Going by his watermelon-sized biceps, which he didn’t mind showing off on his now-deactivated Facebook album, Robert Vadra is quite unlike a majority of the “mango people” who think that accumulation of wealth and midriff bulge have to go together.
The rippling muscles that the flamboyant businessman loves to flaunt (for proof, do a search on Google Images) is also a testimony to the fact that he is doing full justice to his daily intake of fresh fruits -- grapevine has it that apple, mango and banana are his favourites, in that order.
One only wishes he had done a return favour to the last two by not involving them in his public spat with Arvind Kejriwal and Co. For, one thing is certain after his mindless remarks on Facebook: Vadra is anything but the apple of the aam admi’s eyes after he termed “banana republic” the country his in-laws have been ruling for so long. It’s clear why he is on very slippery grounds.
The fruit he has done the greatest injustice to is the mango. The king of fruits has been historically revered as symbols of life and happiness. Folklore has it that some of Buddha’s greatest teaching came after his meditation with his fellow monks in the peaceful tranquility of lush mango groves. In Sanskrit poetry and metaphors, mangoes are also referred to as the kalpavriksha (the tree which grants wishes). Sanskrit poems tell us that mango buds lend sweetness to the cuckoo’s voice. Then why on earth is Vadra striking a discordant note by using the fruit’s name to settle his personal scores?
The Gandhi family’s tryst with sons-in-law has, in fact, has always been troublesome. Feroze Gandhi troubled Pandit Nehru for many reasons, one of them being his famous expose of what is arguably independent India’s first scam. “A mutiny in my mind has compelled me to raise this debate. When things of such magnitude occur, silence becomes a crime,” was how Feroze Gandhi began his speech in Parliament on the deal between the Life Insurance Corporation and a businessman, in 1958. The expose resulted in the resignation of the then finance minister and imprisonment of the businessman concerned. The expose of the scam by his own son-in-law who belonged to the treasury benches had proved to be a big embarrassment for India’s first Prime Minister.
Fifty-four years later, another son-in-law has embarrassed the Gandhi family. But there is a vital difference. This son-in-law is at the receiving end of the allegations, though, to be fair to him, none of them have yet been proved. Meanwhile, the social media circuit Vadra has been so fond of is not losing any opportunity of striking back. We all now know that on Twitter, Vadra is @Robdbob and that his brother-in-law Rahul, who shares his love for speed driving, fondly calls him “Rob”.
And it’s not the first time that Vadra is making headlines for the wrong reasons. The first controversy arose in 2002 when he, presumably at the insistence of his mother-in-law, had to issue a public notice in daily newspapers that he had nothing to do with his brother and father, and that nobody had been authorised to use his name to contact anyone in power. Then during the last Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Vadra had gone to Amethi and Rae Bareilly to join Priyanka, and voiced his wish to join mainstream politics one day. The idea was quickly dumped by his wife, but he said it again in another interview.
The only consolation the Gandhi family may have is that they are not alone in having troublesome sons-in-law. Remember the controversy over former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya?