With all the orchestrated outpourings of praise and extravagantly choreographed displays from industrialists and celebrities all day long yesterday, we had the surest evidence that the cheapest fuel powering this entire country is sycophancy. One senior journalist estimated that around Rs 200 crore was spent only on print advertisements across all national and regional newspapers. Twelve pages of a leading English daily out of a total of sixteen were plastered with cringeworthy birthday mentions of the Mahapurush. Can you imagine how insecure he is inside? Not even his birthday wishes are genuine, but no surprises here. His team needs to literally arm-twist/coerce celebrities to wish him using a scripted toolkit supplied by the government itself. This has to be the most extravagant birthday celebration in the history of India.
