Not to be outdone, media houses in Pakistan also went cuckoo in their own special way (but of course!). A few days after the first Wikileaks cables were released and the Real Powers-that-be-in-the-General Headquartersin-Rawalpindi had gone into damage control overdrive, suspicious-sounding reports were given pride of place in the extreme-rightwing Nawa-e-Waqt and The Nation; and just about everybody else jumped onto the bandwagon.Urdu daily Jang, English daily The News and TV channel Geo News reported that US diplomats had referred to India's army chief as an 'inept geek'; had said that India had a major role in terrorism in Waziristan and the nationalist unrest in Balochistan; India's army high-command had 'close ties' to the affron brigade; Pakistan's chief of army staff 's tenure extension was welcome; and, finally, that,the ISI chief smelled like roses. Okay, so CP made the last one up, but what difference does it make?It took a media blog, Café Pyala, to first call them out, followed by The Guardian's Declan Walsh. The next day, 'profuse' apologies, plagiarised editorials and retractions' followed. It turns out that the 'Daily Mail Pakistan' was the first one to 'plant' the fake Wikileaks story which Online picked up. The Daily Mail 'editor-in-chief ' later patted himself on the back for a job well done (faking leaked cables is a lot of effort!) with claims such as how India's establishment is not as 'milkwashed' as the liberal, beghaerat bloggers of Pakistan would have us believe. Oh, sir, CP's heart gardengarden ho gaya at your display of patriotism, and if facts have to be fudged in the process, well, what goes of anyone's father? CP cannot help but feel sorry for Raj Thackeray. Assaulting non-Maharashtrians is just something the bechara has to do to earn a living (likely under pressure to keep the family business going). Raj is at heart an artsy type: photographer,painter, cartoonist and, like so many others in Bombay –ooops, slip of the tongue, CP means Mumbai, of course – a film fanatic. Only natural then that Raj, combining business and pleasure, would want a private, pre-release screening of 332 Mumbai to India, based on a real incident where a Bihari man hijacked a bus to highlight the MNS's roughing up of … gulp, let's try that again … to highlight the MNS's defence of Maharashtrian honour. But these filmwallahs,with typical filmy arrogance, are refusing, hiding weakly behind the Censor Board's green light. So Raj took action,sending his goons to blacken and vandalise the film's posters,clearly an effective lesson in good manners. But the real-life drama soon developed more twists and turns than a solid masala flick with Raj swearing off any interest in the film and director Mahesh Pandey saying he'd already screened it for MNS vice-president Vageesh Saraswat as well as apologised for the North Indian protagonists calling the city 'Bambai'. CP hopes Uncle Bal throws together a snappy cartoon about yet another Maharashtrian victory.
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