Ah These Awards

(If you are a Rajanikanth fan, avoid this thread like bubonic plague. But don't come for my throat after reading this yelling "Yenna Rascala")

“Gimme a cigarette” I asked the shopkeeper.

He looked at me as if I was someone from a different solar system. “Thought you not only didn’t smoke but hated even anyone smoking near you” th shopkeeper who knew me fo years said.

“I still don’t smoke and even want the government to ban tobacco cultivation. But never mind give me a cigarette and never mind the brand”.

Now the shopkeeper a fellow Tamil from whom I buy my provisions seemed convinced that I was not I but an evil doppelganger. “You are buyting it for someone else perhaps?” he asked.

“No it is for me but I am not going to smoke it”

“Then why do you need a cigarette?”

“ I am going to throw it in the air and see whether I can catch it in my mouth”.
The shopkeeper was not among the majority of my acquaintances who are convinced that I am nutty as a fruitcake. But now he appeared to be on a fasttrack to join that crowd.

Before he could say another word I tried to make it clear to him. “May be if I do that successfully they would give me a Padma Vibhushan” I said.
He looked at me open mouthed. “You mean they give Padma Vibhushan for being able to catch in your mouth a cigarette thrown in the air”.
“Looks like it. They have given one to Rajanikanth”.

The guy looked horrified. “Saar (a k a sir) you are lucky you are in Delhi, If you had said that anywhere in Tamil Nadu you wouildn’t hav remained in a single piece. And you are underestimating Rajani saar”.

“How come?”

“Rajani saar does something more than catching cigarettes. Nowadays he has actually given up doing that. You must be hopelessly out of touch with Kollywood not to know that. He prefes throwing a chewing gum and catching in his mouth. Or when he takes a seat he doesn’t do that like us ordinary mortals.. He makes a 360 degree circle with one leg after sitting and puts that leg on the top of another”

”All these deserve Padma Vibhushan, I am sure” I said.

“Ha these are nothing. He does something you and I can’t do. He catches bullets in his mouth and spits them back at bad guys injuring them badly”.

I was finally convinced that all these achievements deserve a Padma award. After all if MGR who vanquished entire armies on screen single handed can get a Bharat ratna why can’t Rajani get Padma Vibhushan?

When I was a kid dad told me that one day the government would run out of people to give these awards and would have no alternative but to approach us and beg to accept a Padma award
.
But that doesn’t seem to be happening. My dad is dead and gone and I am still waiting for a Padma award . No nothing so far. . Can’t they give me one for social service? I am doing a great social service by doing nothing. If I started doing something there could be utter chaos. So doing nothing is a great social service as far as I am concerned.

They are even digging out the dead to give the awards. They have given it to Dhirubhai Ambani years after he kicked the bucket. At this rate they would go back in century and start conferring these awards on Ram, Krishna etc.(Hope some BJP/RSS honcho doesn’t read it. They would immediately grab the idea with both hands.)

Look at Anupam Kher. The actor six years ago tweeted saying all these awards including the national awards and film awards mean nothing to him. And now looks like grapes are no longer sour for him. He gushes how he feels honoured by being conferred the Padma award. He has been acting for donkey’s years giving somje great performances but only now he has been noticed. It is said that God gives you boons only after penance. And Anupam’s march to Rashtrapati Bhavan against those who returned their awards to protest the growing intolerance in the country is probably his penance.

So it is another awardless year for me. So just in case they give me a Padma award in the future, I now make an anticipatory rejection of it to protest reserruction of dead for the awards while lot of living guys are in queue for them. I am sure quite a few award aspirants would follow suit. After all when Nayantara Sehgal rejected the Sahitya Akademi award whole lot of guys followed her like a herd of sheep.

 

Vaidehi, all these major awards have a political motive. BJP is wooing Rajanikkanth just before TN eelections hoping that he would back them, at least issue a statement supporting them if not actively campaign for them. All these awards are big lousy jokes.

 

Kamalji no harm in giving awards to wards who know the poems of bards but they are unfortunately being given to bawds. Among the recepients this year is |Dhirubhai Ambani. I expect him to receive the award in spirit if not in body. Anupam's somersault is on twitter for all to see. You mean they will actually give me the award. Great I will reject it and will be at the recepient of Arnab's yelling on his high decibel comedy show.

 

Lathasv Ajay Devgan is an excellent actor and I don't grudge him the award. Sania Mirza and Saina Nerwal too deserve the award. But unfortunately most of the awards are decided either by money power or for potential political influence. There must be a transparent system of selectioln to ensure that the awards are fair and untainted by politics.

 

Of one billion odd people we find actors of questionable talent to give Padma awards. Not only NCC cadets Sabitha even school kids stand in freezing cold from early morning to participate in the parade. I have been watching it only on TV after all that security paranoia began.