reflect whether it was a sign that the UPA under Singh needed to stretch itself a little more in order to be heard by the aam aadmi.
While still on the UPA anniversary celebrations, Manmohan Singh was asked whether he was watching the IPL matches. Singh denied having any interest in the game, which is why he hasn’t watched a single match at length. Standing at a distance was party leader and BCCI vice-president, Rajiv Shukla. Soon he was heard murmuring to himself that it was no wonder that he hadn’t been included in the cabinet yet.
Superstitions and voices from the dark are the latest fad among our MPs, it seems. Tughlaq Crescent, a posh area in Delhi and home to ministers and Bollywood glitterati, is now being considered inauspicious by some of the country’s top politicians. Lalu Prasad lost his political clout, and with it, Bihar, while he was taking in the air at Tughlaq Road. Former BJP health minister CP Thakur got embroiled in a controversy and lost his ministry while in residence on this road. Sunil Dutt passed away while living here. As did Sahib Singh Verma, who also lost the Lok Sabha polls while living in Tughlaq Crescent. Not to be deterred by any of this, LK Advani’s aide, Sudheendra Kulkarni has set up a workshop at Ananth Kumar’s residence in the crescent. Here will be designed the BJP’s campaign prior to the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP needs all the luck to get back to power at the Centre. Is Tughlaq Crescent the best place to look for it?
The hopes of the Congress may be pinned on its babalog, but they can be a mighty disrespectful lot, it turns out. On Rajiv Gandhi's “martyrdom day”, the new kids on the block decided it would be all right to take a ‘rainy day’. None of them turned up at the medical camp for disadvantaged women, organized to commemorate the day at 24 Akbar Road. Among those who braved the downpour were septuagenarian Motilal Vora and the ageing Mohsina Kidwai. Vora was in fact seen at the camp throughout its duration. Scribes on the Congress beat said that Vora attends to duties at the party office from 10 in the morning to 9 at night almost six days a week. Which is more than one can say for the three dozen other AICC functionaries. The mother of the nation must be frightfully displeased with her brood.
FOOTNOTE
There seems to be no respite from rich men. The Sultan of Brunei, Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, who is as rich as they come, flew his own Boeing 747 to New Delhi. The minister of state for external affairs, E Ahamed, was waiting at the tarmac to receive him. It was a smooth, five-hour flight from Bandar Seri Begawan for the Sultan, who can take a pick from 5,000 vehicles, harboured on the sprawling grounds of his 1,788-room palace. One wonders what took the Sultan so long to emerge from the cockpit, and onto the tarmac where the welcome committee led by Ahamed had been waiting for him. Thankfully, though, good grace being one of the prerequisites of royalty, the Sultan apologized for the delay, even playing up the smoothness of the trip to India to that of flying across the US. When he comes visiting next, perhaps the Left leaders would like to host the Sultan. They are sure to get along like a house on fire.