footinthemouth.com

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More than half a century ago when the visual media were primitive, Abraham Pais chided the showman-attention-grabber Feynman with the one liner:

"Publicity is a whore"

Every thinking man ought to understand that all that all media crave always, in this 24/7 cut-throat age, is: scoops and sound-bytes. That is their living, just as lawyers make their living by taking up cases...they don't mind which side of the case they take up...just who pays better.

Yet, I am surprised that every once in a while some well-meaning public figure puts his foot in his mouth and lands in a boiling soup. Hand-held microphone pushed up like a bait to a salmon, TV camera, and often the inviting face behind, undo many reputations.

Yesterday's front page headlines are that a much-respected top police officer said something like: Increased incidence of rape in AP is due to the inviting and revealing dresses worn by the victims nowadays. Naturally, this one sentence among a hundred others was picked up and went viral. And he and his PRs are tying themselves into Gordian Knots that further tighten the noose. Like Birbal apologizing to Akbar: "I thought it was the queen."

Even much-respected Presidents of Harvard were not spared.

Even the famous South-Indian film actress of yesteryear of Bollywood was not amused when our politico-buffoon said he desired to make the roads of Bihar as smooth as her cheeks.

And our tipsy-topsy yesteryear actor had to eat crow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNmPz8CN5Xs&feature=relmfu

Even the Gandhian Anna goofed saying: "Only one slap?" when he was told that a Senior Minister was slapped in public. And had to retract, not very convincingly.

Two years ago one midnight our Tamilnadu-born HM made a hasty statement almost granting Telengana overnight. And a couple of days later, his bureaucrat chamcha, also from Tamilandu, added fuel to fire by gifting Hyderabad as its capital (almost as if from his pocket). What happened then is history...the issue is still hanging fire after about 700 students and others sacrificed their innocent lives for the cause of the politicos. And Coastal Andhras, suffering from a couple of centuries of domination by the Tamils during British India, went to town imputing hidden motives to the Tamilian Minister and his Tamilian chamcha saying that they were envious of Hyderabad's growing IT Industry and wanted to sabotage it by hook, or better, crook.

There was but one great Tamilian leader called Kamaraj Nadar in the 1950s who understood the value of discreet silence in public. It used to be said that he never spoke Hindi or English as a matter of policy (those were the decades of anti-Hindi sentiment), and when asked any question by his Interviewers, he would just say: "Parkalam!", meaning something like: "Let's see!"

But my IAS B-i-L of the Tamilnadu Cadre told me one revealing story about Kamaraj. Apparently he was addressing National Media in his frugal style in chaste Tamil and was being translated into English by his Tamilian IAS Officer. And Kamaraj said: "The nation needs nalla opposition" in Tamil. And his IAS Officer translated the Tamil word: 'nalla' as 'good'. And Kamaraj wasn't happy with 'good'. Then his Babu said: 'effective'. And this word too was rejected by a wave of the hand. He then tried the buzz word: 'wonderful'. And was shut up.

And Kamaraj himself had to rescue his Babu saying:

"nalla opposition means 'sound' opposition."

But that was the Nehru Generation...


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