VS preferences: Cucumber for shaving cream, Bhagwad Gita to refresh mind
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Kochi: VS never used shaving cream. He used cucumber. He cut the cucumber and used its juice instead of a cream. "Much before cucumber made it into beauty salons, VS has been using it," his press secretary K V Sudhakaran once told TOI with a chuckle.
A voracious reader, VS had a special liking for Bhagwad Gita. "He has a great collection of Gita and I have seen him reading them many times," added Sudhakaran.
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Giggling through Left debacle
In 2009, then-chief minister VS's post-poll giggles — while his CPM comrades wept over a 4-16 Lok Sabha rout — sparked a Marxist melodrama. Was it schadenfreude as rivals flopped? Or joy at Pinarayi Vijayan's faction eating humble pie? Deshabhimani thundered: "Only enemies laugh at defeat!" Writer Sukumar Azhikode called VS a traitor for chuckling while Rome burned.
VS brushed off the criticism with characteristic nonchalance: "Each one according to his culture puts out such articles.
"
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Mimicry artists' Achumama
Agree or not, V S Achuthanandan must thank mimicry artists too —especially with the advent of cable television — for his boost in popularity as the media had dismissed him at one point as too 'rustic' a leader to strike a chord with the masses. "We found his mannerisms cool and amusing," Diana Silvester, the producer of a hugely popular satire show on a TV channel, was once quoted as saying.
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Many actors aped his rare intonation style and unpredictable meters which the audience lapped up.
The name Achumama, propagated to malign his image, was also accepted widely.
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Amul Baby touches raw nerve
VS touched a raw nerve nationally in 2011 when he described Rahul Gandhi as an 'Amul Baby' after the then Congress general secretary provoked the communist veteran saying Kerala would have a 93-year-old as chief minister if LDF retained power in the state. Congress found VS's reference as an insult, formed a ring around the then 41-year-old and went hammer and tongs at VS though Shashi Tharoor tweeted "Amul babies r fit, strong, focused on the future".
Amul, as always, tapped into the controversy and brought out an advertisement.
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