Frank Luntz, the famed Republican pollster apologized on National Public Radio for his failure to call the US 2020 Election correctly. His estimate was a conservative, but a comfortable win for Joe Biden. Though Biden is almost there, the Election was far closer than he predicted, Trump really giving the Democrats a run for money.
Frank was frank enough to own his failure. Per him, the discrepancy in his prediction was due to those shy Trump voters preferred not to express publicly their choice for Trump, being afraid of getting ridiculed. Those unaccounted shy voters made all the difference to calculations in the pollsters prediction.
It immediately rang a bell. I have observed, at least on the social media there are many shy supporters of our Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who are afraid of being ridiculed in public. They don't want to be branded as a Modi BHAKT (a religiously blind follower). At the same time, there are obviously plenty of those not so shy supporters of Mr. Modi roaming all over the social media.
I mock at both Modi and Trump, as they go hand in hand. They even danced together hand in hand in the much publicized "Howdy Modi" event last year (much publicized in India, the American media barely took a notice the event being held in their own soil in Houston). I also mock at their hardcore, blind supporters as BHAKTs in a generic way, never being specific to any particular individual.
Nothing riles someone more than being labelled as a BHAKT. But there is some misunderstanding here as I have never said in any of my blogs or posts anything specifically about Mr. X or Ms. Y being a Bhakt. Not sure why people take it so personally in that case. I would like to make it clear that my views are highly generic, not any specific to any particular person.
There is a saying in Odia "MANDIRA RE KIYE, NA MU KADALI KHAINI - Who is there in the temple, reply comes, I haven't eaten any Banana." It simply means, somebody trying to defend himself when there is no accusation". But if my mockery of Modi-Trump duo makes anyone uncomfortable, they are free to ignore my posts, unfriend me or even block me.
I am reminded of this famous song from a Guru Dutt movie and modified it in this context.
BHAKT NE KIYA, KYA HASI SITAM
NA TUM RAHE NA TUM
NA HUM RAHE NA HUM.
Roughly transliterated....
The devotee has done charming injustice,
Nor Me or you,
now are what we used to.
There is also another saying in Odia "Odia thile Bangali manankara chakara 1947 purba roo...ebe Odia hauchanti Bangali chamchaa....Rajendra Bhaduri ra pela dhari kiri jhuluthaa chamchaa parika" which means "Odias used to be the servants and slaves of Bengalees prior to Aug 1947 and now they are the sycophants of Bengalees...So , keep holding on to and swinging from Rajendra Bhaduri's testicles just like a good slave of the Bengalis."
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