The year that was

Rupa Gulab Delhi

For the UPA government (okay, okay, the Congress party mainly), 2007 will be remembered as the year that wasn't. It faced obstacles on practically every issue, a lot of unnecessary backtracking happened, and not much was cleared. Nonetheless, some of us agree that although it may not have achieved what it set out to do, it managed to give us something pretty valuable: stability.  While I haven't been listening at bathroom doors, I'm fairly certain that its shower song of the year is Elton John's 'I'm still standing, yeah yeah yeah'!

Now finally, what a handful of you have been waiting for with bated breath — my list of awards for 2007 (fanfare of trumpets). Some of them are terribly dubious, others less so, but all are truly well deserved.

he Most Unlikely Rock Star of the Year Award: APJ Kalam was perhaps the only Indian president with a wildly enthusiastic fan club. And no, it wasn't just his long greasy locks that gave him rock star status. Heck, he didn't even have a music video of himself as a chilled out peacenik wielding a gun with flowers dramatically tucked into the barrel (oh please, that's so last century) — on the contrary, he was a nuke duke. It's not even as though he was the spokesperson for our causes. Hello, we spoke for ourselves with a fantastic new trick we learnt in 2005-2006: lighting candles. But a lot of us loved and respected this easily accessible president, so when it was time for him to pack his bags and leave Rashtrapati Bhawan, a fervent 'Play it again, Kalam' chant was heard over the nation. What a way to go!

The Most Tearful Chefs of the Year Award: The chefs at Rashtrapati Bhawan must have shed bitter tears too, at Kalam's departure — they had it so easy with him because he mainly ate Idly-Sambar (source: prestigious national daily). With his successor Pratibha Patil in place, the tears will continue to flow unchecked, because her favourite dish is — hold your breath — Onion Poha (source: same prestigious national daily). Which brings me to my current source of irritation: Aren't our newspaper reporters going over the top? Yes, yes, I know dieticians keep telling us 'You are what you eat' in the lifestyle sections of the papers, but I think this angle of character analysis is being carried a bit too far. Why can't reporters tell us what politicians read instead, if they really must — that's more dignified, innit?

The Shortest Shadow of the Year Award: When Mayawati breezed in as the new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, I felt this overpowering urge to envelope her in a bear hug. Not because I'm a feminist, but because that meant that I'd see fewer pictures of Samajwadi party animal Amar Singh looking smug in the papers. All he's reduced to now is being an aged Bollywood star's 12 pm shadow (that's when shadows are vertically challenged, right?). Of course he's still looking annoyingly smug, but I suspect it's just an act — after all, he's learning from a master!

The Newshog of the Year Award: If any astrologer had predicted that 2007 would be the year for the Left Front to hog newsprint, we'd have sniggered. But, as we saw for ourselves as the year unfolded, the Left played out its traditional role of being crushingly autocratic, ruthlessly violent and ridiculously stubborn on the national stage for a change, with spotlights blazing unflatteringly.  Now that they've exposed their true colours to the nation at large, red is our least favourite shade. Possibly the Chinese and the Pakistanis are the only people in the world now who worship India's Left Front for their attempts at nuking India's nuke deal.