RIP Sunanda

Shocking.....is an understatement. I heard Sunanda Pushkar is dead and it was such a strange feeling....I had never had such feeling in my life. I don't know what to call this! Only this afternoon I wrote an article on the Twitter 'fight' between Shashi Tharoor, Sunanda Pushkar and Pak Journalist Mehr Tarar for our college newspaper. And now I heard she is dead. This is the article. I am sorry to put it on my blog......but I can't help it.....RIP Sunanda........

.

The victors of Cross-border twitterism (headline in the original article)

He had to resign from the post of Minister of State in ministry of External Affairs in 2010. He is again in the headlines for his ‘External Affairs’. The 57-year-young (Yes, he is young and dashing at 57.) politician and Minister of State in HRD Shashi Tharoor become a ‘twitter’ of discord between two beautiful ladies – his three-and-a-half-years wife Sunanda Pushkar and Pakistan-based columnist Mehr Tarar.

The ‘external affairs’ first surfaced on Twitter this Wednesday when private messages were tweeted from official twitter account of Tharoor proclaiming he “loved” the Pakistan journalist Mehr Tarar. Shashi has always been a lover. One Tweet led to the other. Cross-border Twitterism unfolded.

“You don’t RT me and you don’t answer me on Twitter. I can live with your favourites. I have your personal validation” was one of the tweets from his account. Tharoor clarified his account has been hacked. Everybody has known Tharoor’s ability to win hearts.

Tharoor's won the heart of his first wife Tilottama Mukherji, an academic from Kolkata. Later Tilottama divorced Tharoor when he got close to a Canadian lady Christa Christa Giles working at the United Nations. While in the second marriage reports of his intimacy with Sunanda Pushkar led to his divorce with Christa. Shashi-Sunanda are married since August 22, 2010.

Following the tweets, outraged Sunanda branded Mehr as an “ISI agent”. She told newspapers "this completely stupid Pakistani journalist woman has been stalking Shashi since April.”

Mehr chipped in. “Okay. What is going on? Who is tweeting to me? I’ve an ‘affair’ with Shashi Tharoor and he is tweeting to me. How does that work?”

The war of tweets escalated between the two ladies. Alok Nath and #Yoyo Kejriwal jokes gave way to the Tharoors' tweets and Mehr's counter tweets. Suddenly on Thursday evening Tharoor and his wife issued a joint statement.

"We wish to stress that we are happily married and intend to remain that way. Sunanda has been ill and hospitalised this week and is seeking rest. We would be grateful if the media respects our privacy.” 

With this Sunanda also accepted that her husband’s account was not “hacked” and she herself had tweeted those messages from his account. This war of Twitterism started out of her insecurity. 

Mehr aptly answered in her tweet, “The wife trashed the husband and now doing WTH damage control. Ise hi kahte hain apne hi geerate hain nashemann pe bijliyaan…”

With this the cross-border Twitterism might have been contained. But who emerged the victor out of the episode? Tharoor and her wife or Alok nath and Arvind Kejriwal as this episode diverted twitter’s attention from them.

Adding after Sunanda is dead: With death of Sunanda it’s clear nobody is the victor here. Humanity, love and faith are the losers. RIP Sunanda.