Mooing With the Crowd

When the crowd is mooing you are supposed moo too.

Shashi Tharoor found that out the hard way when he bleated, errmmm... tweeted.

Then the bleating sheep was found to be black too, and hence in all fairness those on the high pedestal (from where probably they have been guarding the dignity of the poor cattle-like people for many decades) all are for shearing its wool.

Its was a total mayhem when a groomed and perfumed (a tad snobbish too?) minister started smelling like shit to his colleagues because he seemed to be taunting their leaders. Sycophants don't like that and smell an opportunity to exhibit their talent at such junctures. Cattle and poor of the country are just a means to the end. As for the poor of this country they would actually grin through a hundred abuses for a 10 rupee note in exchange. So much so for protecting the dignity of the poor.

If one man has got the hang of things right it was M. J. Akbar who aptly pointed out the linguistic disconnect in the episode when he said -

"The first law of democracy is that what you say is less important than what the other person hears."

It is this insensitivity, probably arising out of staying long periods abroad and then rising to be a minister immediately on returning which caused the humorous / in bad taste (depending on who heard it) tweet.

His tweet coming after his unceremonious eviction from the five star accomodation makes it more suspicious as to being a verbal retaliation on the austerity gurus of the government. The raw nerves were further aggravated by his comments being secretly interpreted as an open denounsal of the milk -less udders of the 'austerity measures holy cow'.

Grabbing the opportunity of the journalistic query, if Tharoor was clandestinely tweeting about the hollowness of the current dramatised austerity drive, he probably was true- its all hat without cattle. After all no MP nor minister is going to continue travelling in the economy class or by shatabdi. Once the GDP growth improves from 6.8% to 6.805% they will throw austerity to the winds and will talk business and travel business class. Austerity probably is a synonym for successful assembly elections which incidentally are around the corner. Tharoor and SM Krishna were probably caught in the cross fire of election politics after some deep thinker in the party discovered the importance of recession and austerity in assembly elections. Then comes Shashi trying to puncture the election balloon knowingly or unknowingly with the cows horns. That's blasphemous. Afterall Tharoor was supposed to be the meek sacrificial lamb and not the tweeting black sheep fighting the cow.

What ever the reality, one thing is sure i.e to avoid contracting the 'foot in the tweeting mouth disease' Tharoor may have to bring in all the diplomatic skills he learnt at the UN. That is certainly required of him atleast to keep the self appointed guardians of the dignity of the poor and courtiers of the kingdom of sycophancy out of work.