Gandhi statue

The UK has approved a proposal to have a statue of Mahatma Gandhi erected in front of the British Parliament. This just proves how great Mahatma Gandhi was. In a year when no Gandhi got power in Parliament, he did — and, that too in a land that ruled us for 200 years! That’s true power: to conquer the British even after your death.

Of course, Indians are way more excited than the British about this. True Indian mentality: every road, path, airport, tree, house, Rahul — is named after Gandhiji. But, we get more excited because, “Arrey, look. Foreigners approve of us! We must be amazing.”

And, I don’t understand why Indians think this a big deal! Why do we constantly want the British to apologise to us and make us feel good? Look at what they gave us! They gave us so many wonderful things: the world’s longest train networks, wonderful monuments, cricket, Shashi Tharoor’s accent, Salman Khan’s accent, a monarchial system of governance...

HOW DARE YOU... we’ll never forgive you for that last one! This means WAR! On the cricket field. Just as soon as we’ve got Duncan Fletcher on a flight home.

But, this has got to take some pretty sporting gesture. The British are basically putting up a statue of a man who defeated them: This is like Pakistan putting up a statue of Sachin from Sharjah! Or, Jayalalitha putting up a statue of a bottle of Karnataka water! Or, Brazil putting up a statue of their football team!

In the same spirit, India should also do the same thing: we should put up a statue of the Kohinoor. And, for technical reasons: we need the original Kohinoor to model it on. We promise to return it... in about 190 years.