Azam’s dog tale

Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan is known for his caustic comments and unmatched wit. Recently, when some journalists asked him to comment on his bête noire Amar Singh’s outburst against the Akhilesh Yadav government, Mr Khan more than answered the questions with a small tale. The tale goes thus: “There was a poor woman who had no money to cook a meal for her family. She saw a stray dog; she killed him and cooked the meat for the family. Her son saw this and when the meat was being served to his father in the evening, he thought he should inform his father that it was dog’s meat. Then he thought that if I speak up, my father will kill my mother and if I keep quiet, my father will eat dog meat.” Mr Khan, after narrating this tale, paused and smiled, and said, “My position is like the dog so let me keep quiet,” before walking off. Journalists, till now, are wondering who the mother and the father are in this tale.

Happy Journalists Journalists covering the Union health ministry are a happy lot these days. The latest reshuffle in the bureaucracy at the top level has got them some relief. Unlike earlier health secretary B.P. Sharma, who never met journalists, in fact, never met anyone during his tenure, the new secretary, C.K. Mishra, who was an additional secretary in the same ministry earlier, has come as a relief. Not only he meets, greets and talks to the media, the recent luncheon that was organised on his behalf was the icing on the cake.

OUTSMARTING RIVALs Damodar Rout, the seniormost minister in the Naveen Patnaik government in Orissa, does not spare anybody when it comes to telling the truth. He recently came to know that his arch-rival Debashish Samantaray, in a bid to get closer to Mr Patnaik and to demean him in party politics, had recommended the name of controversial Orissa Cricket Association secretary Ashirbad Behera to get the Biju Patnaik Award, and so wanted to teach him a lesson. “I know Ashirbad Behera is a big Yadav leader, who is helping our party and chief minister Naveen Patnaik to get votes of his community. But what will people think when this fellow, who faces CBI probes in the chit fund scam and in the case fudging of age by state junior cricketers, gets the award Naveen’s father and former chief minister Biju Patnaik was a sports champion. It will be a great disrespect to him if the award constituted in his name is given to a controversial person like Ashirbad Behera,” he said. Soon after Dr Rout’s remark, the government put on hold its decision and Mr Samantaray’s plan to get closer to the chief minister had fallen flat.

ENJOYING ‘ARMS RIDE’ Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should find solace in the fact that his journey in the arms of two policemen to cross a nullah filled with ankle-deep water during his visit to flood-ravaged Panna district last week, although invited stinging sarcasms, has too acted as a stimulant for some litterateurs to coin new phrases. As the picture showing him airborne, being helped by two of his personal security guards, had gone viral, netizens started competing each other to post catchy one-liners in their Facebook and Twitter walls to pull him up for displaying a “feudal mindset”. One post related Mr Singh “aerial” journey to ongoing Rio Olympics to create a new phrase — “Flood Olympics”. “Winner of gold medal in Flood Olympics being carried by his coaches in his victory lap!” the caption shrieked reminding one the scene of Rio bronze medalist Sakshi Malik being shouldered by her coach following her wrestling feat. Another post which has been rated as a standout comment created a hitherto unheard phrase — “arms ride”. “The MP chief minister enjoyed thoroughly the arms ride in times of flood,” the post quipped.