The date, November 4, 2018, the message- loud and clear!
It may have seemed another normal day in the life of Maharashtra, the land of Tusshar Kapoor, Suraj Barjatya’s insanely creative films, farmer suicides, and the former home of a man-eating tigress.
But as Chief Minister Fadnavis echoed boldly the sentiment of the State Government, all eyes and ears- around 25 pairs of them- stood stunned. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing.
Addressing the state via a live Skype chat was Maharashtra CM Fadnavis.
Approximately 5 percent of the population of Ghatkopar, with a few cool dudes of South Bombay, and some who were apparently found ending a tipsy night-out at the famous Causeway reportedly, heard him, with unflustered eyeballs listening in as he went on to share the following.
“We no longer need to worry about the tiger population in India. So what if India is home to 70 percent of the world’s overall population of tigers? So what if the tiger is actually our national animal and a symbol that unites all sub-cultures and castes with an undeniable hope of spotting it whether at Corbett or Kanha national park?
As a state, and one already troubled with critical and life-threatening problems such as a genuine dearth of credible work in the advertising culture of Bombay, the draught of award-winning work in Marathi literature, as a state, we’ve come to the decision that no longer does the state need to worry about tigers.
Integral to the moto of our No Tigers in Maharashtra Campaign, we are now trying to execute a systematic elimination campaign of this impolite, immature, atrociously bad-looking creature sadly called the national animal of the country, an element that inspired Jackie Shroff to name his son as one.
We’ve come to understand that instead of politely directing funds generated from the center toward renovating our plush farmhouses at Nagpur, Navi Mumbai, and Lonavala, originally meant for tiger conservation, we’ll now use the funds differently; we’ll encourage children to undergo free digital marketing courses.
My dear patriotic Marathas, henceforth, we won’t have to worry about the conservation of an animal that unfortunately helped spike tourism in Maharashtra, the way it did to Rajasthan and M.P.
It’s an animal looking at which you and I are coaxed into remembering Saurav Ganguly’s heydays.
To that end, here’s a rule you now will have to follow, a failure adhering to which will be punishable by virtue of terminating the Internet connection at your place.
We refrain the public mention of the phrase tiger in Maharashtra in entirety.
I’ve come to this decision after I decided to part with the last piece of tiger-skin made waistcoat that I often wore during the private parties I had with the political luminaries of our country, such as. Mr. Modi and. Mr. Shah at my Mumbai residence.
Some said it was a tad bit overdone.
I remember Mr. Shah screaming on top of his lungs at a midnight shack party, looking at me in pure disgust as I wore the remarkably sparkling tiger-skin waistcoat, “Faddu (polite reference) come on man; be a bit subtle at times! Have you ever seen Narendra Bhai in something so eye-assaulting as an Orange Kurta? When will you ever learn? You need to be young to carry these outfits!”
What stood out in his trenchant criticism of my unique dress, was the embitterment he seemed to carry for anything tiger-associated. And guess what, within a few days, our world in Maharashtra would be ‘pawed’ by Avni, the bloody man-eating tigress.
From that moment, I realized, he made sense. On top of that, when I personally assisted with the execution of Avni, a pathetic pile of baloney whose killing has caused a needless argument on Twitter, it became apparent that the term tiger or anything related to it is pathetic. My inner voice told me that tigers in Maharashtra don’t actually make sense, perhaps just as much as Tiger Shroff’s scripts; they both are and have been lame and marked with a distinct flavor of sameness.
While I can’t cancel Tiger Shroff’s Indian residency, after all, he was among the first in the state to link his Adhaar Card properly, I decided what can I possibly do to ensure hell for the other tiger, one that caused me public embarrassment in my own party? That’s when I decided to implement the program of systematic elimination of tigers in the state of Maharashtra.
So, my dear ladies and gentlemen, you are henceforth, advised, for your own good, to refrain from even mentioning the name of this animal. Remember, after all, it was Avni who killed innocent Maharashtrians, the best inhabitants of God’s good earth in this part of India, a holy land where icons like Himesh Reshammiya, Shakti Kapoor, and Alok Nath reside.
Even if your kid wants to see The Jungle Book, Maharashtra Government orders you to carefully blur all scenes of Sher Khan. From now on, no more screening of Chennai Super Kings’ live IPL matches from the 2019 edition. Why? How dare you ask me that? Don’t you know, their logo has a lion, a distant member of the cat family.
I’ve even written a letter to Mr. Modi, asking him to organize systematic killing camps of tigers in the rest of the states.”
Disclaimer: The above piece is just a satirical attempt to direct your attention to the gravity of the matter regarding the killing of Avni, the tigress and just how incredibly deplorable has been Maharashtra’s conduct in the killing of a tigress that could’ve simply been tamed and countered. If we can’t save our national animal, we have no right to call it that in the first place!