Chris Tucker said it best...

There’s a film known as Friday and it just so happens to be one of my very favourites. It isn’t especially demanding of the viewer, where brains are concerned anyway. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Anyway, so it stars Chris Tucker and one of the most iconic scenes in the film is when he stands over a knocked out Zeus “Tiny” Lister and yells, “You got knocked the fuck out!!”.

It isn’t all that profound a statement, but his delivery of “You got knocked the fuck out!!” still resonates in my head. More pertinently this week, because without flying Mr Tucker over to India to say it, the whole nation seemed to say it to one man... an ageing “tiger”, if you will.

Yes, yes, yes, I am talking about that hot topic. I am talking about Bal Thackeray (the octo-something-arian), that Marathi hriday-samraat (upholder of the pride of the Marathi man is what I think it means) whose acrimonious editorials in his party’s mouthpiece are the stuff of legend. This time around he messed with the one person no Indian would tolerate being so much as disturbed... Leave alone hassled, fined, taxed or worse yet, disciplined. (Mike Deness? Where are you?)

Anyway, India’s pride and glory Sachin Tendulkar told the press that he was an Indian before being a Maharashtrian (i.e. he was a citizen of the Nation, before being a citizen of the state... and why not?). Thackeray lays ridicule upon him telling him to stick to sports and not comment on what that ageing communal and linguistic fascist describes as politics.

In other words, that nearly extinguished shell of a man is allowed to talk trash about anyone and everyone in the vilest terms and when Sachin answers a question and perhaps (knowingly) aims to spread a message of national harmony, Thackeray feels the need to rebuke him. Interesting shit, non? Anyway, the whole of India got behind Sachin and told Thackeray to know his role and shut his mouth. After all, there are some holy cows you just don’t touch. Sachin, in this case.

A day later, Thackeray’s newspaper publishes a “clarification” and claims it to be “affectionate advice from an elder”. HA! Yeah right... Thackeray and your Shiv Sena, you just got knocked the fuck out!!