Leave Shashi Tharoor Alone!

All this talk of austerity is bunkum. (In today’s Times of India both Shobha De and M. J. Akbar have said identical things.) Really it’s been blown out proportions, I feel, by the media machine. Look which public figure is austere in today’s world? Businessmen? Nathi! Stars? Nyet! Godmen? Mafi (Arabic)! Bureaucrats? Illa! Ottum Illa! (not even a trace, in Malayalam) Scientists? Nahi!

So why this fuss about my twitter friend Shashi Tharoor ( his twitter address if you didn’t already know) if he is a bit inaustere? Guys, be sach much real. We need people like Shashi Tharoor. He is an original thinker, an author, no less, an intellectual, has experience and contacts that can prove to be India’s strong point while dealing with sensitive international issues, especially with our foes across the mountains and the fields. But what do they, the jealous guys who are green over his qualifications, do to encourage him? They brand him inaustere and make an issue over his jokes. "Cattle class" is a light dig at economy class. I must say I enjoy "cattle class" on international and local jaunts. You can view so much diverse types of people, observe their habits. Like there was this guy who when the plane took off took ten different medicine bottles with him to the loo. For what, don't ask me. He came back, his worried face sporting a satisfied kind of look, that's all I can say. I will always remember that "cattle class" guy, his face is just unforgettable.

Come on, give him a break. He is our great big hope for foreign policy, and a look-at-able face among the bald, dyed, ageing, wrinkled politicians in the Augean Stable. All right thinking people, I mean those people with a rational mind over their shoulders would tell him to go ahead with his normal life and not be fazed by such allegations. If he needs a workout every morning, he should get it. You don’t need a sick man in the Ministry of External Affairs, do you?

Friend and enjoyer of wealth, Dhansukhbhai Jethalal Shah says, “all this is conspiracy hatched by Pakistan and China you know, to keep a good minister down.” I agree.

In passing...

The back is back to normal. I am taking things easy before plunging into work on Monday. It was a horrible hell for four days lying motionless on a hard bed, which was what I was told to do by a friend who went through a similar fate. There’s no cure for lower back pain and surgery is not advisable, so it was up to me to grit my teeth, have lots of patience, read a lot of books lying supine on bed. My advise: always take care of your backs, sit straight, always have support for your back and if you see a bad chair which shakes all over from bad springs or bearings, don’t sit on it.