Politically Incorrect: In a world of dull, pompous and heavy 'netajis', be a Moon Moon Sen!
Moon Moon caused a furor with her 'bed tea' drawl. But then, obviously, we are not used to politicians being honest anymore. Or amusing.
Is off-white and gold the colours of the season?
It must be so if Hema Malini and Moon Moon Sen both chose to make headlines in these exact colours.
It is either that — or Manish Malhotra or Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla have made inroads in political dressing. Soon, they might design large, regal, intricately embroidered carpets for every politician to brush issues under. But that’s the subject of another story.
For now, we are focussed on Moon Moon who couldn’t see the sun sun for want of a bed tea tea. And amidst all the headlines she made, the real issues, like the kingdom, was lost.
As a fellow Bengali, whose love for cha is as deep as her love for Robindronath Thakur (Rabindranath Tagore, for you plebs who’ve been pronouncing it wrong all this while), and a fellow Asansol-ite, my heart goes out to Moon Moon. Yes, bed tea is damn important and even if they try to interpret that humble cup of tea and Marie biscuit as 'entitlement', don’t let them fool you. It is just cha — that beautiful brown liquid that turns all your senses on, that which has become synonymous with Indian culture — that which brought Modi ji to power in Gujarat in 2001 and then in India again in 2014.
And this exact thing that you term 'entitlement' is what sets Moon Moon apart from the likes of Hema.
When Hema landed up in a ‘khet’ looking like a Bollywoodised version of ‘gaon ki gori,’ harvesting crops — and due to a case of familiar association, you start imagining soft Laxmikant Pyarelal music in the background and hope Dharmendra would pop out suddenly, thus breaking into a song and dance sequence — Hema was, well, campaigning.
PS: Campaigning refers to anything and everything a politician would do to convince the public they are one of them so as to win their votes — public they will never see again for another five years. Are they pretending? Yes. Does the public know? Yes.
Yet, they still want to see their netas do it — toil and sweat while they are at it.
Sadists, I tell you!
WATCH | "No bed tea...": Moon Moon Sen on why she was unaware of Asansol violence https://t.co/5iUQ3UYUt5#Phase4 #LokSabhaElections2019 #ElectionsWithNDTV pic.twitter.com/Yz5ZtHw6wt
— NDTV (@ndtv) April 29, 2019
Which is why when a Moon Moon has the guts to throw the rulebook of political campaigning out the window, the public lose their mind!
Obviously, we are not used to politicians being honest.
When Moon Moon broke into the big screen with her buttery voice and slippery dialogue delivery, she immediately piqued our interest. No one ever got ‘nyaaka’ right — with the right amount of sass and bad-assery, up until Moon Moon. And she brings that very deadly combination into politics. Except we Indians are not ready for it.
Is she politically incorrect in saying she was unaware of the violence in Asansol? Yes, there’s no denying that. Did she, the sharp politico that she is, use the ‘bed tea’ remark to shift the focus from the violence, making more headlines than the actual fight? Quite possibly, yes. But then, did she, in the process, bring back the crop (cheekily referencing Hema and her crop harvesting here) of ‘muh-fatt’ netas who seem to have gone missing — especially in the last five years? Oh, yes.
Welcome back.
For netas today are either heaping praises at their gods (read: party presidents) or slinging mud at their opposition — but they are doing that in a carefully constructed PR-powered circle, to ensure their image is not tarnished.
Isn’t that why we’re suddenly seeing so many humanising, slice-of-life interviews of hardcore politicos?
But conventional is boring.
And Moon Moon had broken that mould way back in 1984 when her risqué role in the Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff starrer Andar Bahar caused a storm in everyone’s teacup (yep, cheekily referencing Moon Moon’s bed tea here. I am not biased)!
So why pretend now? If she managed to defeat CPM’s Basudev Acharya in Bankura in 2014 with a ‘gaamchha’ around her neck and ‘gorom lagchhe’ on her lips, Babul Supriyo doesn’t stand a chance.
As far as star power and dream girl-like looks are concerned, we have a hapless Hema tangled in her own golden locks on one hand, and a vibrant-looking Moon Moon demanding her tea and flinging mics mid-interview, on the other. I will let the audience decide who did it better.
Meanwhile, if you thought Moon Moon is not defiant enough, notice that throbbing red bindi on her forehead and tell me who else in TMC has had the nerve to sport CPM colours under Mamata di?