The Union Budget is over. FM Nirmala Sitharaman’s bahi khata made way for a tablet. During the photo-op, Anurag Thakur stood beside her wrapped in a shawl, looking like his namesake from Sholay. It was all good. Or, so they say.
Time for some levity.
A few days ago, the FM said that Budget 2021 would be “like never before”. That made one wonder. What if Rajinikanth presented it? He is an icon. He was into politics till recently and aligned, for the most part, with the BJP. He embodies ‘like never before’.
If Rajinikanth did announce the Budget, he might have opened with the words, “Yenna fiscala, mind it.”
Yes, Rajinikanth fans insist he has never said ‘Yenna Rascala’, a line synonymous with him. But, it has stuck. With repetition, it has become a quasi-fact.
Now the fiscal bit. Dropping certain words makes us feel like experts. For example, saying ‘Nehruvian’ makes people think they are erudite historians. For the Budget, the key word is fiscal. Luckily, cash-strapped times have cultivated in us a habit of saying it. “Fees kal,” we message our kids’ teachers when they ask for their ten pounds of flesh.
That is our deep logic behind Thalaivar’s opening line.
Rattling off jargon and big numbers would not be a problem for a man who does impossible things. He would struggle with the easily possible, though. Such as opening a bottle of water, remembering the table of 2 or climbing stairs. He’d need to practice that.
He’d also tweak some of the announcements made by FM Sitharaman. Give them a Rajini touch. Such as (possible modifications by Rajinikanth in brackets):
As per the FM’s Budget speech uploaded on the official government website, Point No 19 was as follows.
“2021 is the year of many important milestones for our history. I mention a few of these: It is the 75th year of Independence; 60 years of Goa’s accession to India; 50 years of the 1971 India-Pakistan War; it will be 4the year of the 8th Census of Independent India; it will also be India’s turn at the BRICS Presidency; the year for our Chandrayaan-3 Mission; and the Haridwar Maha Kumbh.
(2021 will also be my first anniversary, and the PM’s second, of appearing on the Bear Grylls show).
Point No. 23: “AtmaNirbhar Bharat is an expression of 130 crores Indians who have full confidence in their capabilities and skills. (That is why I said in one of my films, “Others come in groups. A tiger walks alone.”)
At one point, the FM quoted Tagore.
''Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark''.
(Here’s another one from my films: “You can be a good person. But you shouldn't be a very good person.”)
Point No. 54 was: “Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan for India – 2030. The Plan is to create a ‘future ready’ Railway system by 2030.
(To that end, I’m going to teach Indians how to run along the sides of a train).
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