“The last time I saw a road laid so fast was in the Rajinikanth movie Sivaji,” says Hyderabad-based comic Rajasekhar Mamidanna. On screen, a scene from the film plays out, showing the superstar walking down a rural landscape as a tar-road unfolds in fast forward behind him.
But Rajasekhar isn’t singing praises of Rajini in his comedy video going viral on social media. No, he’s paying tribute to Ivanka Trump, thanks to whom Hyderabad is undergoing a radical makeover, he says.
In Hyderabad, now we have new roads, man,” says Rajasekhar. “Forget roads, now we have footpaths man!”
Rajasekhar’s video takes digs at the promptness with which authorities have been repairing roads and beautifying the city ahead of the visit of Ivanka Trump, advisor to and daughter of US President Donald Trump.
Watch the video here:
So impressed is the comedian that he urges the ruling TRS to give Ivanka a ticket for the next elections. “I will vote for her!” he asserts.
For many months now, Hyderabad residents have been in uproar over the city’s pothole-ridden roads and its crumbling infrastructure.
The situation got even worse when the city was hit by repeated bouts of torrential rainfall during this year’s monsoons. As Rajasekhar points out, one of the most outrageous instances, was when a flyover became inundated during the rains. “It was almost as if the rain god wanted to take the flyover and he got stuck there,” he quips in the video.
So, Ivanka’s trip is a boon, even though the authorities are only ‘photoshopping’ the city and not fixing all its problems, he says.
The answer for Hyderabadis’ prayers for better roads, he continues, is for the city to host an international event every year – the Olympics, Wimbledon and even the Oscars.
Besides taking potshots at the government, the video also takes jibes at the US President and Ivanka. Referring to allegations that Ivanka had copied shoe designs from an Italian shoe brand, Rajasekar compares her to the shopkeepers at Hyderabad’s Koti area, who offer a range of international brands with slight modifications to logos and captions.
“For example, Nike is Mike. M-I-K-E. And they altered the tagline also – ‘Just did it’,” he quips.
Not all of Rajasekhar’s jokes are in the best of taste, though. Some like his reference to Ivanka’s age and a joke about Angelina Jolie adopting children from different countries do cross a line.
Ivanka Trump is in the city to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, 2017. Several entrepreneurs from various countries across the globe are participating in the event which will be held at HICC Convention Centre, Kondapur.