Witerati: Big B, Budget rebates and Baap of all debates

Budget season translated into taxing time of the non-budgetary type for India’s rich and famous, thanks to certain famous feet, tweet or sartorial choices indiscreet. And how!

Of foot in mouth & footwear (ex)cess: Other than trending tidings of the finance minister imposing custom duty on footwear walking into India from any foreign shore, certain famous footwear too saw Twitter tripping galore.The foot had a busy time, whether it stood attached to the Baap of all big legs, or whether the foot was busy being shoved in the mouth at Budget pontifications by the Baap of all loudmouths.

When Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan stepped out for an event in a pair of maroon velvet moccasins, he put his best foot forward. Not only did these excessively embellished moccasins break the usual sartorial custom of teaming ‘mojris’ or ‘juttis’ with kurta-pyjamas, they also stood custom-ised to become the shoes half the world would die to be in, never mind if they fashioned budgetary (ex)cess.

This was the curious case of shoemakers’ “Custom Duty”!

Of things budgetary & Burberry: While Big B’s moccasins overshadowed his canary Nehru jacket, there was another jacket that showed no signs of getting overshadowed.

Budget week saw on its sidelines another sartorial spectacle that had nothing to do with the Nehru jacket but with the Nehru scion – Rahul Gandhi. He got trolled Left, Right, Centre for a quilted Burberry jacket, all because its Rs 70,000 tag didn’t quite “fit” the image an aam aadmi’s neta. The trolling translated into taxing time for his party.

This loss of image made it the curious case of not Budgetary Deficit, but “Burberry Deficit”.

Of Big B & big import cuts: Even as the Budget spelt import duty hike – with foreign cars, cosmetics and consoles costlier – certain celebs faced cuts that looked imported.

With Big B confronted with a cut in Twitter followers --- to the tune of 60,000 – the “Angry Young Man” suspected the involvement of a foreign hand, what with Twitter’s clean-up of celebrity accounts, suspecting them of thriving on fake followers.

Losing his status as the second-most followed Indian on Twitter after the PM to the third spot, after NaMo and Bollywood ‘Badshah’ Shah Rukh, the ‘Shahenshah’ grappled with the import of not a monetary but momentary deficit and threatened to quit Twitter.

This turned it into the curious case of non-budgetary “Import Cuts”.

Of rebates & debates: While the FM was busy doling out rebate upon rebate – for creatures agrarian, octogenarian and pedestrian, the telly was croaking out debate upon debate. But nobody could outshout the Baap of all Debates as Arnab went full throttle about “old wine in new bottle”.

On a debate powered by famous vocal chords carrying much weight -- Kiran Mazumdar Shaw to Suhel Seth -- it was difficult to decipher what escalated more, iPhone or iWatch’s price decimals or Arnab’s decibels.

With Arnab having a capital time raving or ranting about the poll-itically correct budget, the rebate recipients’ gain was the debate recipients’ pain. (Thank heavens, the Budget made cochlear implants less pricey!)

As #Feb1WithArnab scaled higher and higher riding tweets and blaring bleats, listeners’ cochlear pain became for India’s fiery gab a furious case of “Capital Gain”!

The author can be contacted at chetnabanerjee@gmail.com

(The views expressed are personal)