It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a … bullock cart? Twitter reliably had a fitting response to the doctored video posted by the Union Minister for Railways, Piyush Goyal, on Sunday, which showed a speeded-up video of the Vande Bharat Express in an attempt to claim success for Narendra Modi’s Make in India manufacturing campaign.
The video, which was also tweeted by Bharatiya Janata Party’s National General Secretary Ram Madhav and used as the basis for an article by the Republic TV news channel, has been debunked by AltNew.in. The website pointed out that “the video posted is not original, and has in fact been speeded up”. Here is a clip juxtaposing the original video with the Goyal-enhanced one.
If an editing sleight of hand can be used to make a train run at twice its speed, why not use it for the trusty bullock cart too?
One Twitter user made a reference to a moment from a Tamil film featuring the comedy great Vadivelu as proof that Tamilians are always ahead of the curve.
The Japanese bullet train, which is getting an Indian version, also came up in conversation.
Goyal’s video was a reminder of the poor record of the Railways in preventing derailments and delays and maintaining basic hygiene and safety standards.
Nobody has quoted the memorable line from the Tom Cruise-starrer Top Gun just yet: “I feel the need, the need for... speed.”
Soon, Goyal was being asked to speed up videos of other trains that he had posted. This post, of the snow-flecked ride to the hill station of Shimla, drew a request from one user: some passengers are late, sir, please post this at double speed.
Another user pulled the same gag when Goyal tweeted about a possible route to filling the budget deficit.