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ASSEMBLY WIT-2
By Valmiki Faleiro
Think political wit. And one is reminded of anecdotes from the Mother of
Parliaments,
despite the British stiff upper lip. William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli
were forever
at loggerheads in the second half of the 19th Century. When one was Prime
Minister, the
other was Opposition Leader. In power, each pursued domestic and foreign
policies in
conflict with those of the other. Once, in the heat of debate, one said to the
other, "You
will die by hanging or from venereal disease!" Pat came the response, "That
will depend,
Mr. Prime Minister, on whether I embrace your policies or your wife."
Classic were the literary giants, George Bernard Shaw and Gilbert Keith
Chesterton.
They were diametric opposites, in mind and body. Chesterton was short and
rotund,
Shaw tall and thin. Both detested each other. One day both approached a narrow
London alley from either end. Normally, one waits at one’s end for the other to
pass,
because two persons can’t cross without discomfort. Each saw the other, but
advanced.
Face-to-face midway, glaring but without a word, one finally turned aside to
let the other
pass. As he brushed past, GK Chesterton bellowed, "I don’t give way to fools."
Quick
was Shaw’s whisper: "But I do."
Both were nominated to the House of Lords. Their animosities showed in
Parliament.
The Great Depression raged and famine threatened. Shaw (the lean, lanky one)
waxed
eloquent on the famine. Chesterton contemptuously remarked, "There was no need
for
Hon. Shaw to say so much; anyone seeing him would know Britain faces a famine."
Shaw replied, "And anyone seeing the Hon. Chesterton would know who the cause
is."
Another day, during stormy debate, Chesterton angrily challenged, "I could have
swallowed you, Mr. Shaw, and never known I had eaten a thing." Rebutted Shaw,
"In
that case, you would have more brains in your stomach than you ever had in your
head."
Goa’s parliamentary wit came in its own flavour. Opposition to CM Rane, those
days,
hardly came from the emasculated MGP duo of Khalap and Babuso Gaonkar, but from
his own benches, 28-strong in a House of 30. This was around the time the
Congress
split to spawn the ‘Goa Congress’ party. Rane had arrived at a sad pass where
he could
count on the support of just one MLA, Dilkush Dessai, and through Dilkush, of
Vasu Paik
Gaonkar.
The Assembly was in session and there was a loaded question listed for the day.
Everyone waited for the Q to be called, to put Rane on the mat. They had to
wait until
the elderly Pernem MLA, Deu Mandrekar, finished his question about a Govt.
Primary
School in some remote village of his constituency. Not satisfied with Education
Minister,
Harish Zantye’s replies, Deu repeatedly mumbled supplementaries. Impatient MLAs
loudly prompted Zantye to give Deu all the assurances so he would quieten, and
the star
Q taken up.
Despite assurances, Deu persisted with more questions. A non-plussed Zantye
finally,
and amazingly, told Deu, "There’s no such school in the village." Poor Deu rose
to
protest that there indeed was a school in that village. The Education
Minister’s reply,
"There’s no such village."
One must grant Zantye space. Protesting students met him over poor campus
facilities.
Zantye reasoned, "Why do you want to study so much? See, I am not even Matric
Pass,
and I am Education Minister!" In 1983, in the run up to CHOGM Retreat, Zantye
went to
the Taj Hermitage, for a first-hand look at the much-hyped arrangements for the
Retreat.
The place swarmed with Central security personnel. They wouldn’t allow Zantye’s
national flag-bearing car past the main gate. Zantye himself alighted and told
the North
Indian security boss, in his chaste Marathi, "Mee mantri ho." Replied the
uniformed man,
"Tu mantri ho, nahin toh santri ho, you please go!"
It wasn’t the first, and certainly wouldn’t be the last, but this jailbreak
from Aguada was
especial. Sukur Narain Bakhia, billed India’s No.1 smuggler, and native of
Goa’s then
overland pocket of Daman, had one fine night performed the vanishing trick from
gaol.
The Assembly was in a furious discussion on the escapade. Everybody’s favourite
punching bag, Rane, the minister for jails, was being bombarded from all sides.
Red-
faced, he could take it no more. To yet another pointed question from Herculano
Dourado, the party Chief Whip, who sat just behind Rane, a transparently
befuddled
Rane said, "The way you all are asking me, it looks as though I know where
Bakhia is
right now."
Dourado was quick on his feet, "That’s exactly what I was going to ask you!"
(ENDS)
The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330
=======================================================================
The above article appeared in the July 15, 2007 edition of the Herald, Goa
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