The Shameless

Skin is the soft outer covering of an animal. It acts as an anatomical barrier between the internal and external environment in bodily defense. On some animals, the skin is very hard and thick, and can be processed to create leather.

Elephants need a thick skin to hold together their mass respectively their inner pressure. This can be compared with buying bread. If 1 kg of bread is bought, it is wrapped in tissue-paper. If 20 kgs of bread are bought, a thick and strong paper bag is needed to hold together the bread parcel.

The skin of the white rhinoceros forms a thick, protective armour that is highly specialized in its structure and material properties compared with other mammalian skin. Rhinoceros skin is three times thicker than predicted allometrically, and it contains a dense and highly ordered three-dimensional array of relatively straight and highly cross linked collagen fibers.

The dermal armour of the rhinoceros is very well adapted to resist blows from the horns of other animals, as might occur during aggressive behaviour, due to specialized material properties as well as its great thickness.

We have so far believed that these 2 animals have the thickest skin in the entire universe. But ‘Ripley’s Believe it or not’ has recently published that the thickest skin in the universe does not belong to either elephant or Rhino but to our own Spectrum Raja (also known as Telecom Raja or Innocent Raja)

Raja has the dubious distinction of have been responsible for a staggering 1.7 Lakh crores loss to Indian exchequer (It’s hard to even count the number of Zeroes in that figure). But he is not a worried man. A lawyer by training, he simply repeats his single line defence—that he did nothing illegal. It takes real guts for someone to be in this position and act innocent.

And with the backing of political opportunists like Karunanidhi, Raja is completely at home. The grand old man of TN politics claims Raja’s being picked on for being Dalit. Apparently age has either blinded or made him ignorant of the 1.7 Lakh crore loss to the country.  There is no way UPA would consider ousting Raja from his ministry, which would automatically mean losing support of the DMK and majority getting compromised. DMK has been known to shift loyalties. They were a part of BJP coalition earlier.

DMK’s coddling of Raja can be traced to Karunanidhi’s younger daughter Kanimozhi, who along with her mother Rajathi Ammal, handled the shift of the telecom portfolio (under UPA I) to Raja from Dayanidhi Maran after the latter fell out with the supremo.

Kanimozhi shares a special camaraderie of letters with Raja, both being self-styled Tamil litterateurs. We have all seen the literary capabilities of Kanimozhi. Watching Kanimozhi on TV is like seeing a Shakespeare drama in theatre. We cannot say the same about Raja; we have not heard anything much beyond the ‘I followed protocol set by my predecessors’.

Raja’s detractors say Kanimozhi’s is keen to have Raja retained as telecom minister. A string operation of his phone conversations with PR honcho Niira Radia has exposed this point. It’s not only their friendship that is the reason for Kanimozhi’s keenness to retain him, but recently released documents hint that Rajathi and Kanimozhi got their kickbacks too. Radia had good relations with Ratnam, Rajathi’s chartered accountant. Ratnam was instrumental for handling investments in Swan Telecom by some family members of Karunanidhi. Swan Telecom is one of the establishments figuring in the spectrum controversy.

All this point to high levels of corruption in Raja’s handling of the whole 2-G controversy. But Raja seems unperturbed with the developments around.

The elephant’s skin is despite of its thickness a very sensitive system and has a rich nerve providing. An elephant notices every fly landing on him! But Raja cannot seem to even sense the pulse of the entire nation. Any other person in his place would have taken moral responsibility for this loss and resigned. But Raja is a whole new breed altogether.  

This amazing thickness of Raja’s skin has wowed scientists across world. US military plans to use this amazing creation to build unique shields to protect their soldiers. This is being touted as the real reason behind Obama’s visit to India. If reports are to be believed scientists from America have taken scrapings of Raja’s skin. As a mark of respect, they plan to name the shield after Raja as “The Shameless”.