They ARE everywhere!

Once upon a time, dinosaurs roamed the earth. And we learnt to read and write. We read “Radiant Reader” and “Borno Porichoy” and we even wrote complete sentences. Mainly because we were very primitive and we wrote with pencils and pens. On paper, in note-books. We didn’t have cell-phones (most of us were lucky if we had phones that worked). We didn’t know textese (till the age of 11 I didn’t even know I HAD .. umm, I forget what I was saying). We had no idea what letter-combinations like “cu2mro” meant (and most times still don’t), we only knew boring WORDS.

Some of us were so square, we actually learnt things. Like who Akbar was, and where Plassey is, or the capital of Holland, or when a man named Gandhi was born.

Which means, of course, that we can’t be successful in this day and age. Or selluhbriteez. Though I do try to learn. Not from books. Or even magazines. From television, of course. Why, is there any other way?

This is what I learnt today ….

· If you’re a f**wit moron who grew up on second-hand Fox TV, you MUST pronounce “because” as “buh-kezz”. It is totally beneath your dignity to say “be-kawz”.

· If you’re shown on TV in the company of Farooq Abdullah (who doesn’t even look rakish or debauched any more, poor man, he looks like a worried publican who’s had a few too many of his own stock - come to think of it, that’s more or less what he IS), you must try to say wise things about Kashmir, only you must pretend you’re so fornicating la-de-dah you don’t know the difference between a state in your own country and a kind of woollen fabric and you MUST pronounce it “Cashmere”

· If you’re deemed semi-literate and asked on camera WHEN Republic Day is and WHY we celebrate it AND it turns out you have NO IDEA, you must laugh uproariously so that everybody knows how terribly funny your ignorance is.

· If you look good in a swimsuit, you must assume you also have a brain, so if you’re asked why you should be Miss India you must come up with something earth-shattering like “If you’re Miss India the whole country listens, if you’re Miss Universe the whole world listens”. (I can’t even begin to list the chamois leaps of reasoning there. If there is any reasoning there.)

· If you’ve appeared in a film where all you have to do is shake your booty in a tight black leather skirt, remembering the name of the character you play is sufficient proof of the depth of your talent

· If, three years after your first two films, you’ve eventually appeared in another film where all you have to do is shake your booty in rather less than a tight leather skirt, you must hold forth on how you took time off to hone your acting skills (in New York, always in New York, no matter that you think Strassberg is a kind of lettuce). Then, when asked what is so special about your latest role, you must smile in dazzling fashion and say (modestly!) “C****a J*****y in a bikini .. in a METALLIC RED bikini!” (so much for two years of acting school!)

· If your biceps measurement in inches is rather more than your IQ, remember to appear at ANY social engagement in attire like Supriya Debi’s in a 1960s Bong tear-jerker. No matter that the “slibless blaa-uj” was originally meant to be female attire.

· If you have a television channel and sinking TRPs, start an awards do where your channel’s programmes and actors compete for awards in important categories like “Best Parivaar – Punj” (I kid you not!)

· If you have nothing much to say and know even fewer words to say it with, try combinations of the following – “buh-kezz”, “by-zickly”, “like”, “well”, “y’know”, “it seems”. If you can throw in a “sensitive” or a “skey-dool” as well, you might get nominated for a Nobel. Or, since you’ve probably never heard of the Nobel prizes, an Oscar.

· If you have nothing much to do on a weekday evening, watching television can make you feel superior at very little cost. Unless you admit to yourself that the objects of your ridicule earn at least ten times as much as you. Oh well ….

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