Tharoor Pushkared !

With his boyish looks, suave persona and twitter friendly attitude layered on to his past experience as a UN under secretary general, Tharoor always came across as an articulate and a very visible minister - a man whose aura and mystique grew with every successive move & tweet; irrespective of how politically incorrect it was. It actually did seem for a while that India was finally ready for politics of a different kind.

His devil may care attitude about holy cows in his own backyard, actually lent a certain freshness and credibility and endeared him to many, including me.

His fall from grace has been as thundering as his rise was meteoric. As he now stands "pushkared" into a corner, robbed of the garb of decency and his reputation shred to tatters, he appears naked ; yet unrepentant and unabashed.

As a has been admirer, i feel let down for 2 reasons -

a) as an elected MP, like most, he chose to forego his core job to work for his constituency rather than devote effort and energy into matters of the heart, wallet and cricket.

b) He appears to have joined the very same league of political crooks that we believed him to be different from and has yet again dented whatever little hope we had of some of these new age guys.


Politicians almost always believe that the hoi-polloi is blind. and deaf. and dumb. and can be hoodwinked all the time.

The only improvement over the years has been the fact that earlier politicians would be caught red handed with truckloads of money stashed away in their houses ! Now they get caught trying to sweat their way into arranging equity for their paramours. India has progressed, all right!?

With him out of the way, its now Modi's turn to face the axe. The big difference ofcourse, in this case, is that there are no big surprises. Everybody has known this all along. In this hamaam, they are all nakedly alike.