You read that right. We are serious and we are really concerned. Because contrary to popular belief most of us Indians do love Rahul Gandhi and are concerned about his issues. We have all seen adorable pictures of his childhood as a dimple-cheeked, beautiful boy growing up in the palatial premises of 10 Janpath or celebrating his birthday aboard an international flight with his illustrious family surrounding him. We are so used to the images of his happy, privileged, picturesque childhood that the very idea of a possible chronic childhood phobia haunting our beloved prince is very unsettling for us and the recent events have led us to be more certain of what we had long suspected.
Rahul Gandhi might have a condition called “Chrysophobia” or more accurately and less commonly known as Sandarakinophobia. Sandarakinos is the Greek word for the colour orange. (yeah, the vain Greeks and their grandiose terms! we thought so too). It is a real condition, people. And before you laugh it off, please pause and ask yourselves, don’t we all suffer from at least one kind of phobia? Spiders, cockroaches, heights, snakes, darkness, driving and the likes? Is it so uncommon? Why do most people tend to laugh it off? It is unfair. It is perfectly common and normal to have a phobia so save your cynical mind’s judgement of our beloved prince to yourselves.
The phobia is real. if you have doubts, google it and you will find that at least 250,000 Americans suffer from it. We are certain that many Indians have it too, though they would never admit. The fear comes from a bad experience in early life involving the colour orange (or, well, saffron). Incidents such as spilling orange juice all over oneself, or being left alone in an orange coloured room, of being bullied or humiliated before classmates by splash of orange paint etc. People who have it, harbour a chronic fear of all things orange. Extreme cases might even see the person sleeping through the night, to avoid artificial lights, avoid buying anything orange, avoid looking at anything orange and some even avoid looking at the rising sun!
Our suspicions rose from the day Rahul Gandhi started being actively involved in politics. For he has been vocally opposed to anything saffron. From criticising RSS (they carry saffron flags) to Yogi Adityanath (because of his gerua vastra) and his court singers have followed suit. Even Baba Ramdev ‘s herbal and ayurvedic FMCG brand Patanjali has faced his ire. Heck, you and your party even branded the majority community of this country as terrorists simply because the colour saffron can be associated with them, of course, you retract now considering you might be the only patient who has electorally selective Chrysophobia.
More recently Rahul Gandhi spoke against the proposal for issue of new orange coloured passports for people with ECR status and his aversion to the colour was evident.
His party, Congress, has gone one step ahead and stood behind their prince to mainstream his phobia. They released a video titled “Orange is the new Blue”
A Passport of a different colour for a certain class of Indians is an invitation for discrimination. #OrangeIsTheNewBlue pic.twitter.com/nEfOkbjl0M
— Congress (@INCIndia) January 15, 2018
Now, it did not take us long to realise that it is not his concern for citizens being discriminated against but his phobia speaking. the MEA did make a proposal for issuing new passports with the orange coloured jacket, but that was NOT to discriminate among citizens. We already have three existing colours for passports. Blue for the public, Maroon for diplomats and White for officials. The statement issued by the MEA clarified further on this matter. There was a larger concern of doing away with the last page of the passport for the sake of single parents and adopted children. Rahul Gandhi may not be aware of this but the MEA’s decision of NOT making it compulsory for single and divorced women to mention the name of their husband or the father of the child was wholeheartedly welcomed by women of the country. Imagine a single mother having to run to a passport office again and again because she could not include the name of the father of her child. Wasn’t that discriminatory? Imagine a person who has fallen out with either or both his parents and does not want to include their name (s/) in his/her passport. Citizens did face such problems. Wasn’t that discriminatory?
Moreover, as different colour-coded government documents are not something new in India and state governments issue even different coloured ration card based on the income of families, we became certain Rahul Baba’s outrage against the proposed new passports can only be rooted in his phobia.
The statement of the MEA has made it clear that the new orange-jacketed passport norm will be applicable to only the passports with ECR status and that too only when their current passports expire. Any attempts to paint this issue in class divide and apartheid colours (pun intended) is pure disillusion and that brings us to the only real issue at hand, Rahul baba’s fear of the orange colour.
We get you, Rahul, we get your fears. It was totally unsympathetic for your party men to make a video that flashes more orange light than mirrors inside a bright orange room, or a bright sunrise in the morning (sorry for the mental image). We stand with you. You have nothing to fear from these new passports, as they are little things people carry in their pockets and they will only help MEA to assist ordinary citizens who have not qualified class 10th level and go to find employment in conflict-prone countries.
We will, however, understand you and even support you, in case you decide to protest against any of these following unnecessarily orange things;
Traffic cones
Sunrise/sunset
Tress in autumn season
The TV show named ” Orange is the New Black ”
Please remember, we support you in these trying times.
