Only For die hard SRK fans!

First things first: I never even thought that SRK would occupy so much bandwidth here. But it did for some weird reasons. So here's the (last here) story on MNIK controversy that appeared in a national daily on Sunday, the 21st Feb!
(I know it's getting lame and i already apologised while posting it on FB, but it has become necessary to Wake Up SID!, so you may ignore this one, if you not SID :-)

Before I mention it, do want to convey, that un/fortunately i am not the author behind it. The complete resopnsibility rests with the author himself : D .

Here it goes:

By Vrinda Gopinath

Shiv Sainiks walked into SRK’s trap by reacting to his statements on the exclusion of Pak players at the IPL auction on the eve of his film’s release

WERE you lifted by a sense of moral euphoria as you bought a ticket for the movie-of-theweek, My Name is Khan? Did you believe that by this single act of defiance you had put those nasty, brutish Shiv Sena types in their place? And, with that, you had let the breath of freedom waft in the air as the streets emptied out with lumpen Sainiks? If you tick all three, you have just entered the world of simulated patriotism and hammy heroism, played by none other than King Khan.

It must surely be a demented and ageing Shiv Sena patriarch, Bal Thackeray, and his gawky heir and son, Uddhav, who believed they could take on Bollywood Brandasaurs Shahrukh Khan and Karan Johar in a mega brand war between Bollywood and Sainikdom. How could they even believe they could match the relentless battering of corporate marketing and public relations and a formidable media machine on the former’s side? For, at the heart of the fortnight-long raging public brawl was the stirring emotional cry of Indianness, craftily let loose by a box officesavvy SRK, while willy-nilly laying out a trap that the foolish Thackerays walked into with typical loony gusto. And as SRK’s simulated patriotism unfurled public discourse and debate, pitting well-meaning, woolly liberals versus ranting nationalists, it was a gullible public, or should we say moviegoing public, who were made to believe it was about protecting free speech, individual freedom and liberties, being vaingloriously defended by King Khan, against the onslaught of the savage Sena.

With one masterful stroke, suddenly both SRK and the Sena were in business. Three weeks ago, on January 24, the day it all began, SRK burst forth on a TV interview on the “humiliation” heaped on Pakistan’s cricketers excluded in the IPL auction. Of course, no questions were asked why he did not pick one himself, instead the hat was doffed by the adoring questioner, and applauded by an idolising audience.

SRK, however, stuttered on how there were “issues” but the IPL should have dealt with it “respectfully,” that he was thinking of Pak cricketer Abdul Razak, but with crores at stake, “ D’uh, so should I?” ( risk getting a Pakistani in his team?). Soon, all hell broke loose when a frenzied Sena leadership jumped in to demand that SRK apologise immediately for his “ unpatriotic” utterances.

But let’s talk about the unmentionable — there were several niggling factors that did not match up to Bollywood Badshah’s new social and political consciousness. First, SRK made the outburst in a news studio for the promo of My Name is Khan, along with his co- guest, best buddy and director of the film, Karan Johar.

The IPL auction fiasco was raging in Pakistan at the time and was being seen as being anti- Pakistani, and threatening to be projected as being anti- Muslim by fanatics on both sides of the border. Khan, an IPL team owner, could not duck the accusations, and it was time to make amends. After all, who could risk the hostility of the Muslim world for a film that was riding on Rs 100 crore, and was going to have a world premiere in the desert kingdom of Abu Dhabi? It was also a stunning surprise that King Khan had made a fervent statement on public affairs.

Now, why does SRK sound suspiciously fake when he talks about public good? Because it is astonishing that the Bollywood Badshah made a statement on public affairs at all, when all these years he has kept a deafening silence on every front. S RK HAS rightly said that he does not have to say something on like, say, the Gujarat riots, because he’s a Muslim, but he has also never failed to tell persistent reporters ad nauseum that he gives a damn about public good because he is “ just an entertainer, a prostitute, that too self- centred, selfobsessed, money- loving, unprincipled and always compromising.” Surprised that he suddenly woke up to the injustices on Pak cricket players? It was not soon before the public brawl between SRK vs Shiv Sena turned into a media lovefest for SRK — no one in their right mind could take the Sena’s side — with TV news channels tripping over to promote King Khan. If there were any loose ends on King Khan’s side, it was airbrushed for breaking news.

As viewers were carpet- bombed with back- to- back exclusives with Khan, the star even tried to make amends to calm the belligerent Sena, diffusing his earlier passionate statement with mock bashfulness when he stammered how he was not “ really powerful and that real power lay elsewhere,” that he was “ just a movie star who loves his stardom”. The media’s love affair with SRK was not one- sided. A TV news anchor got special mention in the credit roll, so were several news channels featured prominently, perhaps to give the film some credibility, prime- time realism, as well as announce the collaborative deal of marketing, promos and PR between movie moguls and the media.

Suddenly, both the Sena and SRK look strangely similar, even though one uses brute force, the other, cute righteousness — for, just as the loutish Sena grabs eyeballs for a cause that serves its purpose, Bollywood’s Brandasaurs also uses the media to delude and lure the public.

In a marketplace that uses contract conditions to give oneself an unequal position, rolls out the gigantic battleship of PR, marketing and media conglomerates to create a monopoly, uses mega star power to stamp out any fair dissension, that, SRK, is also called fascism.

— The writer is a freelance journalist based in Delhi

From "Support Freedom of thought" to "Support/Watch MNIK"!

A lot has happened in our Maharashtra since i posted the last entry. The trail of events since then can be briefed as follows:

1 Almost all film industry comes forward t oupport SRK and his release after Aamir did it earlier. Salman said it in front of the media; Priyanka user her tweets as a medium to support and many other followed them. However, I did not hear any more criticism for anyone else from Mr Supremo or his son.

2. Then, before SRK landed up in Mumbai, A press statement is released saying something like this(i dont remember the exact words here) "Traitors, Go ahead and release your movie under the flagship of Congress. We won't bother you further."

3. SS took another event to bring itself to controversy. Here's something that came to their published paper: "Mr. Rahul Gandhi is coming to Maharashtra tomorrow.  Unka swagat kale jhando se kia jaye." To this RG replied by coming to Mumbai, travelling by road, air and in local train and then giving speech at youth congress. How much these acts actually count when he was covered by huge security is totally different issue and is the content for a post in itself. but that for later!

4. SS comes to street again saying we wont let the MNIK release in Mumbai. Maharashtra police takes responsibility and converts mumbai into another Kashmir. Kashmir, as in,  CRPF was called in Mumbai, first three rows of theatres were to be occupied by security personals and there was a lot of security personals to be deployed in Mumbai.

5. D Day came and many theater owners stepped back and not released the film. However, as the film released, the controversy took another turn. Till now it was about the freedom of thoughts - freedom of expression. However, as the release of movie neared, it took a totally different turn.

As you might already be knowing, almost everyone from bollywood is on micro blogging site. Mr. SRK was so busy twitting, and every twit was so full of praise for the audiences, to the extent that when you look at the complete set of tweets that were posted on the morning when movie was about to release/ released... and the amount of bandwidth they occupied on the Indian Television Media is enough to provoke the listener to go watch the movie. Not saying that people were not going to watch it otherwise, but still, it was provoking enough to make people who were not planning for it, to go watch the movie. Following all this made me doubt the belief I was having in the integrity in SRK and his comments.

Then a little more thinking went into this: Why did SRK not take any pakistani cricketer at first and then he says that "It was bad that we were not able to take it"? Either take them if you are so bold or do not comment when you are not taking them. It seemed to be a planned activity and perfectly suited for the subject of the film too. Even Aamir khan was not able to create such a vibrancy and presence across the media/audience by his disguise acts that one SRK comment did for MNIK and SRK.

It did not end there; everyone in the fraternity who was still unspoken about this issue, came forward to the support. But, not to support the courage and freedom of expression(Aamir and Salman supported the freedom of expression earlier), they came forward to support the MNIK rather.

Everyone was out there: Go watch "My name is KHAN". The controversy has shifted totally. I mean, how often Do you find the competitive actors promoting other's movie. Hrithik said: "Spread humanity with a vengeance, GO WATCH MY NAME IS KHAN. ..and for the record, my name is HRITHIK ROSHAN." PC too said something on the same lines. Its official now: SRK does know the business and he sure know how to sell his stuff; no matter what he has to do for it. Hats off to his marketing skills. :)

As this is something which i have been following closely and am still doubtful about the intentions behind this episode, I would like to know what other people think about it. Do let me know.and for the record: My name is KSHITIJ GUPTA! :P

(my MNIK critical review/reaction to arrive soon! keep reading.)

Asking for trouble, are they!

They have been really good at amusing people by speaking Marathi and making people speak Marathi. 'Jai Maharashtra' and 'Marathi Maanoos' are few keywords that have been keeping them in news and getting them mileage across multiple times. Then they went even further and started Morale policing. This indeed made them a hero in the eyes of traditional conservative Indians, who thought that western culture was ruining Indian ethics. However, as that was not enough, they went to the extreme and started attacking non-Maharashtrians(nM) to please the Maharashtrians. It all seemed to be working for them as the number of legislative seats has been growing for them. They have been quite successful in pleasing Marathi Manoos with their chauvinist ideas and hence have been rising with each passing day.

Only recently, while I was discussing this with a friend, a very valid point came in, that why is it that only poor/middle class people are being targetted for not being Maharashtrian? Why does these people don't have the guts to ask Mr. Ambani or Mr. Amitabh Bachchan leave Maharashtra. Well, it had an obvious answer: these are the people who they go out for support. Actually, if you start researching, the mumbai has been made, by lots of nM people who put in their efforts to make it the financial capital of India. Once again the cliche question - "What was Mr Tackrey's Maharashtra Nirman Sena doing when 10 terrorists kept whole Maharashtra at ransom for three days?" Seems they only have the guts to attack valentine couples and North Indian common man. But, whatever, this has been worrying me from long time that these ******** would the reason for the fall of indian democracy, when going forward, each state will be fighting it out with every other state for not sharing resources or for capturing other's resources. But no more.

In recent times, say last couple of months, things have started to change a bit. While most of the rich and famous people used to keep mum at these unlawful and absurd acts, not anymore. Lately these people have started coming forward with there positive thoughts. For example:"When Sachin said that he is an Indian first and then a Maharashtrian", I am hoping that it should have made a lot of their followers to re-think about the ideology they are currently supporting. Considering the God of cricket status that Sachin holds, not only in Maharashtra but across India, people are ought to hear and think when he speaks. These people have started realising their social responsibility lately, which is good for the nation. Following him, Mr. M Ambani commented on the same lines at some europe university convocation. Then as if criticing these people was not enough, Shiv sena recently took a step that could shake a large part of its total existing support.

Here's a brief instance i would mention before mentioning the shiv sena act. Last year, our ex-President Mr Kalam was frisked at delhi Airport by some Briish airline and that incident went unsaid until his own secretary mentioned it three months later. Even then when it caught the headlines, all our dear Home minister could do was ask the airlines for explanations. As i read recently, there has been no action taken yet in this regard and the airlines is well operating its business in Indian Sky. Then, few months later, Mr. Shah Rukh Khan was frisked at US airport, and man wwhat that day was! It looked like India and US are going to go at war for this. that story caught media headlines for the complete day. It was Shah Rukh and Shah rukh every where. Indian Embassy too issued some statements on this. Some of our MPs even went ahead saying that 'we should do tit for tat' and 'this could bring serious implications in Indo-US relations'. I doubt there would have been so much news had Mrs. Sonia Gandhi been frisked.

Anyways, coming back our very own...oops...their very own Maharashtra, TheShiv-sena started a protest march towards the SRK house Mannat, against his comments about Pakistani cricketers. They seem to have totally forgotten how crazy India/Maharashtra is about SRK. I guess they are lucky enough to still be existent in Maharashtra. :) On a serious note, I don't know what they were thinking when deciding on this act. Now when the SS paper criticize and write bad about them, It would sure shake some of their supporter's belief.What's surprising is that still there is not much open support for SRK and no open criticism for SS. However, if that was not enough, I got to read today that they have also attacked verbally at Aamir Khan when he was supportive of SRK's statement. Now that looks even more diminishing for SS. Off the complete film industry, Aamir seems to the most logical and thinking personality, who is almost always at the correct side of the statement. Now when they go against so many Maharashtra Idols(Sachin, SRK, Aamir), they sure are going to raise a few eyebrows and make people re-think.

This is much better than what people frmo this fraternity have been doing till now. Apologizing publicly for their thoughts/acts that did not suit SS or MNS. WakeupSid is one of numerous such examples.

Signing off with the hopes of rise of even stronger force of masses to end this infamous Sarkar-Raj.

learned in last 24 hours:

Either stay calm during testing times or your inappropriate reflex actions will haunt you for life! :(

Just Another Instance of the most awesome date ever!

The date this title and this post refers to is the date which when comes in the year, post it I have to increase the number i write in the age column in any form. In simpler words, the date would be my birth date i.e. 9th December. :) Generally I try avoid broadcasting my birthday through any social networking site as I feel that its like asking people to wish you because the ones who are going to remember on their own, its only them who are actually wishing you. Rest of them look like a bit superficial to me. However, i got the idea to write this post to log some good/bad moments i have had on my previous Birthdays, because as I scored quarter of a century recently and it gives me a feeling that i might be having mentionable number of instances now to log them for future reference.

By now, you might already know the most obvious reason for 9th December to be an awesome date ever. Rest of them, I will try to figure out here.

The one that would be most clear in my memory would be the day I wrote my first JEE exam. Not that I had a very great going in the exam, it was the first ever professional competitive exam that I wrote and as obvious it is, I did not make it through.(the reason why its the most remembered one follows later) It reminds me having another exam, following that year, of my first year BE subject maths at IP university. Unfortunately, that has been the single (semi)annual exam in my life that I did not clear, and that too for unknown reasons, as It did not go that bad when i attempted it. Later, my prof himself said ki "maths ka paper thora tough aaya hai and is baar checking bhi kuch aise hi huyi hai!". We had a majority of backs in that paper over the ones that passed. Further, in my defense, I did not give a damn to those papers and that college. Though it was my first college experience, I somehow always knew that this is not the place I belong to, and I actually never did put in much efforts in any activity over there. Had I have to do my BE from that college, I would have gotten an easy admission in KIET instead. At least I would have had a good company over there for the following four years. :) Anyway, I knew I was destined for something better(though only academically/professionally) and I skipped the second semester at IP to get an admit in DCE the following year. In short, conclusion that i draw here would be to not write any exam on this date. Both my experiences have been pretty bad as of now. :)

Another experience common to this date across almost all these years would be that I/we got to be the host for the day. I have been pretty much a family boy since always and most of these days involved a family gathering(read dinner party) almost every year. All cousins and uncle/aunts gather at our place/venue and spend some quality time together. When I say family boy, I intend to differentiate between the way where you generally plan out a party with your (best) friends to spend your evening with them and the way i just described. That again brings me back to my JEE birthday and reminds me that it was the only day when I spent my evening with few friends. As you might yourself guess, not anywhere else, but my own place. Guess we had all the relatives over our place in the afternoon and I invited few of my school friends and Manish to my place in the evening. It was one of the great birthdays I ever had as someone did keep a promise intact, though it was a bit uncomfortable as it seemed intially. We had hawan/pooja in the evening, followed by the home cooked scrumptious dinner. It was a great day as a whole and I would not want to forget it anytime i can imagine...one of the best memories of the day(besides the one in my mind) would be this one:


PS: This one is specifically for personal reference only as most people would not get to understand the portrait, except me or the one in the pic.

One of these dates which I would not forget for being the worse one ever(at least among those i remember) would be some where in the four years at my college. I was told to reach Hanuman temple at Yamuna Bazaar directly from college and other people had to assemble over there too. As you might have already guessed, we(a bit of me too) are pretty religious kind of family. Our birthdays don't get complete without paying a visit to a temple. Anyway, I started from college a bit early so that others shall not wait because of me. I reached there around 3/4 PM, almost at the scheduled time. However, for some unforeseen reasons, the arrival of others was getting delayed by an hour with every passing hour. Had it been known at the beginning that others will get late by another four hours or so, I would have gone home and then came back again with them. But this hourly delay updates screwed my day. Had to wait there, doing nothing(I did not even had a mobile that time), until others arrived at around 8PM and then i reached home at 10 in the night, all exhauted, not in any good mood and directly went to the bed. Though I woke up when guests arrived, but my day was already ruined and I don't remember if i did feel good again that day. Phew, worst birthday ever!

Rest of the days have been almost the same, just differing in the number i get to write post the day in the forms :). Few things, beside the ones already mentioned, that make all instances look similar to me would be the phone calls from the same set of people as the clock hits 12 in the night. The cake I get to cut once every year and then get photographs clicked for eating it and feeding near ones the same. The people around me on almost all instances are similar too.

One thing that made this year a bit different and exclusive was that I shared the day with a friend. As it can be guessed, we got into contact only in recent years(because I shared my special day for the first time :)). As it seems to me, it is very rare to find people who share your birthdays, of course you have one in case you are twins, otherwise, its not that common. So in that way, from now on, the date becomes even more awesome. I also get to say "Same to You" when i get the wishes... :P

A week past since then, I have already started counting the precious weeks being wasted doing same trivial work, not adding much value to my life, either professionally or personally. The warning bell is ringing and I shall soon get past it before these precious weeks get past me.
Will do very soon :)

Decode Please! :)

How should I decode the current status of my order... only god or kpcorp guys shall know... :P

Better delete the legend...at least that won't make my mind thinking if the order has actually been placed or not...

PS: Order details have been deleted intentionally.

Life - experiences - perception - expectations - Life

As confusing as the title might be, so does the Life becomes many times. Carved by our experiences, it makes us create a perception towards everything, from where arises the expectation, which again makes us go through multiple experiences, both good and bad. It leaves us in this vicious circle, where we make mistakes, learn from them, apply our learnings to beautify the experience, and then mak another mistake...

Before I digress more, The whole idea behind this topic was to re-iterate the obvious,

To not let the others decide how your life turns out, rather take control yourself and mould it the way you want it to be.

Recently in a discussion with a friend, a pretty common scenario came up and I found it worth mentioning here...

We grow up, thinking you have to make it BIG! most of us do...for different reasons: For some, its passion, for some its survival, while for others, its about proving themselves - to fill in the expectations of others, at most times, of the ones we care for. And that too in most cases, our Parent's.

We grow up watching them working hard to provide us the best of everything...from studies to entertainment to all the quality time we spend during our childhood. While many of us forget everything done for us, few consider that it was their duty and other very few, who actually realize it, makes it a point to return the favor, by providing them with everything that they possibly can: from making them proud of being their parents to every materialistic/emotional happiness they can think of. Somewhere in this thought process, we tend to raise the virtual expectations(virtual because, it might not exist many times) from ourselves, where in our brains, we are being expected to rise above the horizon, stay ahead of the people, and make our parents proud. There starts the misery of the situation.

Here, we are trying to fulfill the expectations, which might not really exists. The first answer, as says Marshall Goldsmith, that comes from Parents when asked "What do they want their children to be?" is unanimously 'HAPPY'. Now if in the process of trying to make them happy, if we start rating ourselves down thinking that we are not living up to their expectations, we are not helping the situation in anyway. Rather, we are worsening it, because parents at times might expect a lot from their children, but they would never expect anything from their child at the cost of his happiness. So, if in the process, we are loosing our happiness, we are worsening the situation.

At times its not only your efforts that decide the outcome of the event. A number of factors, ranging from the luck to the attitude of others involved, decide how things are going to end up. You put in a lot of effort, but suppose if in case, you got a worthless creepy evaluator and hence you lose out on appreciation ,while few others, who you know had put in almost same/less effort, takes away the credit, it should hardly bother you. I know its pretty obvious to feel bad, but at such times, the most important part is to keep telling yourself that you have done it to the best of your efforts. Wrong evaluation is a fault at your evaluators end, not yours. And even more important point would be: to always keep in mind that "For people who care for you, incl your parents and all dear ones, it hardly matters how you have been evaluated. To them , you would always remain the same person, regardless you won hte first prize or came in the last spot among the crowd."

For the ones where your relationship depends on your performance appraisal, I would rather suggest to not spare a thought and if possible, totally get rid of such relations. They help in no way and result in creating a useless pressure onto your actions.

The fact that you are cared for shall be enough to fill your actions with seamless confidence, decreasing useless pressure( which is often relative), and thereby making every experience more fulfilling and rewarding.

It seems I lost the track multiple times in between, but i guess i was able to make my point! :)

Lively - Exhausted - Dead - Reincarnated! The cycle starts again :-)

Last couple of months have been very very exhausting, may be to an extent where I can mark it as most exhausting period in recent times- in all ways – physically, mentally, emotionally and …lly(if there exists anymore stream of getting exhausted :-)

To begin with, as you might already know it was my di’s marriage towards the end of October. That almost takes care of the emotional part. Not that I am very senti type of brother/person for that matter, It’s that I do not have much interaction with anyone else in weekdays. It was only her(almost every time) who used to be awake till I reached home. As my parents would have already slept by that time, I generally have to call her to open the gate to let me in. Avoiding the door bell was a good way to not disturb the dad’s sleep. The anomaly of the circumstance is, now at times I have to call Dad to open the door. So in broader context, everyone’s asleep till I reach home, and till the time I woke up, everyone is at their workplace…I am turning into a nocturnal being I guess…….

The physical exhaustion came in due to huge load of work/pressure coming in from all directions. As I have a very old and very bad(people say so) habit of being involved in a huge number of activities at the same time, the same passed the threshold in the last month or two. Though a bit of it was due to my delaying some personal stuff since September or so, it all came down onto me at one go and drained pretty much all the energy I had in store.

The mental exhaustion came in from the chapter which got closed recently. Without going into details, let me mention it made me change my tagline to “Kshitij is Dead” at the GTalk. Though unintentional and unasked for, it also gave me one very good insight. It helped me realize how many people actually ever see your status messages and is even remotely concerned what has happened at your end. A very good insight I would say.

Anyway, the time for re-incarnation arrived and I have risen from my ashes again, with the purpose to fly out there and conquer the Horizon!

See you there! :)

Damn Brain and Thoughts!

They keep me bringing back to ground zero, even at this odd hour, while i have a lot of other serious stuff to focus upon right now. And they finally make everything screw up, even themselves: Damn Brain and thoughts!

A dream...of an Indian!

Here

The fall of Indian Democracy....begins!

I realized this a while ago but the e-paper today made me write this entry here. The MNS has came a long way, leaving every other party behind in dirty politics. It seems like, they are no more a part of (integral?) India where we still believe we are living in a democratic world. I am not actually able to remember when did Maharashtra or the MNS governed areas were separated from the Indian mainland. It's like either you are a marathi or you are in the line of fire...


It used to be the pain of common man until today when a hindi oath taking ceremony in Maharashtra assembly was disrupted. No points for guessing: You are not allowed to talk in the national language when you are in Maharashtra...

Three MLAs disrupt the oath taking ceremony, manhandle the MLA and they say they are proud of it. I dont understand how such ******* are able to go away with just a suspension from assembly after bringing such a degradation to the national language.

They have been going against the non-maharashtrians and asking them to leave the state . The initial reason they mentioned for it was that these guys are grabbing the jobs and leaving nothing from maharashtrians. From such an unreasonable act, it always went from bad to worse: No Bombay, only Mumbai(not even in a single dialog in a movie, you need to apologize if you want showcase your movie in Bombay...aah..Mumbai), No Hindi-only Marathi, and we can't even get started on the moral policing we have been encountering recently. All this raise just a single question which needs to answered really quick if we are to survive as a democratic nation: "What the hell is government doing while the super humans lie Mr. Maharashtrian Raj Thakrey openly promotes his bad ideas and takes responsibilities for these acts? Why is he not arrested for bringing a shame to the nation and put behind the bars? What is the police doing when these guys openly go around the state disrupting public property and basically everything?" Bringing to your attention again the cruel acts that Govt had in store for peace protester Doctors a few years back.

The choice is ours: Wake up early or regret later!

Meanwhile, heres the article that made me right this post:


A member of the legislature was assaulted inside the Assembly for the first time in Maharashtra's legislative history, by four debutant MLAs whose party -- the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) -- is being represented for the first time in the House.

On Monday, four MLAs from Raj Thackeray's party assaulted Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi after he refused to take the oath of office in Marathi.
The Speaker has suspended all four -- Shishir Shinde, Ram Kadam, Vasant Gite and Ramesh Wanjhale -- for four years. The MNS has 13 legislators in all.



Though a standoff was expected as Azmi, a migrant from Uttar Pradesh, had insisted on taking the oath in Hindi and Thackeray had demanded all MLAs take the oath in Marathi, nobody had anticipated violence inside the legislature.

The suspended MLAs were also charged with manhandling a woman MLA, Meenakshi Patil from the Peasants and Workers Party, who tried to help Azmi.

The drama began when Azmi started reading the oath in Hindi.
Before he completed the first sentence, Wanjhale rushed to the dais and uprooted the podium. Within seconds, his colleagues stormed the well, displaying pro-Marathi banners and shouting slogans.

As they tried to pull Azmi down from the dais, members of the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Republican Democratic Left Front ran up to help him. Surrounded by others, Azmi completed his oath in Hindi but as he walked to his seat he was manhandled by Shinde and slapped more than once by Kadam.

The MNS remained unrepentant of its MLAs' actions.
"We are proud of our act and will repeat it if anyone dares to insult Maharashtra," MNS spokesman Shirish Parkar said.

CM Ashok Chavan and his deputy, Chhagan Bhujbal, condemned the incident and asked protem Speaker Ganpatrao Deshmukh to deal with the attackers strictly.

The MNS has decided to appeal before the high court. INFAMOUS FOUR SHISHIR SHINDE: Constituency: Bhandup, Northeast Mumbai A ex-Shiv Sena activist who shot to fame for digging the pitch at Wankhede stadium in 1991 to protest against Pakistan's cricket tour of India.
RAM KADAM: Constituency: Ghatkopar (East), NE Mumbai He shot to fame during the Dahi Handi festival last year offering prize money of Rs 25 lakh.
Defeated the late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan's daughter Poonam in the last elections.
RAMESH WANJHALE: Constituency: Khadakwasala, Pune A contractor, Wanjhale is referred to as `golden boy' for wearing 2 kg gold on his person.
VASANT GITE: Nashik. Former Mayor of Nashik, he was blamed for threatening North Indian labourers in the city during the MNS's agitation against North Indians a year ago. OPTIONS FOR MNS It can apologise to the assembly and try to get the suspension reduced or revoked. How the Congress-NCP will respond is anybody's guess.

It may challenge the decision in the High Court. But constitutional experts say the court is unlikely to overrule the assembly's decision.

It may ask its suspended MLAs to resign from the Assembly, and face by-elections, making a political issue of the suspension.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THEM The MNS will surely try to derive political advantage from the incident. It has already forced the Shiv Sena to reluctantly support its demand that all MLAs take their oath in Marathi.

Losing four MLAs out of 13 will also impact the party's relevance as a political force. If it wants the suspension revoked, it will have to soften its stand.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena MLA Ram Kadam who allegedly slapped Mumbai Samajwadi Party president Abu Asim Azmi in the assembly for taking oath in Hindi on Monday said he had no regrets for his action and was ready for any sacrifice to uphold the glory of Marathi language.

When asked if his actions were not an insult to the assembly, Kadam said Azmi had insulted the 11-crore Marathispeaking population of Maharashtra in the 50th year of the state's formation.



"It is Mumbai and Maharashtra that has made him big and can't he take the oath in the local language? He had lots of spare time and couldn't he mug four lines of the speech in Marathi?" Kadam asked.

When pointed out that it was not appropriate to act violently in the assembly, he said, we had to teach Azmi a lesson in the language he understood.

Once a close associate of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, Kadam shot to limelight when he sponsored a Rs 25-lakh prize for Dahi-Handi festival last year.
He defeated Mahajan's daughter Poonam from the Ghatkopar East seat. A builder by profession, he was arrested a day after the election for allegedly manhandling a constable.

Ironically, Kadam was addressing the media in English and Hindi, besides Marathi. "The Shiv Sena-BJP did not utter a word despite tall talks of Marathi pride and it is for the Marathi manoos to see," Kadam added.

Echoing Kadam, MNS spokesperson Shirish Parkar said: "We are proud of our act and will repeat it if anyone dares to insult Maharashtra.

"For years, this man has been intimidating Maharashtrians and today he crossed the limits," Parkar said. "If he does not understand civil language, we have to make him understand in a language he understands."

Keep Distancy

Now that's a School Bus: You need to Keep Distancy from it, and that too, only in case of Emergency :P