Didley Squat. Desi Rot.

It is invigorating to see even dash-a-click global TV serials being used to spread societal messages and question red-tapism. At home, this is quite unthinkable

- RAJEEV NARAYAN

“If you are not smiling, mischievous, satirical for some time every day, you are (just) not living. Laugh out loud.”

—Sandeep Sahajpal

Jeremy Clarkson led me to write this column. The host of ‘Top Gear’ and ‘The Grand Tour’, by far the most watched auto programs, ever, on BBC and Amazon Prime, respectively, is a class unto himself. But with ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ on Amazon Prime, Clarkson has outdone himself in his avatar as a humble farmer. It is prodigious to witness such metamorphosis in a man generally only seen behind the wheel of the most expensive cars in the world.

As a crofter at Didley Squat Farm in the UK, Clarkson dons overalls caked with mud and animal faeces, and trudges through piles of cow dung and pig waste, solemnly going about the business of tending to a farm that refuses to turn a profit. He takes rib-tickling yet powerful digs at British law and policymakers, with a simple intent — to wake up a nation to the deleterious impact UK’s antediluvian laws are having on farmers and the common man. It is invigorating to see fearlessness and light-heartedness hit a crescendo where even dash-a-click TV serials spread societal messages, questioning red-tapism and archaic legislation.