Slap? Stick? Life? Art?

Today’s Mumbai Mirror had a front page headline that read ‘Thappad and its Goonj’. I don’t know about the rest of you, but it made me think of Karma.

Remember the part where Dilip Kumar slaps Anupam Kher,  who was playing Dr. Dang (to perfection, by the way)? Anupam Kher responds with a menacing “Ab iss goonj ki goonj tumhe sunaayee degi” or some such drivel. In the movie, Dr. Dang’s terrorists spark riots across the country in retaliation to the slap – innocent people are killed, public property is destroyed. Which is all well and good and acceptable.

FOR TERRORISTS.

Whether Sharad Pawar deserved the slap is a matter of opinion. But what the NCP goons did after the incident just baffles the mind. It’s your country, you morons. It’s not all lovable and nice and doesn’t always inspire spirited renditions of the national anthem, but why take your anger out on its infrastructure?

I mean, as Delhiites never tire of reminding us, Bombay’s infrastructure is ALREADY pretty screwed up. And not one politician sitting in Delhi, including Mr. Pawar, gives a rat’s ass about it. So for his guys to come down here and set fire to the Bombay-Pune Expressway, the one decent stretch of road Bombayiites can use, that too for an incident THAT HAPPENED IN DELHI, just plain takes the cake.

You want to flex your muscles? Go flex them in the nation’s capital. Let’s see if you can get away so easily if you deface their precious (and as opposed to Mumbai, completed) Metro.