Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Indian origin boy wins cat coloring contest in USA

colored catOklahoma, USA. Ten year old Sameer, a third generation American of Indian origin, won the World Series Cat Coloring Contest here today, beating over 500 contestants from different states of the USA. The competition asked its contestants to color white cats in water-color using their creative imagery to create beautiful colorful cats. Sameer emerged as the final winner after seven days of grueling competition, sending whole of media India into ruptures of joy.

Sameer’s great grandparents used to live in Okhla village in Delhi, but his grandfather decided to leave India and migrate to the USA to lead a better life. His ancestral home was bought over by a property dealer who now runs a pet shop over there.

Various television news channels of India are planning to air special LIVE news bulletins from the same pet shop to celebrate Sameer’s victory. Members of one television crew were suggesting the pet shop owner to color all the pets, especially the cats, in tri-color to add ‘punch’ to the ‘story’.

“It’s a Breaking News! Our TRPs will prove it!” Lijjat Sharma, chief of an Indian TV channel told Faking News.

Sameer was completely unaware of this hype in India over his victory when our Oklahoma correspondent met him. He expressed happiness and wanted to know if Okhla village was named after Oklahoma. Sameer has never been to India but now his parents are willing to send him to India, if the government pays for all travel and accommodation. Sameer had won three free DVDs of ‘Tom and Jerry’ as the first prize, the only prize of the competition.

When our correspondent asked Sameer if he was inspired by the Indian tri-color when he colored the cat, his parents immediately told “yes”, to which Sameer nodded after a while. Sameer’s parents hoped that their son’s feat will strengthen Indo-US ties; they told this while on phone with some Indian television channel. They also expressed hope that attacks on Indian students in Australia could stop if a similar Kangaroo coloring contest was organized there.

Government of India too has sent a congratulatory message to Sameer and his parents. Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor was called up around 500 times by various news organizations to react, following which he finally sent a congratulatory message. Mr. Tharoor remained non-committal over awarding Sameer a paid trip to India. He also refused to comment if a similar contest in Australia could help stop attack on students there.

A television news anchor also asked Mr. Tharoor to congratulate Sameer though his twitter update. The phone line was disconnected and the views of Mr. Tharoor couldn’t be heard. The television channel has asked people to send SMS if they thought the minister should update his twitter status. The channel claims that majority of Indians want Mr. Tharoor to twit about Sameer’s victory.

Meanwhile Sameer risked losing his ‘Tom and Jerry’ DVDs as various Animal Rights group in the USA have called to countermand the results of the Cat Coloring competition, which they thought was an example of cruelty to animals. But Sameer need not worry as liquor baron Vijjay Mallya has announced that he’d gift a complete set of DVDs to Sameer if his prize was confiscated. Dr. Mallya was talking to a news channel that called Sameer a ‘Royal Challenger’ of American supremacy.

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