If you have been observing the Gandhi artefact's auction developments, this is my personal comments on the already worsening state of affairs. For those of you who are not tuned to the issue, an independent collector Mr. James Otis has put up some personal belonging’s of Gandhi's for auction at the prestigious Antiquorum Auctioneers. A photograph reveals the articles as: a battered brown sandals, given to a British army officer in 1931; a simple metal bowl on a plate; a typical gandhi syle old glasses ; and a rather mundane pocket watch.He has been juggling his decisions on continuing the sale with various bargains, opinions and inane ballyhoo’s.He is creating hype by negotiating with the Indian government and occasionally proposing to halt the auction. Our Recession stricken ministry, scared of any bad moves with an impending election has already given an offer to stall the sale. But unfortunately our man Mr. Otis has found the amount too less to even disclose it.
Then he has put up a suggestion where he is ready to give it for free if the Indian government assures to spend 5 % of our GDP on the poor (as per the latest figures around $ 55-60 Billion). Later he has come up with one more condition which entails our poor government to spend more money on health care than it spends on defense activities.
The recommendations are reasonable from the perspective of Mr. Otis. I think this has got something to do with the slum dog millionaire syndrome, where the whole country looks like a slum and everyone a daily struggler. But what is going through his mind while proposing such ridiculously unreasonable recommendations. Yes we accept the fact that we have 27% of the world, s hungry and 45 % below the poverty line. It’s true that 2/3 of our people don’t have proper sanitation and proper drinking water, but by any reasonable justifications this is not how things are done here.
Mr. Otis we are the one among the very few economies capable of expecting an 8 % growth rate and a comparatively stable and democratically successful country. What if luckily some Indian digging through his attic comes across some token of historical importance or patriotic compulsion for the Americans? And this man becomes eccentric enough to propose US withdrawal from Iraq or Unilateral support for Palestinian cause. How would you react?
Just because we don’t have an aggressively coercive foreign policy, it doesn't mean that you can ridicule our national icons and question our internal policies and beliefs. Let’s make one thing clear first we don’t need budgetary guidance from altruistic philanthropist's any more.
As per the latest developments our Man Friday in cases of protecting national pride from capitalist evil men, Mr. Vijay Mallya has won the items by making the highest bid of $ 1.8 Million. He had saved us earlier in the case of Tipu Sultans Sword too. We shall have our day very soon and we will put up the statue of liberty for auction and ask the US government to spend 10 % of their GDP on promoting bollywood in the Americas hehehe
I always knew that something bad will come out of the slumdog millionaire hype. Earlier the world thought Indians were elephant riding, snake charming natives who ate monkey brains (no thanks to Indiana Jones, but now we are poor and miserable to boot.
ReplyDeleteAs far as advocating India goes, I do wish the west would mind its business for a change and recognise India for what it actually is.
Lucky us, Chandni chowk to China town didnt become a global phenomena hehehe. We should have avery vocal and bossy foreign policy like Russia, lets hopefully wait till 2025 hehehe
ReplyDeletevyazz dont hit on slumdog... asif here is a fanboy :P
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