Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 16 April 2018 | Page 18

deep throat
STALINISMS
M.K. Stalin is now the butt of
jokes thanks to a series of gaffes
while addressing meetings.
Getting a Tamil aphorism back-
wards, he ref­erred to an ele­
phant coming first, trailed by
the sound of its bell. Similarly
he talked about a “wall on the
cat” when he meant “a cat on
the wall”. Meme-makers came
up with their own versions of
“Stalin’s Sayings.” Previously,
he’d confused R-Day and I-Day
and called Union minister Pon
Radhakrishnan “Ponnar-
Shankar”, a pair of brothers
from folklore. MDMK leader
Vaiko and DMDK leader
Vijayakanth were the fav­ourite
targets of memes, but Stalin
seems to have left them behind.
SHOOTING ON EGGSHELLS
Nothing to do with Kashmir is
complete without controversy.
For the past month, filmmaker
Vidhu Vinod Chopra has been
there shooting for a film that no
one knows much about. Going
by the buzz that it’s about the
migration of Kashmiri Pandits
from the Valley, a joint forum of
Pandit organisations met Chopra
and asked him to ensure that their
sentiments were not hurt by the
film’s portrayal. The filmmaker
also faced flak for paying Pandits
working on set “poorly”. Chopra,
who is largely shooting in Srinagar
and Jammu, has made friends
across the political spectrum of the
state. He is believed to get along
well with CM Mehbooba Mufti’s
brother, Tassaduq Mufti, a cine-
matographer-turned-politician, and
is also close to Farooq Abdullah.
NO MINCING WORDS
I&B minister Smriti Irani’s
efforts to clamp down on “fake
news” backfired after the PM
“directed” the order to be with-
drawn. Was the minister acting
unilaterally? Outlook has heard
that she had the tacit app­roval
of an inf­luential officer in the
PMO, who apparently didn’t
know the details of the
proposed order. The order and
the subsequent outrage did not
go down well with the PM.
Sources say that he was in no
mood to find a face-saver and
insisted that the media be told
in as many words that “the PM
has directed that the press
release...be withdrawn and the
matter be addressed only by the
Press Council of India.”
OVERHEARD “Only in the Congress can you announce your own sacking while praising your hard
work,” — a Congressman on Janardan Dwivedi signing the statement announcing his replacement.
18 OUTLOOK 16 April 2018