The banality of the great celebrities

Shallow woman is chitchatting, I mean interviewing Sir Salanaam Rushwhere. Deepa Mayo is also chitting & chatting with them. (Aside: can I call it an interPhew!). Today’s episode the regular pogrom  The Suck Stops Nowhere.

Stimulating and enlightening discussion.

Shallow Woman(SW) : What’s your ideè (fixè) of India ?

Sir Salanaam Rushwhere(SR): Oh, you know, its not the same country as in “Midday meals’ Children”. Actually, its changed, I regret the bakwas I have to spout. You know this IOI business, Khilnani stole it and has made a career writing tomes about HIS Idea of India, this artificial nation. He never sent me an IOU on it.

SW: Why is the kitaab darker than the phillum? Lets see it ass-backwards – the phillum fair & lovelier than the pustak?

Sir SR: I am just more pissymystic than Mayo here, and that’s sayin’ a lot, heh heh.

SW: Do you still call your city Bombay? With the frigging elements re-christening it, do we liberal fringe elements enjoy the idea of Mum-Bai?  Those Bullies, Bums, Blistering Barnacles, Thundering Typhoons and Troglodytes.

Sir SR: Yes yes, the name reclaiming sister-sleepers haven’t changed in the last 60 yrs. Mum-Bai is a lot like Paaniwali Bai, and her secret names are Mumba Devi and  Mookambika. Always Mum, you know. As our PM Maun Mohan Singh says, she has the undying spirit to endure any number of train blasts, crowds and North Indians. No, my Bombay was there since the Beginning of Time, and Bombay it will be until the End Of.

SW: And Ms Mayo, when did your relationship with India change?

DM: Well, it was when they prevented my Other film “Ditch Water” from taking samples of it from India. Time was, when India allowed my spiritual Mother to travel all over India for her Drain Inspector’s Report.  Ah, those were the days, my friend! The father of the nation did not like it. I knew that NRIs would always drink bottled Bisleri water, but why not drink mine too? And I don’t like it when they call me an NRI.  What do I have to do to prove that I am an Indian, drink my own water? I am not Morarji Desai. As a child I was inspired by the golden song in the phillum Baiju Bawra where Rafi Saab cries “Ab tho Neer Bahaale”.  The Bhagwan in Stone actually shed water from his eyes, for God’s sake!  Maine bhi tab wohi kiya, neeche se. ab wohi kar raha hoon, phillum banaane se.

You see, my film  is actually about the pure-skinned heroine, who happens to be a Banarasi child widow. Other skins in that region turn dark brown, but she remains white. They are all Maili, just like the Ganga, but only on the surface, shallow woman!  Raj Kapoor always draped that colour around his heroines, hiding all the other 7 colours.  He wanted us to see and touch what was beneath the skin. Now Sir Salanaam may not drool over Zeenie Baby in RK movies, but a “Fire” Shabana, Draupadi or Sita would, provided they were gay enough. They are all victims of a society that the Whites left too early. Only we, the residues of the whites, know how to rescue the browns from brownness.  But they Other me, just because I live in Canada and make flying visits to my birth mother.

SW: And what does the Other child, Shiva, symbolise?

Sir SR: Hate speech, my dear, just like Varun Gandhi’s. Contrast this with the family that gets together in the end. Mary the central character, Saleem the Anarkali, Akbar, and Anthony without anyone named Amar. Like Joseph Anton, they are all well-adopted, if not well-healed. Dysfunctional like the modern American family, yet getting together for the sake of the IOI. Minorities, minorities, minorities!

SW: What was your favourite moment in the book. To me, it was the immortal “no culture that has the same name for yesterday and tomorrow can be said to have a firm grip on time”.

Sir SR: Yes yes, how my lovely nation time travels, past sliding into the present, I mean, get a grip, Bhaiyyas and bhanchods! Cast out Shiva, the Mahakal! He belongs on the streets!

Me: There are unknown knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns and well-known ignoramuses.

You know, there are some rather precise divisions of time in the Hindu Time Scale? It ranges from Paramāṇu (17 microseconds) to Mahā-Manvantara (311 million years). Mind, it includes the secularist time-scale as well (1947 – Present), how’s that for inclusiveness? Here’s a picture to gaze at.

Unit	Value(secs)	Comment
Truti	10-7
Renu	10-5
Lava	10-3
Leekshaka	10-1
Ksana	~1
Prāna	4
Vighati	24	6 Prānas
Ghati	103	60 vighatis
Muhurta	1440	2 Ghatis
Ahorātram	13200	30 Muhurtas

Interested in the details? See here.

It is usually switch-off kaala when The Suck Starts There, but today it was appalling and funny at the same samay. Good night, buck-suckers!