The Curious Case of a White Tiger

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

Are we there yet?

One of my most verbose friend wrote this recco on a book called The Joke by Milan Kundera. The book as understood from it is about a ride called “Suspension of Disbelief” that many get on while living, propagating & defending any ideology. It is about the humor that one can feel tickling their ribs if they took a step back from an ideologically charged mobs position.  It is about the utter absurdity that anyone can believe that any ideology can be a one all answer. And lastly as if we weren’t about to write it off as Nietzsche’s  biggest wet dream, it also makes fun of the act of making fun because of the inevitability of our actions inspite of self-awareness of the pitfalls completing the mosaic of Ouroboros the self-consuming snake.

Though I have not read the book, after reading the post I had a Disney cartoon style light bulb effect two inches above my head. Currently there is a high pitched, and when I say high pitched I mean Ramsay-Brothers-Movie-Heroine-Screech times hundred decibel war cries clothed as “Panel Debates” going on in sensationally named shows with words like KNOW, DECIDES. And what is the core, central, ultimate, fundamental arguments about?

To put it in the plainest & barest of words, in this Tewariesque-ness of our times, is that our country has only two choices before itself. These two choices are carefully manufactured by an assembly line of PR, muddling history & hoarse shouts. These two choices as described by the rival party members are -

1.      An apun-toh-puure-Gujarat-mein-world-famous-hai (alledged) mass murderer with a fascist oeuvre who can’t even get a US visa but wants entry to highest office in our land, who wants to modify (Get it) his image according to his current audience, who sings songs of progress like Imported Kamariya onstage but in private is singing Haan….. Main Hun Khalnayak, who will one day make us all wear white shirts and khaki chhadis among other things and oh beware!!! (Triple Exclamation Mark!!!) there are other things.

&

2.      An Idiot

Now as much I would love to give my uninformed opinion, on the pros & cons of the (allegedly) Progress oriented ones & the Cong.... (oh can’t say that nahi toh Kambil Signal [name changed] ajayega), I hold that the national discourse has gone so Bingo-chips-Ads-nuts that a nuanced discussion would be day dreaming with eyes wide open.

Instead like they say make hay while in sun make satire while in elections. We, the bhooli bhali janta, are caught like deer in headlights with arguments & counter arguments, facts & counter facts, positions & reversals, kurtas & khadis of the many politicians appearing in the nanocubes of the panel debates. It appears that no one is having arguments in essence of that word. They are just plain contradicting or insulting and calling that an argument.

Eg. Lets call the ruling party X & opposition Y. Here is a slice of life style argument between X party loyal XX & Y party loyal YY

XX – We are the only sane option. And our leaders are not professional mass murders.

YY – No no your leaders are professional mathematicians for whom zero & 1 lakh crore are essentially the same thing. Tum log bus Italian Pizza ke slice gino.

XX – We can atleast add & subtract. Your leader would just go consult Aryabhatta for multiplication of 1 X 1.

YY – Aye!!! Aryabhatta was great Indian genius. He is part of our great heritage. You people are degrading Indian culture. Teri maa ki……. sale maderchod, chutmarike, maa ke lavde, gandu, gottiyan ukhad ke gottiyan khelunga agar Bhartiya Sanskriti ke bareme kuch bhi kahan.

And then they lived happily ever after.

It reminds me of that Monty Python Sketch where the guy keeps asking for some good healthy arguments and all he gets in the end is a big hammer on his head. Those guys were geniuses.

YY – Hey you… praising western comedy and offering a parable to our current position. What do you know about Indian culture. You should be ashamed of calling yourself an Indian. Do you know all the vedas. They have many good homely comedy better than any comedy ever made. We are the best. Nobody is better than us. Bharat Mata ki Jai Jai Jai Jai Ho.

Me – Hey you’re just a fictional character I created to present a stupid argument. You’re not supposed to counter argue.

YY – We’ll I am here baby & I am lovin’ it!!

Me – Hey isn’t that Mcdonald’s tagline you just used.

YY – Mcdonald’s stole it from us and took wrongful credit. We created atom bomb and diet coke. Denmark is actually Dhenmark….Dhen means Cow in gujarati. Its cowland.

We practically wrote the book on writing books so we created everything.

Me – Ok fictionally character, as your creator I now render you mute because of a horrible accident involving <GOI censored item>, <GOI censored item>, lot of ghee.

Except for the mute thing he too lived happily ever after.

Sorry for that distracting interlude. Sometimes fictional characters have tendency to run amok but more stranger I feel is the tendency of people committing horrible acts in reality based on some fiction most people wouldn’t even have heard had they not been surrounded by “Controversy”.

I mean its not that someone is going to buy the M.F. Hussain painting for “High Society” money and then hang it at CST railway station. But every debate is geared in such a way that it looks like not only is the painting hung at CST station but they have also installed giant neon arrow signs pointing to the painting and wrote – “Controversy Now” over it.

Apes have more meaningful conversation while picking lice from each other’s bodies than the people on Panel Debates, atleast they are helping their fellow ape. The Neanderthals on panel debates are inspiring the homo sapiens watching it to engage and shape our glorious future by voting for the option that confused them the most.

And the connect that one can feel with below satirical video below is because these hoarse shouting contest on TV have now seeped into our cultural fiber. The once golden sparrow is now a gaudy crow. Question is have we bottomed out or is there more to scrap.

Are we there yet?