The President of India, Ramnath Kovind, unveiled a portrait of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 23rd January, the 125th Birth Anniversary of the National Hero. Paresh Maity, a Padma Awardee artist, was commissioned to do the portrait, which he did from a photo of Netaji provided by his daughter Anita Bose Pfaff. To me, he has done a decent job of that.
A cantankerous TMC Member of Parliament twittered ‘God save India, (because this government certainly can’t)’ and preceding it with an ‘After donating Rs.5 lacs to the Ram temple the President honours Netaji by unveiling a portrait of Prosenjit, the actor who played him in the biopic.’
A few presstitutes butted in. Rajdeep Sardesai writing, ‘So it turns out that this is a portrait of Prasenjit Chatterjee who acted as Netaji in a movie! Surely @Rashtrapatibhvn could have found a nice original portrait to put up.’ Barkha Dutt would not be left behind and joined: ‘Shocked to hear that the President unveiled the portrait of actor Prasenjit Chatterjee who played Netaji instead of real deal. I wish this were a headline from onion. I had to look twice to make sure it had actually happened. How utterly embarrassing. The gang, Sagarika Ghosh, Swati Chaturvedi, and a few others lectured the President, guffawing on the social networks. Swati suggested Rashtrapati Bhavan not to use Ben Kingsley’s face in place of Gandhiji, a role the former had played in the movie Gandhi.
Srijit Mukherjee the director of the Bengali biopic on Netaji, Gumnaami posted a picture of Prosenjit Chatterjee, the actor who played the freedom fighter. He stated that the success of the similarity must go to his make-up artist, Somnath Kundu. Rashtrapati Bhavan, who characteristically does not respond to social media clarified that it indeed was the real Netaji.
I thought the President was not ridiculed or trolled. Whatever had the unveiling of the portrait to do with donating Rs. 5 lacs to Ram Mandir? Did the President commit a misdemeanour by donating? The intolerance for Ram flows in every member of a party, but as long they are with the party. It is a must qualification for sticking on.
I thought intelligence and knowledge are two parallel attributes of a person. I am wrong, knowledge is not intelligence, and mere withdrawing of Tweets does not absolve these people from their scant respect and regard shown for the land’s highest constitutional office.
Not done!
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
