Dear Agony Akka,
I am torn in two. I have collected some money to help people suffering from COVID-19 and I am looking for the best agency to which I should donate. In my school and college WhatsApp groups, everyone is telling to give to PM CARES Fund. I had almost decided that, but then I saw one tweet where Virat Kohli and his beautiful wife Anushka Sharma also started a fundraising campaign. Now I don’t know what to do. Nowadays our Prime Minister is looking handsome just like Sage Valmiki but compared to Virushka? No chance. Please help. Who should I give my hard-earned money to?
— Ready and Willing
Dear RAW,
Ah! Choices! Choices! I am faced with just such a dilemma each and every time I go to Starbucks. It takes me 10-15 minutes to read the long list of coffees only, and then they ask about sugar varieties and cream and milk and cinnamon and cocoa and my god, my head is spinning. Everything looks good and what should I buy? Since their coffee pricing is roughly the same as monthly rent for 1BHK flat, you want to think hard. Like how you are suffering now. Two wonderful donation options — which to pick? Let’s look at each choice diligently.
The best part about PM CARES is that it is a fun fund; it has one hippie vibe to it, a dashing, devil-may-care attitude that I am finding attractive. It is the James Dean of relief funds. Nobody knows where the money comes from, nobody knows where it is going, nobody can ask. Is it a fund? Is it a plane? Maybe the fund is there? Maybe it is not? It is all maya.
If, like companies, relief funds can have mission statements, this one’s would go like this. “This is a fund. It has your money. Your money is my money. My money is my money. Money is like hair. Chignon today, gone tomorrow. Swaha.” You see what I mean? This fund has swag, like my nephew says.
But now there is Virushka! Also demanding your two paise! And it really does not get more swag than those two, does it? I mean, look at his muscles! Look at her eyes! Look at his muscles again! Never mind, what was I was saying? Ah yes, the darling couple is collecting ₹7 crore total amount for Covid relief and you want to contribute.
The Virushka fund is not hippie. It is purposeful. The toothsome twosome has put in ₹2 crore of their own into it. That can’t be easy. The Vir of the equation is apparently the third richest cricketer in world with net worth of ₹900 crore. The Ushka’s net worth is more paltry — some ₹300-400 crore.
And the two have to make the same tough choices that the bold and the beautiful have to make across India. Whether to take vaccine in Lilavati or Breach Candy? Whether to escape to Maldives or Bali? Private jet or yacht?
That is why they are only giving two crores and taking the rest from fans like you. You must feel honoured. If PM CARES has swag value, Virushka fund has brag value. At the next party you attend, sometime in 2025, you can tell people you helped the power puff couple raise money. People will take masked selfies with you.
But if you really want to fight Covid, my humble advice is to ignore all this and make video like Amitabh Bachchan. You can recite one Jhansi-ki-rani type of poem and pump your fist. Virus will get very scared. Also, no money involved.
— AA
agony.akka@gmail.com
