Suddenly, out of nowhere Rahul Gandhi dives into the sea, for real, and his “boxer-like abs”, as Boxer Vijender Singh described it, started making headlines. Twitter users started comparing Modi’s waistline with Rahul’s abs. Social media has been agog these past few days with Rahul Gandhi having a black belt in Aikido, he being a licensed Pilot, a deep-sea diver and a scuba diving instructor, and a marathoner.
Compare this with Modi, whose real 56” is not in the chest but in the waist area, who trots about the garden and lies down on a rock in the name of fitness, feeds peacocks, and talks of gutter gas, and many ways of eating mangoes!
Many would call me shallow for penning this ‘non-political’ column on Rahul Gandhi’s abs which became visible through his wet T-shirt, a photo of which is currently breaking the internet. I don’t care, because Indian media have been eulogizing the shallow and fake for a long time.
Photos of Rahul Gandhi interacting with a group of fisherfolks, giving a hand to the fishing net, swimming in the Arabian sea, and his abs first emerged on social media without any context.
Later it was revealed that in the early hours of February 25, Rahul Gandhi had joined popular vlogger Sebin Cyriac, who runs a YouTube channel Fishing Freaks, to a deep-sea fishing expedition in the Arabian Sea. The 23 mins long video on Cyriac’s channel opens with a pitch dark night, and a fishing boat being prepared by a group of fisherfolks to hit the seas.
Next, we see Cyriac receiving Rahul Gandhi. It then takes us through beautiful images of a fishing boat in the middle of Arabian Sea. We see Cyriac asking Rahul if he knows swimming, to which Rahul merely nodded. During the conversation Rahul revealed that he is a scuba diving instructor and can dive up to 38-meters under the sea.
On being asked to wear a life jacket Rahul said, “We will take it when we need.” Though the whole expedition including the dive was done by Rahul Gandhi without wearing any life jacket. He also ate the meals cooked on the boat, and spoke to the fishermen about their plight, hardship, GST and lack of insurance. The dive was apparently a spontaneous decision. Even Cyriac was not aware of it. After a brief swim, as Rahul hopped back on the boat all soaked up, that’s when the picture of his visible abs was shot, which soon went viral.
Ideally, image building and PR stunts should not matter more than ideology, domain knowledge and ability to connect with people not just with words but with deeds. But Narendra Modi’s style of politics has forced the whole nation to collectively abandon the things that really matter and embrace faux images and jumlas.
In contrast Rahul Gandhi is not faking any of his skills. And he is not just talking to Harvard or Oxford dons but also interacting with migrants on the footpath and fishermen in the sea.
The fishing expedition video has already received 1.5 million views in just two days. That matters.
