Suddenly, one day tehzeeb went missing; from the public discourses, it had gone missing from the streets the day rap music and internet had arrived, of course. He, who hated to miss even the commercial before the movies, was flummoxed. ‘Jee‘ and ‘huzoori‘ both were dead in a ditch.
What the hell had happened? People shouting obscenities at each other wherever there was a camera or a keypad. Was it the lack of guile? It must be; imagine a bald withered actor threatening to tie up a not bald but surely withered writer. Talk about a rooster damning a donkey, that shit would make a great buddhist tale.
Y’know the old adage, if the monkey finds a coconut he will break someone’s head. Well, coconut be found, head be broken. Let us move on. Old people are rude anyway, last big gasp and all. But, he saw something, he had never imagined he would. He saw people throwing coconuts back at the monkey. Nobody had moved on. Cameras and keypads working overtime. The monkey was dying. The fathers were dying. The culture was dying.
A man on TV, bespectacled, dressed up as if all the CR Park’s disapproving aunties were watching: but, he does not break into a Tagore or a Wordsworth rendition, instead he is shouting, mic turned up, shouting at everyone, hurling abuses, sissy ones. Imagine a bar fight in Delhi, where nobody says behenchod. The whole country was a bar fight in Delhi. And, nobody said behenchod. Women got beat up, nerds did too, even the poor Bihari bartender who can’t pronounce lager. And, the badasses, they end up in Cop cars lightening their wallets. Everybody loses, bouncers win. A whole country is a Delhi barfight. It was frigging hilarious. And, sad. Sad things always were hilarious.
And, that is what messed up with his mind. He has been sitting right there, at the bar, drinking his overpriced less whisky-more paani( for illiterate bovines, that is a pun for capitalism. ha!), and he had missed it. The biggest joke of his life. The millnium meme. Mother of all practical jokes. The locker-rooming of language. The ninth ‘state’ of Delhi. How could he? Everything had changed. Nehrujee had become Nehru; firangi, chor aur deshdrohi(matlab padha likha aadmi), all writers including the booker winning ones were chhamia, and all actors except the bald ones were nachania. The only man with a ‘jee‘, the premier, the karta dharta, the ever reliable Vishnu was faring the worst actually. Don’t let the ‘jee’ fool you. He heard people calling him everything from ‘nalleji’ to ‘hitlerji‘. That is a total difference of one gonad, as history insists. All was said, none done, but still no ‘behenchod’ (we are all waiting for the day, tuned to Loksabha TV.) Ask any dilliwala, that shit is way more dignified that calling Gandhijee just Gandhi, and calling every woman on interenet ‘randi‘.
Whoa, fuck. A boom. A crash. Da Da Da Dum. Drumrolls. The fog lifts. Clarity dawns. Time to retrace back our steps. Turns out this whole disappearing act by tehzeeb is not due to lack of mental faculties, or bald old senility, or overactive vocal chords, or bars in Delhi. No, no. Motherfucking nein. Turns out while our barstool prophet was contemplating his next sexual/beef-eating/ crude-joking(which ever is deadlier), the ladies have been speaking. As, in saying shit. Hard brittle shit. Like Tupac. Like Black people wearing sunglasses after hours.
So, that is where it all went bad. Ladies doing rap-rap-rap music. Harlots all of them. They are supposed to be vanguards of the cocksucking ‘tehzeeb’ (inherent similarities, you see). Now he understood everything. Nobody likes women talking. Even women don’t like women talking. And, now they were everywhere, yak yak yaketty yak. This was bound to happen. Eminem has snorted glitter of every color imaginable and was turning into an unicorn with a Jane Austen head. Afterlife; or the limbo between dead and alive. If Razia is on the throne, can Muhammad Bin Tughlaq be far behind?
History will tell you a lot of shit about women. In fact, it is all about women. But he is not one to trust history. So, he turns to the woman nearest to him and tries to engage her in a battle of wits.About who and how should be tied to tanks and pelted with stones. She speaks readily, a little too readily (has not read history.). He has given up hope. The woman won’t stop speaking, and people won’t stop throwing coconuts. (not their fault, they thought all apes are naked, so they must be men. There are no lady monkeys).
As he contemplated moving to Mumbai, and thus indulged in silly juvenile banter with the lady(forgetting the zeal and the thrust of a bayonet fucking Kashmir in ass) she said something. She opened her mouth wide, and he traced each familiar curve with his eyes, he caressed it, as it spelled BEHENCHOD.
Fuck yes. There were tears in his eyes. He vowed to never move to Mumbai. However watered his scotch be, however scary the haryanvi bouncer be, whetever the women fucking said, wherever thezeeb might be at.
The Opinionated Smartass 