Past Forward or Present Continuous?
The Madhya Pradesh Congress seems to be fighting two battles in the state. One against the BJP and the sitting Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan; while the other is a much more personal one, against Jyotiraditya Scindia, who left the Congress and toppled the Kamal Nath government. Both Nath and Digvijaya Singh are keen to settle scores, and also have some fun while they are at it. And so, they have taken out recordings of Scindia’s old speeches, made while he was still in the Congress when he targeted the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister and the state Chief Minister. These are played at various rallies and corner meetings as part of the Congress election propaganda. Of course what must be adding salt to the BJP’s wound is that while Scindia may have changed his mind about the Modi-Shah duo, Shivraj Singh Chouhan will never be sure if the old speeches still reflect Scindia’s current state of mind.
Operation Singapore
Last week Karnataka Congress was on edge amidst allegations that the BJP was planning another Operation Lotus in the state against the Siddaramaiah government. It was Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar who first voiced this conspiracy theory claiming that ex CM and JDS leader H.D. Kumaraswamy was in cohorts with the BJP to topple the Congress government. At the time Kumaraswamy was in Singapore for a medical checkup. However this claim was not backed very vociferously by the CM himself who is battling other fronts. For one, the state is facing a cash crunch in meeting its poll promises. Added to this party legislators who have been left out of the ministry formation are throwing a tantrum claiming that the ministers are not accessible as a result of which work in their constituency is not getting done. Moreover, the Deputy Chief Minister is fast becoming the chief spokesperson of the government. This may or may not suit the CM, depending on which way D.K. Shivakumar’s political fortunes flow for he has the potential of becoming a Himanta Biswa Sarma (a Number Two who fast trumped his Chief Minister, both while he was in the Congress and even later, after joining the BJP). Or else DK could end up, either as a Jyotiraditya Scindia or a Sachin Pilot. So Siddaramaiah needs to not just watch out for a Singapore conspiracy but even for others closer home.
Bookmarking an Evening
The Taj Mahal hotel in Delhi recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Taj magazine where Vir Sanghvi moderated a conversation between Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar and Priyadarshini Raje Scindia, while the magazine’s editor, Rakshanda Jalil gave the commemorative address. The conversation flowed easily, for Sanghvi had a personal equation with each of the panelists and placed his questions well. For the most part, each spoke about her or his experiences with the Taj group of hotels, with Javed pointing out that the final word in hospitality is the way the entire group conducted itself during the 9/11 siege of its Mumbai hotel in 2008. Never short of an anecdote (from politics, to Bollywood, to Hollywood to food to luxury and lifestyle), Sanghvi recalled that when the siege was finally over, one of the guests reached out for a bottle of champagne with a glass in hand. At which point the waiter asked him to stop. Somewhat shocked, the guest asked, “Do you want me to pay for this now, after what we have just been through?” The waiter responded with a “No, all I wanted to say was, you have the wrong glass.” This definitely is one for the magazine.
Being Javed Akhtar
Last week saw Javed Akhtar camping in the national capital for he also delivered the keynote address at the Padam Rosha Memorial Lecture for the celebration of Urdu. Hosted by Lord Meghnad and Kishwar Desai in memory of Kishwar’s father, it was a packed auditorium, with Dr Karan Singh, Pavan Verma, and Wajahat Habibullah in the audience. After keeping the audience enthralled for well over 40 minutes, Javed asked if he had overshot his time limit. Before the audience could respond, he added, “it’s okay if you know (how long I took), so long as you don’t tell me about it”. He took the audience through not just the nuances of the language but also its origin and usage in ghazals and couplets (sher). Also on display was his ready wit and humour, for when a member of the audience asked whether tawaifs (courtesans) also had a role in popularising the Urdu language, he retorted with a smile, “Well, only if they were popular tawaifs.”