Oh PUHLEEZE - II

Last week, when asked who he would keep in the competion (if he had a choice) Javed Akhtar's wonderful rationale for wanting to "save" a talent-less, gimmicky performer was "Yeh ladki hai" and hence, represents those millions of oppressed-and-tortured-by-chauvinist-pigs girls who have lived a lifetime of tuneless singing and thumka maaro-ing - and presumably by having whips cracked at them to do so.

Not only was this declaration from a self-confessed "feminist" (he and his wife declared this emphatically on another televsion show some weeks before this one), he decided to go the extra mile and be absolutely horrid to an (talented) 18 year old kid about his career possibilities - but that's beside the point for this post.

The idea of feminisim here is to promote a talentless girl in a(n) uhhh talent show because she is a girl?! This is (unwanted) reservation all over again (and so thanks for taking us back a few thousand years, big guy!) How in your book does this differ from incompetent doctors and engineers and whatever-nots?

And if you must do this, can you please refrain from using the "emancipation of women" excuse? It is very embarassing for me to have to hear this in this context. Instead, you could try the simple you like her more than him (so TOUGH!) or that his lisp reminds you of some childhood memory you would rather not recall or that his hair is too curly...whatever.

Oh Puhleeze - part 1