Celebrities & society

• With reference to Shobhaa De’s excellent piece on the Pataudi episode (‘Indian I...

• With reference to Shobhaa De’s excellent piece on the Pataudi episode (‘Indian Idol’, IE, June 24), the matter-of-fact comment of the young man expressing the view that the whole thing would be forgotten in a month and that the ‘Nawab’ would finally get away is after all what really has happened in most of the incidents involving VIPs. The majority of us cannot help being cynical. Let those who run this nation convince us otherwise.

— Harish Pillay Mumbai

• The narration is thought provoking. Mansur Ali Pataudi’s actions require to be condemned by all right-minded people. He must bepunished and socially boycotted.

— Anant Kale Pune

• Shobhaa De is quite right, with fame and recognition, come responsibility. There are numerous examples of irresponsibility displayed by the famous, apart from Pataudi — Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan, M. Azharuddin, for instance. Look outside the country and you come across people like Michael Jackson.

— Ashwani Gahlot Virginia

Iron lady

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• K.S. Sudarshan recently extolled Indira Gandhi’s “iron will and determination”. How true his deduction is can be adjudged by the way she behaved. When top leaders of the Congress became a blistering sore for her, she spilt the party. When the Allahabad High Court declared her election as MP null and void, she (ab)used Parliament to circumvent the court’s orders. Indeed she was the cause for the birth of Bangladesh. In the process, she created two countries hostile to India. She brought down the Communist government in Kerala when she was not even a minister at the Centre. No non-Congress government was allowed to function and she was uncanny in garnering the support of the followers of her detractors. There was a motive to whatever she did. She muzzled the press, crippled democracy, interned whoever opposed her, subverted court verdicts and did everything to perpetuate her despotic rule. She was indeed a wonderful lady of determination!

— V.E. Venkataramani Chennai

Congrats, Guv

• Kudos to Governor S.M. Krishna for returning the dance bar ordinance. Hope the state home minister gets the message. Please stop this moral policing and concentrate on your actual work — addressing the problems being faced by citizens for the betterment of Maharashtra. If he is so concerned about our welfare why does he not propose to ban cigarette manufacturing in the state? This way we can say, “Na rahega baaz, na bajegi baansuri.”

— C.R. Ramakrishnan On e-mail

A query

• The report, ‘For work, UP Minister turns to Vedas site’ (IE Vadodara, June 21) by Alka Pande, was interesting. However, it needs to be clarified whether the statement that “Veda Vyasa penned the Vedas at Naimisharanya” is based on evidence or is it an assumption? Since the Vedas are reported to be shruti (material conveyed orally through generations) and did not exist in written form, her hypothesis might need elucidation.

— R.C. Pant Lucknow