MARATHI... PAUL PADATE PUDHE -- COLGATE CHA KISSA (THE COLGATE STORY)

We all know the word Colgate, is often used as a synonym for toothpaste in local parlance. Nothing strange about that… Here’s the punch… you guys know we have a journo in Goa doesn’t take kindly to the word Colgate. Want to know why guys? Read on.
This journo guy works for a long established Marathi newspaper and resides at Taleigaon. Now for the sake of convenience in narration, lets call our man Mr V. Ok Mr V has been covering the crime beat for quite a while now. Say… when was this? About five years ago, Mr V walked into the Goa Sahakari Bhandar supermarket near Junta house Panjim for some shopping. We don’t know what provoked him? We seriously don’t… But when Mr V was on his way out, the billing clerk found some part of him pretty fishy… Perhaps it was even a hint of bad breath or something. The clerk asked Mr V to step aside and asked him if he was carrying something that he had not billed… Mr V feigned ignorance. When the clerk insisted, Mr V began to claim high-ground by identifying himself as a pressman. That did not seem to bother the billing clerk much. He called on a couple of other staffers from the supermarket and searched Mr V. And among other shoplifted items that rolled out of his person was a 100 gm tube of Colgate toothpaste.
Immediately the cops were informed and a few constables landed up at the supermarket. But then the journo in Mr V was at work too. He insisted that he speak to one of the officials running the Sahakar Bhandar show Uday Madkaikar, who incidentally landed up only after the cops did. After an apology and an ‘I don’t know how that happened’ story belted out by Mr V, the manager allowed him to leave the premises.
But cops will be cops… The name ‘Colgate’ stuck. Mr V actually needs to be felicitated by Colgate Palmolive for keeping their brand in circulation despite competition by other brands.
Ok… that’s the toothpaste episode alone.
There’s more that has happened since.
Penpricks really thinks that Mr V needs to be shifted out of the Crime beat. Cause he has begun milking more than just stories from this beat. This guy is proving to be a disgrace to the profession and his newspaper. Very recently, Mr V managed to get cupboard free of cost with blessings of DYSP Deu benaulikar. You know how he did it?
Mr V approached Deu and asked if he knew any chap dealing in cupboards and wondered if the bulky Deu could help in getting a concession of sorts. Cops… my dear friends can gauge your pulse. And Deu is a cop who is in the news often for the wrong reasons, a vigilance enquiry is also pending against him. He obviously knows that a good investment was waiting to happen. He promptly sent the cupboard home in Taleigaon. And the money? Mr V got the best deal he could have asked for. A free cupboard… He even saved on delivery charges.
He’s even using the office of Superintendent of Police Arvind Gawas as an STD/PCO booth calling his relatives based in Chiplun, Thane, Bombay etc. Oh... we forgot to add this… Gawas’s office is also his free photocopying station.
There’s more…this journo has wangled a job for his wife at the police headquarters (with the blessings of a very media Savvy Deputy Inspector general of Police) violating the domicile norm.
Imagine this guys… if this guy takes so many favours from cops, what are the chances that this guy would not be biased in their favour while reporting on the beat? Sanjay Dhavalikar needs to be told about this. Or say Derek Almeida… Some sort on enquiry ought to be started against this guy… What he needs right now is some toothpaste shoved up a different kind of a cavity.