It was a meeting to show solidarity with the laid-off Jet Airways staffers, but MNS chief Raj Thackeray's men turned it into a coaching class for Marathi.
The uniformed Jet staffers arrived at 10.30 a.m.on Thursday outside the Jet office at Andheri, closely followed by the Riot Control Police and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists.
Since MNS flags outnumbered the activists, they were promptly distributed among the hapless Jet staffers. Raj Thackeray, of course, didn't come. But his supporters read out his message that said the MNS would ensure jobs for all of them and that the party would not allow Jet to either land in or take off from Mumbai if its demand was not met.
The cheer from the Jet's erstwhile staffers was, however, muted. Reason: the message was in Marathi, which most of them didn't understand. At this point, a sacked Marathi staffer of Jet got up to translate the message in English. She started by saying "Mr Raj Thackeray", but was stopped by the MNS supporters, who insisted that she should "know how to give respect to the Marathi language and should say Mananiya Raja Saheb Thackeray instead" - an order that was followed promptly.
As soon as she finished reading out the translated speech of Raj Thackeray, everybody started shouting - "We want our jobs back, Vijay Mallya go back." They were again stopped by the MNS activists, who insisted that the slogan should be in Marathi.
When the ousted Jet employees said they should be excused as most of them were non-Marathis, they were told sternly to "go and learn Marathi". Since this was going nowhere, the MNS men chose the middle path and asked them to shout loudly - "Raja saheb tum aage badho, hum tumhare saath hai (Raj Thackeray you march ahead, we are with you)".
The laid-off Jet employees were also advised not to eat or drink anything until they got their jobs back, or Jet chief Naresh Goyal met Raja Saheb.
