All’s well that ends well

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Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan’s gripe about him being detained at the Los Angeles Airport, and the quick conciliatory responses from the US assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia Nisha Biswal and US ambassador to India Richard Verma seem to have ended on a note of goodwill and bonhomie. The megastar had every right to sulk and let out a quiet scream for being singled out by the American airport security, who can be intrusive and boorish thinking that it is their job to be unpleasant. And it the case indeed that when Khan, the icon of millions of filmgoers in the country and abroad rants it become the rant of all the fans as well, who must have gone through a similar inconvenience. It is a word that Khan used after Biswal and Verma tut-tutted their apologies. Depend on Khan to keep this at the back of his mind and turn it into a front-loaded political message in one of his future films.

Trump’s blunderbuss

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump just seems indulged in impolitic pronouncements, in the wild hope that the political incorrectness of his squabble-babble had endeared to a large majority of small-town simple Americans who were plain turned off by the moral punctiliousness verging on hypocrisy of the politically correct metro-liberals of the east and west coasts of America. But Trump seems to have never understood that too much of anything is really too bad. If the politically correct lot infuriated the ordinary folk, then the same people would also not indulge Trump’s politically incorrect excesses. First came his unguarded and ill-thought observation that if Democrat presidential rival Hillary Clinton is all set to deprive their Second Amendment right to carry guns, then it will be necessary to stop her. It may not have the diabolical intent that the hysterical liberals see in it, but it could very well incite the mad guys out there and there are too many of them. And then comes the insane salvo that President Barack Obama and Clinton are founder and co-founder of the Islamic State (IS). It was not a figure of speech and he says that he says that he meant it literally. Trump is trundling into pits and craters.

Rakhi Sawant’s Modi attire

The starlet who made it her business to be a self-publicist has come back into the limelight when she wore a black dress dotted with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pictures. It was provocative, humorous and just misses being risque. Sawant never was swanky in the haute couture sense but with her Modi dress -- what else can one call it but that -- has made the loud -- a little too loud, perhaps -- and clear -- perhaps a little too near the crass than clear -- point that she knows how to stir up. She claims that she has the endorsement of the Prime Minister for her Modi wear. It would not be accurate to say that Sawant is a prankster of the harmless kind. She seems to have a nose for making news. It would be inappropriate to counsel her about the shortsightedness of her short-lived social stunts. She seems to have mastered the art of being the heart of the buzz and bustle. With little histrionics and no dramatic success, she has come a long way on the back of her wit, whatever there is of it.