In an unprecedented
turn of events, just days after the “Crush world by bare hands” Group had demagnetized irony and unanimously decided to chicken
out of the chicken business on ethical grounds; it is
speculated that the multi gazillion worth conglomerate has decided to start a
new bookstore chain. However, few trade analysts believe there is something
sinister in the air about the deal not unlike an Agatha Christie novel.
The story began five
days ago when suddenly bookstores all over India started getting enquires for
bulk purchase of one book viz The White Tiger. The inquiries came also with a
big bonus which required them to sign a “Non-Disclosure Agreement”, also known
as a “Gag Order”. The move seemed to work and the book became unavailable in
any of the stores as of three days ago.
The absence of the booker prize winner
confused and irritated some Aravind Adiga enthusiasts who had loved the book
cover & blurbs by Senior Citizen Hipsters like Salman Rushdie, Suhel Seth
& Alex Padamsee. They decided to confront the lack of this monumental piece
of literature with management of a popular book store which caters to a “Cross”
section of society. While the upper management was extremely tight lipped about
the whole affair, a store clerk Ishaan, who is not supposed to talk to media
but did anyway because he found a sweeter deal at McDonalds last week and is on
three weeks notice period, said, “There was a deal”.
While Ishaan did not know
anything other than the presence of a deal, that was more than enough to start
a swash buckling media frenzy across the nation; other than of course the North
East, because they don’t get in frenzy like “Real Indians”. They just calmly
Re-elect Congress.
A
then unknown and now untraceable news agency called “Sansani Nagin” arranged a
Sting Operation of multiple bookstore managers, all of whom discovered that it
was in fact a sting operation. But one of them told the truth about the deal
anyway because he thought that it may make their resume more attractive for a
thriller book he was pitching for publishing.
Excerpts
of the sting operation
SN
Correspondent
|
:
|
Haan,
bhai ab fatak se bata ki manjhla kya hai?
|
Book
Store Manager
|
:
|
I
am writing this new book called…
|
SN
Correspondent
|
:
|
Abe
taklu, woh nahi. White Tiger ke bare mein.
|
Book
Store Manager
|
:
|
Oh
some corporate guys came in and just gaged and strong muscled us into selling
them all the copies. It exactly like a chapter in my book…
|
SN
Correspondent
|
:
|
Abe
par woh C*****a tha kon?
|
Book
Store Manager
|
:
|
Oh
they routed the transaction through some company in Mauritius but the
enquiries had come from a well known corporate domain name. Corporate
espionage is so fun. I have this character…
|
Unfortunately the
correspondent could extract the name after about an hour into the conversation
and we just don’t have that kind of word limit privilege to continue. To be
fair the manager’s book sounds a lot like Vivek Oberoi’s Prince, so you’re
not missing anything interesting. We assure our readers once again that we have
a Zero Boredom Tolerance policy. Please read on.
After a much edited
version of the Sting Operation video was available and a suitable animation and
background sound was assembled; the story of the conglomerate buying books in
bulk spread like wild fire and the stock market gave a thumbs up to the deal by
jumping to a three minute high after which it closed for the week. The market
had assumed that similar purchase of other books would follow suit but NO. There
were no sly enquiries, no price quotes, no activity of any kind. “WTF”, said
many stock traders to each other in a Whatsapp frenzy.
As the Khobragade-gate
became way too complicated to pronounce, media diverted its attention to this
issue and angrily proclaimed – The Nation Wants To Know. In a one word press
release, the PR department of the company asked everybody to (As the word
cannot be published the general summary is as follows) not to enquire into its
affairs as they are not any of their concern.
Some independent voices
in the country who claim to have actually read the book in question are
proposing a conspiracy theory that involves the company protecting some very high placed heavyweights behind the
curtain.
According to them, the book has a chapter
in which the some poor guy is asked to take the blame for an accident committed
by his masters. The theory then recalls a similar
incident taking place involving the company which curiously
went underreported. The White Tiger Truthists or Whigerists as they call
themselves suggest that the move to hijack the book is to avoid people to make
the connection and land into an ironical situation. When asked that wouldn’t
this be an even more ironical situation than the earlier one, the dude just
flipped and called us black chickens, meaning of which is left to speculation.
The
word on virtual street has spread like Modiwave <add natural
disaster>, some even arranging candle march on Facebook others filing online
petitions. One question still remains hasn’t anyone heard of pirated books.
The Aston Martin killed only one thing - journalism.
— some-a-n (@NotSoSnob) December 26, 2013