Dolly & Swapan Dasgupta

Swapan DasGupta---Give it a Break. A Rebuttal--to his column--Sunday Times of  India --30^th June, 2013.

Dolly gets up in the morning,  late. Its a Sunday...Sunday the 30th June, 2013. How fortunate I didn't make that trip to Badrinath as planned, she thinks.  Then she looks for the Sunday paper. She gets four, but she starts with the Times accompanied by a cup of golden Makaibari. Some of the morning glow wears off as she  reads Chetan Bhagat's piece on the Indian Muslim. He has it all wrong, she thinks, he is churning out a fictitious character a la  "Indian Reluctant Fundamentalist" All the tell tale signs are there. She passes on to the next---"Rahul Baba--give it a break" by Swapan Dasgupta----what a shreiking self righteous `.....' she thinks. He almost sounds meno-pausal. 

Immediately, pen in hand, she scribbles a rebuttal---and there you have it below.

"Give it a break Swapan. Use another occasion to keep your hallowed seat in BJP’s  National Council. But ….shock, delight, tickle slap…it all sells....how can you resist.  So when the Uttarakhand monsoon disaster struck wise pontiffs like Dasgupta spill venom all over the news pages. … for instance  he wishes to inform the nation how dare Rahul Gandhi be celebrating a birthday vacation when a Cloudburst has hit Uttarakhand? Then he informs us about the decorous manner in which Indians take holidays. Indians do not go abroad. Travel agencies never sell International routes because in the summer, on birthdays, anniversaries, school vacations,  Indians only visit parents or go on pilgrimages. Patriots  like Dasgupta  probably go to their  in- laws,   to the Char Dhams or Tirupati. Certainly not Switzerland, Austria, Italy etc. His passport, for instance, would not be stamped with a Shenzhen Visa.

So….How dare Rahul Gandhi vacation abroad? Is he not a patriotic Indian?  No worries if his father is killed by a terrorist, no worries if his grand mother died at the hands of an assassin—he should visit his parents and grandparents like a good Indian  on his birthday. Because that’s what patriotic netas do---like Atal ji, Advani ji, Goel CM in waiting ji, Uma second CM in waiting ji, Swaraj ji, Jaitley ji. They do not travel abroad on a holiday, never a birthday. They go on pilgrimage---for they are body and soul in the service of  God and the Hindu nation.
Righteous pen—wielders like Swapan Dasgupta must point that out to a blind, misguided nation.  

Puts me in mind last year when national disaster struck the north American east—coast. It was an Election year, but Obama’s hands went forward to the Panic struck states. Yes, Republican Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, was extended immediate help by Democrat President Obama while independent Michael Bloomberg endorsed Obama as a result of his handling the crisis. Nevertheless Fox News gave its proverbial election/Republican Party twist.  Immediately all America cried out….`Foul’. 

Here too---every right thinking Indian should cry---Hands Off ---don’t take the focus off the poor victims or the Forces battling to help out to score political brownie points of your own."

Having written it, she relaxes. Yeah, spilling venom feels good, she thinks.