Fall from grace for celebs!

Truth be told, now that the falsity behind the misleadingly named Satyam has come to light, Ram Rajya seems to have more liabilities than assets to show.
And we haven���t fudged this balance sheet. With the IT giant���s founder-chairman Ramalinga Raju and his brother, managing director Rama Raju, landing behind bars, RAM, in computer speak, has been corrupted.Overwritten, perhaps?
Ram Rajya ��� that blessed Puranic period when justice and fairness reigned ��� has gone haywire, and as 21st century Rams confront it, the nymic reference to the Godly protagonist of the Ramayana seems to be irony of epic proportions. Take for instance, godman Baba Ram Rahim, who had a CBI court framing charges of rape and murder against him, or self-styled swamiji Krovvidi Ramachandra Rao, who got arrested for a sex scam.
But then, scams have a way of ���ram���ming into certain nameplates. Like MP Raja Ram Pal���s, for example. The Parliamentarian was one of the 11 MPs shown the door after a sting operation caught them accepting bribes for fielding questions in the House. They were only following in the footsteps of former Union communications minister Sukh Ram, whose joy at having amassed bagfuls of cash was sadly short-lived, as the CBI got wind of the telecom scam he
engineered. Again, former petroleum minister Ram Naik found himself skidding on slippery ground when his name surfaced in connection with the oil-for-food scam following the Volcker Report. In politics, despite our netas��� holier-than-thou starched white garbs, ungodly ways are rampant. Former minister Singhi Ram ��� arrested last year in the fake certificate case ��� would certify that. Better still, ask Ram Vilas Paswan, who has just been named among India���s Top Eight corrupt politicians by a website.
Another politician who quickly made it to the most-hated list was RR Patil. The former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister dubbed the 26/11 Mumbai attacks as just another incident that big cities have to deal with, and the ���ram���ifications of the remark cost him his chair. No prizes for guessing what one of the ���R���s in his name stood for ��� Ramarao. His official big brother, former state chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, too, had to get off the hot seat after he made a disaster tourism trip to the Taj hotel with another Ram in tow. With the footage of the visit being replayed on every TV channel, Ram Gopal Varma became quite the Ravan, though he blew all the criticism away in a phoonk.
But what���s not blowing over, as easily, is Sanju baba���s reputation. Dutt���s what���s bothering his one-time defense lawyer Ram Jethmalani, as the actor readies to join politics. Jethmalani, who has played devil���s advocate for Indira Gandhi���s assassins, Harshad Mehta and Manu Sharma, feels that the actor isn���t fit to be an MP and will be a security threat for the nation. But don���t we have enough threats to security occupying places of prominence already? Then why the kaante in Sanjay���s political progress? Ram jaane!
arpita.basu@timesgroup.com