Above image: This funny cartoon is about fraudster and former liquor baron Vijay Mallaya who had procured the personal items of Gandhiji in 2009 at an auction in New York in 2009 when he was a successful brewer.
When Gandhi gave away in 1930 his old fashioned round rimmed spectacles to an army officer one Colonel H A Shiri Diwan Nawab, he said, "These gave me the vision to free India''. All his personal items like Zenith pocket watch, plate, etc., given away to different persons at different time were lumped together and put up for auction.
Mallaya, then a rich liquor baron. bought a set of Mahatma Gandhi's belongings for $1.8 million at an auction held in New York in the first week of March 2009. The sensational auction created tough competition among more than 12 bidders, despite protests in India and an injunction from Delhi HC seeking to halt the sale.
After some bottlenecks the auction took place and Vijay Mallaya emerged a successful bidder. He said that he was pleased with his purchase of a set of Mahatma Gandhi's personal belongings including his iconic round-rimmed spectacles as he was bringing the national heritage home.
Because of financial mismanagement, his company was in a shambles making Mallaya's fortune in the later years to slide down hill and this forced him to borrow money from the banks to jack up his sagging brewery business. Having failed to pay the loans and to escape from possible arrest or possession of his companies by the creditors, Mallya fled to London in March 2016. By the bye England is a haven for persons who cheat the governments. He owed ₹9,000 crore to a consortium of 17 Indian banks and, it is said, when he left India his wealth was worth ₹270 crore only.
The Indian government's efforts to get him back to India to face charges have ended in fiasco so far as there are some thorns in the extradition treaty between two countries. . The consortium of Indian banks became suckers and now they keep their fingers crossed.
The cartoonist intelligently conveyed the message that Gandhi was quite upset about his personal items being with the wrong man hiding in England to avoid arrest and deportation and is still now facing huge penalty for nonpayment of bank loans and evasion of income tax.
In the cartoon image Mallaya is returning the eye-glasses once worn by Gandhiji to him. He has closed his eyes not to see both liquor industry owner (now a con man) and the his glasses that were in the wrong place. 01. Gandhiji does not want to get his eye glasses back from a man who betrayed India and who earned money selling hard liquor. 02. The present scenarios in India and abroad - both cultural and political are so bad it is not worth while seeming them.
Above image: There has been a ban for alcohol ads in India. But indirect ad ( through Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kingfisher Airlines) campaign was on when Vijay Mallya was at the helm of his company.
Tit-bits:
Gandhiji's Eye-glasses:
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| Eye glasses worn by Gandhiji. dtnext.in |
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Eye glasses worn by Gandhiji. navjivan express.com
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Mahatma Gandhi's personal items - glasses, sandals, plate and bowl, and pocket watch were put up for sale as his memorabilia on March 5, 2009, in New York City. The auctioneer: Antiquorum.
In England a pair of gold-plated glasses worn by Mahatma Gandhi was sold in Britain for £260,000 at an auction after being found hanging in the letterbox of a Bristol auction house (East Bristol Auctions)..............
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