The world this week on Twitter

…what a week of news it’s been. Here’s what I was able to be a part of thanks to the wondrous world of twitter.

WrittenBy:Rajyasree Sen
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The world this week on Twitter: From the sublime to the ridiculous

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It’s a brave new world, and if you want to stay one step ahead of the news and far away from the reams of badly written news reports or loud news anchors shouting out the day’s headlines at you, there’s finally an option. Just get on the one-stop shop for news – twitter. Not only will you get the news before the papers and the channels get their hands on it, you also get to be privy to what the key players in each story are thinking and feeling. It’s almost like being part of The Truman Show, and some of the histrionics on display would put even Jim Carrey to shame.

And what a week of news it’s been. Here’s what I was able to be a part of thanks to the wondrous world of twitter.

The month began with a twitter war being taken into the real world, with macho man Shah Rukh Khan pulling the hair off or slapping – the versions differ – Farah Khan’s beauteous husband Shirish Kunder. Now SK has been niggling SRK ever since his magnum opus Ra One turned out to be a flop-show and SK tweeted, “I just heard a 150 Cr firework fizzle.” And it seems SRK finally lost his diaphanous shirt and smacked SK at Sanjay Dutt’s party. While no one would have known any better, Shirish Kunder instantly reached home, put an ice pack on his face and jumped onto twitter to cry plaintively about how he was pounced on by SRK and his bodyguards. This was followed by Farah Khan tweeting that SRK must be going through some personal or professional crisis to resort to violence, and SRK stating that his life was Shakespeare-esque – although I doubt he meant it in the sense that much like Shakespeare even he was catering to the front row audiences.

And just to prove that I’m not being facetious by referring to the slapathon as news, The Times of India reported on the news as national news and even the high-brow Indian Express and The Telegraph reported on it in their national news pages. And much like the fight began on twitter, the reconciliation also took place for all to see, with loving tweets from Farah and SK swearing undying love and loyalty to their big brother SRK. After all, what’s a slap and some hair-pulling between friends? And NDTV not to be left behind, decided to spread the good news by carrying news of SRK patching up with Kunder on the headlines@9 includes. And the nation breathed easy.

Close on the heels of slapathon, was the Kolkata Literary Fair which tried to keep up with the Joneses by refusing to launch the latest instalment in Taslima Nasreen’s dubious and never-ending memoir, Nirbashan. And how did we know this? Because much like Rushdie, we got minute-by-minute updates from Taslima herself who tweeted: “Kolkata Book Fair committee cancelled my book release program today at Kolkata Book Fair. Why? Some religious fanatics don’t want it to happen.” And then tweeted that, “The PBS publisher with friends have released my book under the open sky at Kolkata Book Fair. Book release in the AC hall was banned.” Now while you did feel a tad sorry for her, she ruined it all by following up the KLF tweets with a random one to the media which said, “Dear Media, ‘Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie & Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen! But Taslima also got numerous awards!” And then gave the media the perfect excuse for why they pay less attention to well-reported stories and more on nonsensical news reports like what Taslima was wearing at an event instead of whether it’s fair that she’s living in exile or not, when she tweeted to The Times of India, HT City and The Hindu, saying, “Why old ugly pics, you can publish my new/better pics if needed.” And with that, everyone forgot about how cruel Bengal had been to one of their own.

And if there’s a literary fair, how can Rushdie be far away. Imran Khan who’d been invited to speak at KLF decided that he would tell us how ‘strong leadership’ is all you require to make a change to Pakistan. The political messiah of the downtrodden across the border, upon being questioned on Rushdie eloquently stated that, “No one should have the right to inflict pain on each other. Who is to say (that what Rushdie wrote) is not more painful to Muslims than the Holocaust is to Jews?”  And how did we know about this comment before any newspaper or channel could pick it up? Because Rushdie, being the winner of the fastest-finger-first competition, jumped on twitter almost as soon as the words had come out of Imran Khan’s mouth and instantly wrote, “30 yrs ago Imran Khan was a fan at my 1982 Delhi lecture and 100% secular. Now my work ‘humiliates’ his ‘faith.’ Which is the real Imran?” And a new set of twitter fights began.

In the midst of all this, another twitter guru, Suhel Seth decided to grab the headlines, as is his wont, by announcing Vinod Mehta’s resignation from editor-in-chief by asking as innocently as he could to his 86,000 followers, “Just heard that Vinod Mehta has quit? Is it true? Or just a rumour?” By then the rumour mills had started churning, only for Suhel to confirm the rumour within a couple of hours. Much to the consternation of the channels and newspapers.

And just in case the journalist fraternity was feeling left out of the twitter universe, Senior Bachchan decided to rap Rajdeep Sardesai on the knuckles for saying the F-word on twitter in regard to people questioning the ethics of journalists. And Rajdeep dutifully apologised to Amitabh last night, for using expletives on twitter.

Now which newspaper or TV channel will provide you with such spectacular real-time coverage of the sublime to the ridiculous?  And that too without the sound, fury, many typos and strange news choices which we are otherwise subjected to. The world of twitter beckons, and the year’s just about begun.

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