Vijay Ho!

When James Otis decided to sell Mahatma Gandhi’s belongings through a global auction in New York, the Indian Government woke up to the fact that Gandhiji’s belongings couldn’t be sold in such a blatantly materialistic manner. After all, we owed it to the father figure of our country, or even to his soul, to prevent such a demeaning act that showed scant respect for our country and our great leaders. Materials matter, values are immaterial these days.

So after pressing the snooze button on the alarm clock numerous time, our government woke up and began their efforts to get back our country’s heritage, by hook or crook. Or by Sant or Vijay, can we say? Without drawing parallels, of course. The wealthy Sant Chatwal offered to bring back the memorabilia to the place it belonged. But the spirited soul, who has never faced liquidity problems, being always well-stocked with the right kind of spirited liquids, entered the race to “serve our country”. Needless to say, like his race horses, he beat Sant to the finishing line.

Finally, when the liquor baron, pulled off this act and bought the articles rightfully belonging to our country, our countrymen gathered at the bar – not the one associated with the law, as Gandhiji would have done in his young age – the one which has served them with the spirited liquid day in and day out, except on dry days, of course – a place, where Gandhiji would never have tread - and truly celebrated Vijay Mallya's success by raising a toast to his success an drinking to his wealthy future.

You can imagine the millions of faithful citizens, who would have done this small drunken jig and exclaimed, “Vijay Ho!” Even those who are faithful to their “country” (as in “country liquor”, as they call the local brew or arrack), but cannot afford the IMFL, would have joined in this small little drunken jig and the "Vijay Ho!" chant, for good measure.

I received an SMS from a friend Ashwin, which goes, “Gandhiji hated liquor and did his bit to contain its sales. It is ironic that a liquor baron was instrumental in buying his memorabilia back for India”. Thanks, Ashwin! We have to give it to Vijay Mallya! He deserves each of those drunken jigs and lots of “Vijay Ho!” along with them. Anybody who has eaten the (iodised) salt of this land should be indeed proud of this moment! I love this new trend so much - "Vijay Ho!" scores over the old foreign sounding "Hic Hic Hurray", ever so convincingly!

“We may have brought back his spectacles, but what about his vision for our country?”, someone may ask.

“What about his values, his teachings, the path of non-violence, which he showed us?” asked another.

“How materialistic we have become. He must be turning in his grave” exclaimed another.

“No, he couldn’t. The urn containing his ashes were astonishingly found in Cuttack in 2008, 60 years after his death in 1948, and were immersed in the Triveni Sangam by his great grandson, Tushar Gandhi, albeit after a long drawn struggle with bureaucrats, though”, I wanted to say. But then I realized what he said was only figurative and symbolic. But it must have been a significant blow to the image of the greatest leader India has known in the last century.

But wouldn’t Gandhiji's image be immune to these blows by now? After all, we have been punching it all along for almost half a century. Ever since his image appears on all the currency notes, to begin with. Faith can move mountains. But to move files in the government, you need to have faith in our currency notes and the power they wield in getting these things happen. The debauchery involved around the currency note has dealt the first blow to Mahatma Gandhi's image, several years ago.

We have immortalized Gandhiji by naming every important street leading to the railway stations in every suburb, town of our country after him! That was another blow! Considering the several nefarious activities that go on in those streets - bootlegging, gambling, soliciting, you name it – it’s happening out there on MG Road anywhere! One needs to look through his eyes, not his spectacles to look for those values that he tried to sow in our countrymen. Today bootleggers claim to be "serving our country"!

So would the image of our greatest leader, Mahatma Gandhi, even feel the slightest jolt, due to this materialistic incline, this act of selling his material possessions, one wonders?

Vijay Ho!


Bloggers’ PostScript:
Though one may not be able to do much about our values or those of our fellow countrymen nor the value of our currency, one could design the symbol of the Indian Rupee! If your symbol is selected, you could be as famous as Vijay Mallya or Sant Chatwal overnight!

Read all about it here!

And more here!

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