George Menezes

I missed writing my column for May 2012. No big deal, I thought. I would experiment with not keeping a commitment. Not surprisingly no one missed it. And to tell you a secret not even the Editor missed it.

The problem I think is that most of the columnists of Goa today are stuck in a mould.

Remo, I’m told it is writing a new song on the theme
of Parrikar delivering, oh delivering, don’t know when, don’t know how, have patience sillies it can’t be now. Not now, not now!

Enough of Goan politics. There is a whole world outside Goa. The world of Cricket. Or of the Rajya Sabha. Or the competition for the Presidential Election. And the celebrity ruckus creating. You can’t tell one from the other

I wonder how many people knew that Jaya Bachchan was a member of the Rajya Sabha. In fact my neighbour had never heard of the Rajya Sabha. Or of Jaya Bachchan.

She knows there is a Lower House and an Upper Crust. She has not got over the fact that she lives on the ground floor and has not been exempted from paying for the lift.

I was surprised that my domestic help who watch the Idiot box regularly thought Amitabh was a single parent. And they were not happy the way his son has been brought up, selling crazy “new ideas” to young viewers.

What gets my goat and I don’t care if she is a vegetarian is that Jaya wants her seat changed because the lovely new entrant to the Rajya Sabha, Rekha, apparently has body odor or simply put, she smells.

May be this is the right moment to pay a small homage to my late wife, Thecla.

We were traveling from Mumbai to Goa. By Indian Airlines think. I don’t remember exactly which Airlines but I remember a fat and loud foreigner who called the hostess and wanted her seat changed.

The hostess gave her a smile and said “We are getting ready for take off. I will see what I can do later”

“I want a seat change now. I cannot travel with this smelly Indian next to me” said the loud woman.

Thecla is a quiet and peace loving woman. I was familiar with her gentleness because we had been married for 51 years.

I don’t know what happened to her that day.

She got up in her seat and said to the hostess “If you even try to find another seat for this disgusting woman, my husband and I will sit down in the aisle.”

All hell broke loose. Dozens of passengers stood up in their seats and screamed. “We will not let the flight take off if this racist woman is not off loaded at once.”

The Captain heard the noise came out of his cabin asked what the problem was and said. “Requests for change of seats will not be entertained. Those who wish to leave the aircraft now may do so. Have an enjoyable flight”

Jaya of the Rajya Sabha is not the only one carrying a chip on her shoulder. There are dozens of Jayas. Jaya Jaitley had a chip on the shoulder of George Fernandes.

Jaya Lalita whose massive shoulders are a landing ground for lots of chips, but temporarily mind you depending on her moods.

And Jaya Prada, not an advertisement for high heeled pointed shoes, but the gutsy and much loved woman who almost gave her body and soul to put the South on India’s map. Body odor and all.

The truth is that our whole society is oozing with intolerance like an over loaded sewer pipe.

A small provocation like another sanitary napkin flushed down our collective toilet bowls and all hell breaks loose.

Did you see the song and dance Shaimak Davar created for my name is Khan (patent awaited)?

Or the natyam allegedly being rehearsed by a graciously retiring lady who wanted the allotment of an entire State for building her new home?

Soon awaited is the turn of our young centurion, always humble and self effacing to ask “when am I going in to bat? And do I need a pass to bring in my “ton” into this unruly stadium?”

More fun and games is to come.