No pasta, no Wharton: Five steps to a new Swadeshi movement

The other Mohandas would have been proud. While Mohandas Gandhi gave us the Boycott movement, Mohandas Pai has taken it global. Why boycott just the British, when we can boycott the world? Mohandas Pai, the chairman of Manipal Global is striking a blow for swadeshi pride by being the latest to drop out of the ill-gated Wharton Indian Economic Forum. “I don’t feel good about attending the Wharton event,” Pai said . His cup of woes runneth over. “Wharton treated Narendra Modi shabbily, our Prime Minister and Supreme Court are treated badly by the Italian government, Pakistan is making comments on Afzal Guru’s hanging, Lanka is treating our fishermen as illegal immigrants.” There is obviously a deep dark conspiracy afoot to shame, humiliate, embarrass India Shining. Everyone from Mahinda Rajapakse to the Italian government to anti-Modi professors in America are in on it. Wharton is just one stop on this Humiliation Special. Mr. Pai has done his part by putting his foot down and not going to Wharton. Here is a five point plan that the rest of us can follow to show the world that we mean business (even if we don’t attend a business summit). [caption id=“attachment_662743” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The Wharton campus. Image courtesy: Official Facebook page of university.[/caption] No foreign shoots. Bollywood must immediately cancel all foreign shoots. No more Hong Kong, Macau, Switzerland. Even Mauritius and Maldives are a no-no. Music directors Sajid-Wajid are already striking a blow for swadeshi power with their song Bum pe laat from Himmatwala which is “inspired” by the 1950s children’s song Chicken Dance. “Initially we want wanted to buy the rights of the song, but since the process is too complex we decided to make our own version of it,” Wajid told TOI. That’s the can-do Dandi March spirit. We can make our own version of whatever you have be it salt, or Bollywood rip-offs. We don’t need permission. No summer holidays abroad. If you already made summer holiday plans in Barcelona or Istanbul, too bad. Take it on the chin for national pride and stay at home. We should not spend our tourism Forex anywhere while our leaders and diplomats are being “treated shabbily” by countries big and small. My friend’s pre-schooler is already ahead of the curve. The five year old is in a school play where her character, fed up with her cooking and cleaning chores (yes, even at five!), wants to take off for the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. But good sense soon prevails. She concludes, “I think Gujarat is the best option. There is so much to see in our very own country.” What does Rio de Janerio have that good old Rann de Kutch does not? No Hollywood. Amitabh Bachchan has already told us that his role in The Great Gatsby is miniscule – look down at your popcorn and you might miss it. Well let us all look down at our popcorn in unison when that and every other Hollywood film releases here. Irrfan Khan and Anil Kapoor should stay home. And for those of you who go to theaters to see the endless stream of 3D Hollywood films, you’ll just have to get your fix from 3D-Bollywood. Dangerous Isshq wasn’t that bad, was it? And Reliance should not be shelling out money for films about American presidents. How about a bio-pic on The Incredibly Expanding Bungalow of Pratibha Patil instead? By the way, downloading films is OK, it gives Big Bad Foreigner no revenue. One man’s piracy is another man’s statement of protest. No phoren food. All those chic eateries that boast about lamb flown in from New Zealand and salmon from Norway had better revamp their menus. We must eat swadeshi now just as the Republicans once launched a war on French fries to teach those French a lesson. According to the Cobrapost sting, even our money laundering banks have gotten the memo – they offer their five-star customers coffee and dosa, not cappuccinos and muffins. Even corruption should have a desi flavour now. Parents, no more planning birthday parties at McDonald’s and Pizza Huts. Despite those Indian sounding items they have put on their menu – these are just desi outposts of the same global conspirators who want to humiliate us. Remember how those Italian marines hated their chicken curry while in custody here? What better revenge can we have than dumping pizzas, pasta and gelatos in the drain? No foreign degrees. This one might hurt a little more. But given that this whole snub originated at Wharton we need to put these hifalutin schools in their place. Yes, we should bring back our children from those American universities at once. Today’s papers are gaga about Sundar Pichai, IIT alumnus who has been appointed the head of Google’s Android division from Andy Rubin. IIT is chuffed about it though Pichai does not have much contact with the institute where he studied metallurgy. “We will definitely organize a grand felicitation and invite him to visit us,” said Siddhartha Das, the head of the metallurgy department. But hold on. A closer look at Pichai’s resume shows an MS from Stanford and an MBA from Wharton. Pichai should return those degrees forthwith and take the next flight back home. As Rabindranath Tagore told us when he renounced his knighthood “The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I, for my part, wish to stand shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings.” Mohandas Pai is showing us the way by staying at home. Let us all follow suit. Soon the world will be eating humble Pai. Jai Hind.