There was a wonderful brouhaha some time ago about Shashi Tharoor’s tweet regarding cattle class. Much debate about whether Indians have a sense of humor, and are we capable of enjoying a joke at our expense.

Of course, Indians have a sense of humor. Its just that we dont have it in English. For many Indians, the intricacies of idiom, usage, deft twists of words, puns and other verbal sleight of hand are like Greek and Latin, when the language is English.

I thought that Shashi had done a smart play with words ‘ cattle class’ and ’sacred cows’. I’m sure he was quite pleased with the tweet as he hit the send button. I also thought one of his critics worked an equally deft if somewhat obvious play on ‘twits who tweet’.

It took the PM to ride to his rescue and dismiss all the controversy as the use of slang, and harmless fun.

You’d think Indian politicians would have slightly more important things to be concerned about. But, that’s the subject of another post.