Wherefore art thou Mahendra?

Just before the rugby starts this evening - click here for The Daily Maverick rugby correspondent's preview - a viewer has called in to the studio and asked whether the presenters are wearing ties in Springbok green or Irish green. Given that it's the SuperSport studio, I think the answer is pretty obvious...

A more pressing concern is just what has happened to our Mahendra? The outrage over his suspension in February seems to have died down, but he is still absent from the SABC3 news. When will the king of ties return to his rightful throne?

Mahendra´s shoulder pads

Have been embarrassingly slow on the uptake, since this column was written in November, but stumbled across the following by Lev David in his Quiet Riot column for the Mail&Guardian, and was cheered to find another reference to Mahendra in popular culture.

Mahendra

I'm not going to complain about the dorky one-liners. Or the pervy lip-twist. And, frankly, I don't see why a man in an enlightened society shouldn't be allowed to wear shoulder pads.

I'm not complaining at all. I'm just worried about the guy.

We can't hear it, but there's somebody playing death metal and shouting through his earpiece: "Louder, Mahendra! Louder!"

Mr Raganath, you're scaring us.

Click here for the rest of Lev´s irreverent column about what needs to be changed at the SABC.

Tie tripping (not)

What between the Raghunath´s erratic schedule and my own, I haven´t seen much of the man lately. I did, however, manage to spy him on Sunday night.

After a pretty psychedelic weekend at Oppikoppi, I was anticipating being truly fully hey shoo wowed by his tie, but it was disappointingly straight for a change. Dull gold and white stripes, that didn´t play with my eyes. C´mon Mahendra - where is the festival spirit?!

In an interesting aside: I did notice that the credits at the end of the news appeared in yellow and white, as opposed to their customary white only. Do you think the production team is matching the credits to Mahendra´s tie de jour?

Mahendra does it again!

Last night Mahendra was wearing a charcoal suit, and a golden-yellow tie with nary a stripe to be seen. His tone of voice was customarily upbeat: only the Raghunath can speak about Tendai Biti facing a possibly death penalty as if he were speaking about a picnic in the park.

Mahendra´s wet dream

I´m kind of cheating, cos I already posted this on my personal blog. But hey, I got all misty eyed when I remembered my former life as a Mahendra-spotter, and it was personal. Nevereless, I thought the wider Mahendra-spotting community might also enjoy reading it, so here goes:

"During my time over the seas there have been many people, places, and weather patterns that I´ve missed. One of these is the indomitable Mr Raghunath. Why, oh why, can´t I watch the SABC3 News over the Internet?

As I was walking back to the train station in Brighton, I had a particularly sharp pang of Mahendra nostalgia when I passed GBTies.com. At first I thought it would be Mahendra´s wet dream, but realised some of the ties were too garish even for the Raghunath´s tastes. Unfortunately, I couldn´t go inside, as it was closed, but had some fun window shopping, with Mahendra in mind. I think he might have liked the purple tie (second row, forth from the right). Which one do you think would have taken the Raghunath´s fancy?"

Will be home soon, and plan on getting in plenty of Mahendra-spotting, and hopefully revitalising this blog, so watch this space!