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Thursday, May 19, 2005
Renting a crowd
AFP reports:
The article later says that "Devarajan is offering recruits training", thought it doesn't specify what kind of training they need to be part of a crowd. I can imagine him declaiming:
I couldn't locate the original Hindustan Times article online, but it is interesting how the AFP report has been carried by the different papers. Here, here and here, the original source is credited, but in the Times of India report, "the Hindustan Times" has been changed to "a national daily". This is both mean-spirited and unneccessary. But what to do?
A former politician has launched a "rent-a-crowd" company to recruit people to cheer at party rallies and said he has been deluged by would-be recruits, a report on Thursday said.
"When all political parties and organisations are doing it discreetly, why can't we do it professionally?" the Hindustan Times quoted the company's founder Devarajan as saying.
The article later says that "Devarajan is offering recruits training", thought it doesn't specify what kind of training they need to be part of a crowd. I can imagine him declaiming:
Ok boys, this is how you clap. Lift both your hands in front of you, elbows bent, and bring them parallel to one another. Now imagine that there's a mosquito right between your palms and you must squash it by doing a noisy namaste. Squash it! Right. Now rinse and repeat.
I couldn't locate the original Hindustan Times article online, but it is interesting how the AFP report has been carried by the different papers. Here, here and here, the original source is credited, but in the Times of India report, "the Hindustan Times" has been changed to "a national daily". This is both mean-spirited and unneccessary. But what to do?
