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Cut to the chase

If you've noticed, Bhosle's been a very good girl -- by not commenting on Salman Khan's affair with black bucks and chinkaras. The way I figured, it was a straightforward poaching case. There'd be plenty of front pages with colourful images of fallen stars, a long-drawn and farcical trial, a nominal sentencing, a pardon from some formerly-militant-now-turned-sensitive politico; the public would lap up Salman's non-discomfiture with their non- onions, and we'd all live happily ever after. More to the point, none would accuse me of stalking Mosies...

No such luck.

What with Chandrababu Naidu's ordering an inquiry to investigate the serving of (protected) wild boar, spotted deer and peacock at a dinner for 400, hosted by a ruling TDP activist to felicitate state Irrigation Minister T Nageshwar Rao, the wildlife issue is here with us to stay. And with every mention of the ministerial gluttons of Andhra, there'll be one of Salman. So I may as well get it over with...

This is what I've gleaned so far: On September 26, Salman Khan -- accompanied by Satish Shah, Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam -- shot down a chinkara in Gudha Bishnoi. After killing another deer, they drove back to the hotel. The kitchen was opened at 0230 hours, and the chinkara was cooked and served to our heroes.

On September 28, Salman and Saif ran a herd of chinkara to exhaustion. To cut to the chase, that night, they returned with another head.

On October 1, Salman gunned down two black bucks. The Bishnois attacked, chased him, damaged his car and reported him to the forest officials. Which fine gentlemen stroked the wind -- till the Dainik Bhaskar reported the outlawed killings.

As investigations began, the picture of culpability and a cover- up emerged: The driver, Dulani, revealed the names of the stars and swore that when Salman missed a shot, Satish Shah urged him to "Jama ke lagao." The weeping violets admitted that though they'd accompanied Salman, "We only clapped." Forest officials found blood stains and animal hair in the Gypsy the shikaris had used. The missing guns turned up in Bombay. A postmortem report attributed the death of the four animals to "leaping" and "overeating" -- while later scrutiny evinced that they'd died of gunshot wounds. The arrested cook confessed. Dushyant the travel-aide and Yashwant the guide are absconding. The inventive autopsy-report-writer has bolted. And then, a raid on Salim Khan's farm revealed protected species (including a peacock tied to a tree) on the premises.

Salman Khan declared, "I am innocent. I myself love wild animals. How can I shoot them?" Umm... I don't know the answer to the riddle.

This line of loving thought was used by his spinjockeys to con UNI to report that Salman "has actually posed for the 1999 calendar of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature calling upon the youth to save the environment." A-ha! But I do know the answer to this one. You see, Salman never did pose for the calendar: Lensman Gautam Rajadhyaksha (who shot all the stars for the assignment) had to submit a stock photograph of Salman's to the WWF...

Which, of course, doesn't at all mean that Salman is guilty. But it does mean that he's trying to save his slippery skin. Actually, you and I jolly well know that the evidence speaks for itself: The chumps went for a shikar in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught, is all. Even so, I didn't consider the case significant enough for lifting my poison pen: Killing deer is not in the same league as ceding one's garage for concealing AK-47s...

So why am I writing now? Because two creative columnists are slowly but steadily giving the case a communal hue. Wait long enough, and the "truth" will soon be that the Bajrang Dal had instigated the Bishnois and the VHP had cooked up the cook's and driver's testimonies... Since you may not have read the bilge, I'm setting it down. For I want to illustrate how these communalists-in-secularist-garb begin a media campaign to drag in a Hindu-Muslim strife in cases where none exists:

In Mid-Day, Iqbal Masud ostensibly writes on the power of journalists. While blathering on about autonomy and percentage of income and subsidies and objectivity, he slips in his raison d'etre: "The media has already convicted Salman Khan and company. Both Doordarshan and Star TV took an implicitly hostile attitude to Salman. The religious angle was played up -- very odd behaviour by so-called secularists... This is a kangaroo trial by the media. Did I hear someone say 'witch-hunt'? Of course not. We are a secular society."

And I went: Uhh? What's secularism got to do with it? How come it never occurred to me to get Salman for being a Mosie? Shit, man, I lost an opportunity!

That was on October 20. Ten days later, in The Free Press Journal, there's Salman juxtaposed with Clinton, under the huge proboscis of Masud again. This time, too, Masud fires away at the indiscrete media -- but here, and I am not lying, he equates Clinton's consensual sexual acts with Salman's killing of protected wildlife.

Masud, as usual, made utter confusion: I had to wade through Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, zeit geist (yes, separated), "Et tu Brutus!" (sic), "You (sic) Cassius has a lean and hungry look," blah blah blah... None of which had anything to do with the gist of the piece: "(The Khans) are extremely lucky in their personal fortunes, think the jealous media. Secondly they belong to the wrong minority... Newspaper reports going into details of how Salman slit the throat of the deer, highlight the fact that this was a Muslim Halal. As against this, the Bishnoi agony at the massacre of animals was played up... The environment people considered to be grassroots fighters have become fascist. They abuse not merely the Khans but the Sena minister for forests. They abuse the lawyers of Salman and Salim..."

I'm wondering, what's a "wrong" minority...?

Secondly, here are the offending "details" about the throat- cutting reported by India Today: a. Dulani's statement: "He would then slit the deer's throat, clean his hands, and the others would cover the blood with sand"; b. Khan got down and cut the chinkara's throat. Period. What made Masudmiya think of it as halal? Is there any other way of doing the deed? Did the report say that the knife was slowly drawn back and forth to let the blood -- as done in halal, as opposed to jhatka...? Do *you* see any "highlight" in there?

Thirdly, it's interesting to note that those whose religious agonies/insecurities are perpetually protected by even justices, should grudge the Bishnois a bit of it...

As for the "fascist" environmentalists, they include Zafar Islam and Bombay Natural History Society Director Asad R Rahmani. I suppose, these guys must belong to a "right" minority...

Finally, Masud tells us that a retired judge said of the junior Khans, "They are spoiled brats." Which had Masudmiya fuming: "while in front of us, the spoilt brats of the new rich were disporting themselves by breaking the Club laws against the use of cell phones. I pointed this out to the judge and added: 'Of course they are not film actors or minority men'." If such are the educated Muslims, whither...

So much for Masudmiya. The other innovative "writer", Farzana Versey, says in Afternoon on Sunday: "Salman Khan is delectable; so is the chinkara. The only difference is that one is a Muslim. This is where, to use the cliched headline doing the rounds, the buck must stop." Eh...? Run that by me again...

But the incoherence only gets worse: "I had even found the AR Rehman remix version pretty obnoxious and a lot of people agreed, saying, 'That Rehman fellow, what do you expect?' Now the revered Lata Mangeshkar goes full throttle in this pop patriotic stuff and an insult to the motherland it is, far more than the silence of those Muslims. But Latabai is not a Muslim, so she can't go wrong." Eh...? What's the connection.... Never mind! Some are just doomed to gabble around the Tower of Babel.

At this rate, it won't be long before poaching laws are changed to relieve Khan. Already, he's had a "satisfactory" meeting with Gopinath Munde. Except for the Jain Samta Vahini and the Bishnois, all's quiet on the front. Know what? With all the crap happening, I feel exactly like WC Fields: "I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally."

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