Lost in Translation

Who would have thought after 60 hours of terror in Bombay we would be laughing so soon.  One of the most popular Indian TV shows is The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, however that show is nothing compared to the statements being made by our caring and affectionate government leaders.  The laughter you hear is because most people are laughing in pain at the mockery these elected officials are making of this massacre.  Anyway, let’s go through some of their sound bites:

“If it had not been Sandeep’s (slain NSG commando) house, not even a dog would have glanced that way”

V.S. Achuthanandan, Chief Minister of Kerala (pic shown), was quoted after the father of the slain NSG commando told the minister to take a hike. This would be the equivalent of California Governor Schwarzenegger telling a firefighter’s father to get lost.

 

“I was on an official visit to find out for myself the damage caused to the hotel. It was a sheer coincidence that producer Ram Gopal Verma was also present”

V. Deshmukh, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, was quoted after protests over his actor son Ritesh and director Ram Gopal Verma toured the Taj Palace with him. Imagine if George Bush had Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg visit ground zero within hours of the 9/11 attack.

 

“The odd incident does happen in a big city like Mumbai”

R.R. Patil, Home Minister of Maharashtra, was quoted as the attack was occurring. Maybe, but these “odd incidents” don’t usually last 60 frikken’ hours due to government stupidity.

 

“These are just a few women wearing lipstick and powder taking to the streets”

M.A. Naqvi, BJP Leader, was quoted as saying when talking about citizens protesting. Fair enough, maybe this guy REALLY doesn’t like lipstick and powder.

The larger issue is that most of them are still sticking by their quotes because they don’t see anything wrong with their statements. In fact, many have said their words were incorrectly translated from their mother tongue to English. This is India baby!…where the world knows about “India Shining” but internally we are “India Crying.”