Rakshasi Shows, and HIStory World Tours | #196
ChatGPT's Womens Day Art is gorgeous 😍
Friends,
We are in the nervous 190s. We struggle sometimes to think of themes for the weekly newsletter. We try to keep it topical, but the astronomical sums of money involved in the electoral bonds boggled us so much that we couldn’t think clearly.
So we decided to look at 96 (Nᴉɔǝ).. specifically 1996 - A year like other years that had some unusual events:
Things we learnt this week 🤓
Much before the IT revolution, Bangalore was known as a pensioners paradise. But in 1996, Amitabh Bachchan, then in a corporate avatar of chairman of ABCL purchased the rights for hosting Miss World and decided to hold the ceremony in Bangalore. He got support from the then chief minister JH Patel and the venue was the iconic M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The event had its share of detractors - The moral police were out in full force. Vatal Nagaraj, the enfant terrible of Karnataka Politics, had an idea - let's fight beauty with beasts. He held a ‘Rakshasi show’ to protest the event including getting demons to pose in front of a naked Amitabh Bachchan cutout. In the end, the event went off smoothly with Miss Greece winning the title. India’s Rani Jeyraj, who had studied in Bangalore, rounded up the top 5. Amitabh Bachchan, after all the trouble, ended the event with massive debts and had to reinvent himself as an elderly quizmaster on a game show to get back to the top. See, it helps to be involved with good quizzes.
1996 started the era of coalition politics in India. The 14th Lok Sabha ended the reign of PV Narasimha Rao in May 1996. During the Lok Sabha elections held subsequently, the Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the single largest party with 161 seats. Congress was 2nd with 140. As per protocol, the President of India invited the BJP to form the government and swore in Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the 10th Prime Minister of India. But Vajpayee wasn’t able to prove majority and had to resign 15 days later. The United Front was able to cobble up a majority and HD Deve Gowda was sworn in as the 11th Prime Minister of India. It was a largely unstable time in Indian politics, but it did give us this classic Pramod Mahajan clip about what is democracy in India.
These days Ed Sheeran coming to Mumbai and cozying up with the celebs is passe. But back in 1996, Mai ka lal Jaikishen aka Michael Jackson visited Mumbai as a part of his 83-show HIStory World Tour. The ruling Shiv Sena government waived entertainment tax on the show on the grounds that it was meant for a "philanthropic and charitable" purpose as the pop star had promised to donate profits from the concert to a Shiv Sena run youth employment project. This was challenged in the Mumbai High Court which responded to the petition by freezing more than 30 million rupees in tickets sales from the concert, suspending the waiver and asking the government to examine its merits. The matter was resolved only in 2021, long after the show and the demise of the pop-icon! Michael made a grand entry, emerging from a rocket-like capsule in a gold and black suit and regaled the jam-packed Andheri Sports Complex crowd with his evergreen hits. Michael is the true GOAT - he bleat it all the time.
From IWTK, with love 💌
We asked ChatGPT to wish Happy Women’s Day in the style of various artists. The results are stunning.
In the style of ACK Comics Hum Aapke Hain Kaun turns 30 this year and it is said to have changed the Hindi film industry. Check it out »
Only In India 🇮🇳
Were they training apprentice Spidermen in this school?
❤️ IWTK