Mumbai Press Club honours the ludicrous with `Golden Ouch’ awards

The Mumbai Press Club on Monday gave away its hilarious `Golden Ouch' awards to 14 recipients (in absentia) ahead of the more serious RedInk Awards to be given away on 30 April.

The `Golden Ouch for Transparency in Public Life' was awarded to Arvind Kejriwal for his tweet on his loose motions - For his evangelism in pursuing transparency and detoxification of self and the 'body politic' – and for his great progress from singing to stinging and some very surprising mud-slinging!

The `Golden Ouch for Leadership in Absentia' was awarded to Rahul Gandhi for going on extended vacation when the 'party' needs him most, for staying  away from Parliament at its most critical moments, for his enormous vocabulary of two key words: 'women's empowerment'!

The `Golden Ouch for Advancing The Cause Of Women' (and for improving foreign relations) was awarded to minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprise Giriraj Singh for excelling in the field of gender prejudice in the face of enormous domestic competition, and for successfully hurting the sentiments of a friendly African nation;

And to joint winner JD (U) chief Sharad Yadav for crudely changing the complexion of Parliamentary discourse by his racially-charged comments on the skin of South Indian women and his response to the criticism of HRD minister Smriti Irani.

Silver Ouch for Advancing the Cause of Women was awarded to two defence lawyers, M L Sharma and A P Singh, in the Nirbhaya case for their consistent, unstinting commitment to the cause of misogyny and patriarchy despite the valiant battles being fought for independence and respect by the women of India and their supporters.

Golden Ouch for Confession of the Year – Part 2 was awarded to Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikan for his extraordinary morality and misplaced sense of pride in cooking up a 'biryani lie' to build public opinion against a prisoner on death row and thus expediting  his execution.

Golden Ouch for Confession of the Year was awarded to Coast Guard DIG B K Loshali for either shooting down a Pakistani boat or simply shooting his mouth off – using 'biryani' again as a new metaphor for Indian hospitality.

Golden 'Ouch' for Best Science Reporting (Rising to the Occasion!) was awarded to the BBC for calling the Large Hadron Collider the "Large Hardon Collider" - For provoking and arousing laughter and embarrassment around a serious scientific phenomenon by alluding to a male sexual phenomenon that is best not talked about.

Golden 'Ouch' for Best History Reporting was awarded to Captain Anand J Bodas for educating the masses on India's aeronautical achievements in Vedic times and insisting that Indians flew planes centuries before the Wright Brothers (and Air-India), that these planes flew between nations and planets, that they flew forwards, backwards and sideways –– and above all, that these were no flights of the imagination.

Golden 'Ouch' for his 'labours' in family planning was awarded to Sakshi Maharaj for urging Hindu women to have more children for asking women of a certain religion to labour' their entire adult lives producing babies and thus working tirelessly for the cause of resurgent majoritarianism.

Golden 'Ouch' for the most non-violent statement was awarded to former Supreme Court judge and former chairman, Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju on his comment on Gandhiji and for having an instant opinion on every issue and for his sweeping attacks as 'imperialist collaborator' on the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, and of the founder of the Indian National Army, Subash Chandra Bose.

Golden Ouch for A Newspaper Blooper was awarded to Hindustan Times for referring to the Shakti Mills rape convicts and showing a Chinese trade delegation photo: for the best caption in the print media that outlines the care and detail that goes into addressing the photographs that accompany news items.

Joint Golden 'Ouch' for the best criticism of the press was awarded to Gen VK Singh and Justice Markandey Katju - For hurting the sentiments of commercial sex workers by calling media people "presstitutes", a combination of press + destitute. General VK Singh for hastily coining the word, and Justice Katju for endorsing it with his usual efficiency.

Golden 'Ouch' for Food Critic of the year, awarded to Shobhaa De for a remark in delightfully poor taste, elevating the lowly American popcorn above the thundering all-conquering indigenous warrior flavour of vada-pau and misal.

The Golden Ouch Lifetime Achievement went to Subramaniam Swamy for consistently and eloquently delivering highly provocative statements with exquisite sophistry, confounding both enemies and allies alike.

Eminent journalists Bachi Karkaria and others gave away the ''prestigious" Ouch Awards, on behalf of the Mumbai Press Club, in 14 categories, for the craziest moments in media, at a glittering function anchored by stand-up comedian Anuvab Pal.

Says a Press Club release ''With outrageous statements a near-daily phenomenon, and outrage of many varieties a staple of the daily news cycle on mainstream as well as social media, the Press Club felt it was about time to honour the national champions in this new and burgeoning field with awards. Besides, there are awards for everything and given to all and sundry for any old nonsense, so why not yet another award for some real, quality nonsense?''

According to the organisers, competition was stiff in many categories, but nowhere more so than in the race for the person who spoke most strongly in retarding the cause of women, for which the list of nominees was very, very long. In the end, Minister Giriraj Singh won this award despite stiff competition from Abu Azmi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Tapas Pal, and many others.

However, there was very little competition in some categories, such as "Leadership in Absentia", for which Rahul Gandhi was the runaway winner. The only other name, according to the organisers, was that of ''Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose'', but, according to them, since the awards are for recent achievements, Rahul Gandhi won this award by a comfortable majority of jury votes.

Only two categories were decided unanimously with no other name even mentioned. One was Dr Subramanian Swamy, who won the Ouchie for Lifetime Achievement effortlessly.

Dr Swamy has been given this prize for his tireless efforts in the field of "consistently and eloquently delivering highly provocative statements". His contributions towards inventing a whole new lexicon of outrage and abuse were deemed matchless. A surprise pulled off with great elan was 'Narendra Modi' double Vikas Mahante receiving the award on behalf of 'Subramanin Swamy'.

Arvind Kejriwal, too, swept the award for Transparency in Public Life with no competition, thanks to this tweet: "Running 102 fever since yesterday. Severe loose motion. Sad that I won't be able to attend office today."