No limit to lame excuses

The Spectator

Perhaps one of the lamest excuses in the history of lame excuses ever offered was by Rahul Mahajan, who, faced with the most damning evidence — his father’s secretary is dead, his urine drug-stained and his friends singing like parakeets — chose to say in his own defence: “It wasn’t champagne that I drank, it was sparkling wine.”

Perhaps this statement will be remembered almost with the same fondness — by those who collect these things — as that famous excuse offered by Bill Clinton, who when questioned about suspected cannabis-intake during his youth said, “Yes, I smoked it — but I didn’t inhale.”

Right up there with Clinton and Rahul’s statements should rank Kaavya Vishwanath’s sweet excuse to defend the most notorious case of plagiarism in recent history. The creative (but not creative enough, obviously) lass purred: “I may have internalised some passages.” (And while we’re at it — Miss, my dog ate my homework...).

What a wonderful approach these people have to disaster management. A whole new, creative, out-of-the-box approach that, no doubt leaves their critics and interrogators with a — ‘huh?’

Can’t you just see Manish Aggarwal and his bumpkin men of the Delhi police looking up wine encyclopedias for: ‘Champagne-grown in the Champagne region of France, discovered by a Monk by the name of etc…’ in an attempt to solve the case?

Perhaps this line of offering googlies for excuses would have saved some other famous necks had it been put to good use in the past.

Imagine Mike Tyson saying sweetly after he bit off Holyfield’s ear in the World Title Fight: “Hey, I bit it off, but I didn’t chew.” Or, Maradona after the infamous hand of God incident: “Yes, I touched it with my hand, but my fist was closed.”

Or, the owners of the Titanic saying, “OK folks, it went down, but very slowly.” Or, for that matter imagine Hitler saying: “But the ovens were on very low flames.”

Or, Michael Jackson, when charged with molesting young boys whining, “Aw shucks, I wore my Mickey Mouse T-shirt all the while.” Or, Marie Antoinette: “Well, I didn’t say let them eat cakes exactly; what I meant were large round pastries.”

What a bouquet of lame excuses. What a tissue of laughs. What a googly of a spin.

And let’s not forget to include in this rich list the one and only Vajpayee, whose statement on the Rahul Mahajan incident is almost as lame as the I-only-drank-spar-kling- wine-not-champagne variety. “Sometimes,” said the elder statesman, “Young people get into bad company.”

s_malavika@dnaindia.net