No Padma Award for Sonu Sood? Seriously!

The  awards, national or otherwise, have become a bit of a joke with names in the list of awardees that have  to be googled  to be  recognized , makes me wonder every year:  do they  ensure that the  Padmas only go to the names that are opulently  obscure  or  seriously dead?

From this year’s list I could  only recognize the great S P Balasubramaniam and no other name. Why did one have to die to be worthy  for this recognition?

But the one name everyone expected on the list and which wasn’t there is Sonu Sood. The man’s incredible work with migrants  and  other desperately needy souls of 2020  and his continuing support to  the distressed, is worthy of every award  and recognition on this earth. To see  his name  missing in the Padma list seriously undermines  the importance of the Padma awards.

Rightly Sonu’s admirers who had been championing his cause for months  are extremely incensed at  the snub to Sonu’s phenomenal philanthropy. Is this glaring omission from the awards list a reminder of just how easy it is to sideline a true achiever when he is not a political ally?

A  source from the government told me Sonu was under serious consideration for  the Padma but lost it due to the “unnecessary hype” surrounding his name.

When I  reached out to Sonu, he laughed and said, “It is award enough for me to have  people like you believe  in my work.”