“I was never cut out for politics,” the indefatigable Mithun Chakraborty recently said. He is right. Some people are born into politics. Others find their way into the slush of present day politics.
Mithun Chakraborty questioned for 45 mins on his birthday by Kolkata Police over inciteful speech during Assembly polls desimartini.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from desimartini.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Biman Bose, the CPM leader is now 80 years old. He was born on July 1 in 1940. The other day, I was watching his news conference on TV. Before the conference, he looked around and asked with a smile: Is everybody ready? Then, can we start? Watching him it seemed as if he is in
Mahua Moitra when she says the PM is catcalling the CM whenever he drawls “
Didi-O-Didi”. In this case, Narendra Modi is heckling a political rival and the rest is unfortunate culturally misplaced intonation. That does not, however, change the fact that in this frenzied grab for Bengal, our politicians have predictably and generously traded in gendered slights. Everyone knows, when pushed to a corner, society will berate women for characteristics /roles/physiognomy/instincts, typically in the absence of which you wouldn’t be able to tell apart one gender from another. No less than the great Aristotle said in his Physiognomonics that some aspects of womanliness, such as her high pitched voice, can be equated with evil. In The Gender of Sound, Anne Carson writes, “Aristotle tells us… creatures who are brave and just (like lions, bulls, roosters, and the human male), have large deep voices.”
View: Why BJP and TMC are in a celeb-wooing competition
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Stars and politicians are no strangers in Bengal. Before he became a Trinamool-nominated Rajya Sabha MP Mithun Chakraborty was so close to Left Front minister Subhas Chakraborty that he organised a star-studded flood relief extravaganza and got Amitabh Bachchan to come for it.
AFP
Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty, a former Trinamool Rajya Sabha member, addresses a mass rally which was attended by India s PM Narendra Modi, ahead of the state legislative assembly elections.
The BJP must have heaved a sigh of relief when Mithun Chakraborty strode onto the stage next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his recent rally in Kolkata. For weeks rumours had been swirling that Bengal’s reigning superstar Prasenjit Chatterjee might attend or Sourav Ganguly. Neither obliged, but Mithun-da, a bona fide “son of Bengal” saved the day though a meme quipped the BJP had ordered the latest hottest Dada and Ama