OF CABBAGES AND KINGS | Why Was Donald’s Claim Overlooked? Many Have Missed Out On The Nobels! | Farrukh Dhondy
Even Maria Machado, who won the prize, has, according to the White House, called Donny to acknowledge that the Trumpet should have got it
“Why do we call these pathetic creatures ‘trolls’?
They are lonely. lost and intellectually-challenged souls
Who pass their hours inventing some abuse
Or conspiracies, both vengeful and abstruse.
They ignore the proverb of sticks and stones
Believing their words can break skulls and bones
We hoped social media would be solidly integrating
Not reckoning human viciousness was in the wings, waiting?”
From Bet Ago
Nobel Prizes? Two jokes: “Why did V.S. Naipaul have a knocker on his front door?”
A: “Because he won the No Bell prize!”
(Rejected by the Christmas Cracker joke commissioners -- fd)
Second: “Why didn’t Trump get the Nobel Peace Prize?”
A: “Because the Nobel committee are not deaf, blind, dumb or demented.”
Ah well… jokes aside, what can the Nobel judges have been thinking of, giving the prize to a Venezuelan fighter for democracy rather than the criminally-convicted, racist, misogynist, Epstein mate?
He who stopped the war between Azerbaijan and Albania; put invader Vladimir Putin firmly in his place; liberated Crimea; stopped the slaughter in Sudan, Somalia and Myanmar where the evacuated Rohingya territories are to be converted to the Riviera of the Bay of Bengal with Trump hotels and golf courses?
Even Maria Machado, who won the prize, has, according to the White House, called Donny to acknowledge that the Trumpet should have got it.
He has of course been blowing his own and probably believes that he did win for all his achievements, including ruining the American and global economy, claiming Greenland, Panama and Canada as American territory and putting China firmly in its place by imposing impossible tariffs on Dim Sum.
Why didn’t the Nobel judges take into consideration the man’s infinite modesty, his shying away from all publicity, his charming attitude to wanting to “grab” cats, possibly to stroke and feed them?
The world won’t be surprised if, now that the Venezuelan winner of the prize has sort of conceded to Donny, he claims that he is the actual winner and will fly in the private plane gifted to him by Dafur to Osmanabad to collect it and give, as the world’s primary benefactor, shunning all immodesty in his acceptance speech, advice on how to drink bleach to cure all variants of Covid.
The thought of this icon’s modesty reminds me of another moment in which a Nobel prize figured. In 2001 I happened to be working for an animation firm in Bangalore when the office phone rang. It was for me. The caller said she was calling from the BBC radio programme The World at One, and did I have a mobile phone on which they could call me in a few hours’ time.
I asked what this was about and she said, “It’s about your friend V.S. Naipaul”.
My heart sank. Had something tragic happened? I asked her: “About what? Is he…”
“No, no, he’s just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and we thought we’d like your comments.”
I couldn’t wait to put the phone down. I gave her my Indian mobile number. I then dialled Sir Vidia’s home in Wiltshire and Nadira, Lady Naipaul, a friend who always refers to me as her brother, answered.
She said the place had gone wild with reporters and TV cameras from all over the world hanging around the house, the gardens and the country lanes outside.
I said I had heard the good news, that the BBC would be interviewing me for comment on the afternoon’s radio programme and asked her to convey my heartfelt congratulations.
“No, no, no”, she said, “If he knows you called, he’ll want to answer the phone. He’s doing an interview but I know he’ll want to come away… I’ll go and get him.”
In moments Vidia was on the phone.
“You’ve heard of my little piece of good luck,” was the first thing he said.
Of course, the Nobel committees don’t solicit recommendations, but if they did, I have two possible nominations in mind.
I would like to persuade them to award the Literature Nobel to Salman Rushdie. It’s about time. Not only is his work unique in its content and form, he has suffered and sacrificed in the cause of literature. I know the latter is not a legitimate criterion, and I won’t deny being sentimental about it.
Another person and another incident comes to mind. Soon after Bob Dylan won the Nobel for Literature, I was with Vidia Naipaul, who asked me quite sincerely whether I thought he should have been awarded it. I said he certainly should have, as his composition of lyrics would undoubtedly fit an expanded definition of “literature”.
Following from that, I would ask the Nobel wallahs to expand the definition of “peace” on the grounds that humans don’t only fight wars against each other, they also fight wars against disease. One of the people who has been a philanthropic warrior in these essential wars is Cyrus Poonawalla, the initiator and owner of the Serum Institute in Pune, India, who, apart from manufacturing the “Astra-Zeneca” vaccine against Covid-19, has donated millions of doses of vaccines to fight diseases from polio to malaria, to Africa and the poorer nations and populations of the world.
And Gaza? Did Donald Trump’s persuasive powers result in peace there? Or was it threatening pressure from the families of the hostages and the vast majority of Israeli citizens who support them?