My brother gifted me a book recently. It’s called Fat-Free Writing. He is an agent of change. His gifts are too. Reading the book makes me dizzy. I realize the skimming my full fat writing requires. Being organic and farm fresh doesn’t help. Reading the book also gives me a brilliant idea. Sharing my mun ki baat with you now- it’s an idea of a book called Absurd-Free Talking.
I don’t need to introduce my target audience to you. You know it well. It is large with large pockets, larger egos and much larger mouths. It has easy access to books. The only challenge is to get it to read a book. It would after all mean taking time out from constantly being occupied with attracting attention in several ways including tweeting and commenting on social media. The big selling point is that by staying away from social media and incessant comment splattering, the audience would save themselves from practicing their intense signature kriya- foot in the mouth (in various levels of improvisations and learning).
Are you as amazed as I am by the ability of some people to say things the way they do- in content and style? Mulayam Singh Yadav has just said, “Gang rape is impractical.’ Can you even fathom someone saying something as outrageous as that? This isn’t the first time though he has said something like this. Remember, not too long ago he had said “They are boys, they make mistakes.” (The mistake is rape). General VK Singh? ”Presstitudes”? Sakshi Maharaj? “Every Hindu woman must produce at least four children to protect the religion. Asaram? “Should have called him (rapist) bhaiyya, and he would have left her”? Anjana Om Kashyap (Aajtak)? “You don’t have the ability to even stand at the doorstep of a channel like Aajtak?” Arnab Goswami? “India’s shameful loss to Australia”? Shashi Tharoor? “Cattle class”? Chautala? “Child marriage is a solution to rape?” Rahul Gandhi? “Poverty is a state of mind. It does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty”? Raj Thackery? “Terror attacks in Mumbai have grown due to increase in the population of the north Indians in the city”? Jitender Chhatar? “Consumption of fast food contributes to such incidents (rape). Chow Mein leads to hormonal imbalance evoking an urge to indulge in such acts.”? Sriprakash Jaiswal? “An old
victory, like a wife of many years, loses its charm over time”? Ajit Pawar? “Should we urinate in dams if there is no water”?
The audience for the proposed book, you see, is wide and has been largely identified. It comes from varied backgrounds and meets on the common ground of pompous self importance and an unimaginable confidence in its own limited perspective and intellect. A belief that the louder you speak, the more you speak, the better you are. A feeling that the more arrogant you are the more socially upward you are perceived. And an inherent tendency of commenting on almost everything in the Milky Way.
This book has the potential of becoming a best seller. A good, crisp read with a cup of chai. And a thoughtful gift to say your Mun ki Baat.
And guess what? This book, we can, ‘Make in India’!
