Selective Amnesia There was a point to this. But I forgot.

Dear The New Indian Express

I am a Tam-brahm. Why wasn’t I asked to write a column?

Thank you,

Chandrachoodan “Iyer” Gopalakrishnan

Jallikattu

I am going to (I’m not kidding) file a suit against the Supreme Court of India for hurting the religious and cultural sentiments of the Tamils.

Rant: Let nouns be nouns. Verbs, adverbs and adjectives too

Dear people who use words indiscriminately,

Please do not coin words because your vocabulary fails you. There is language enough. Connect is a verb. Do not use it as a noun. There is a word, connection. ‘Operationalise’ is stupid whether you spell it with an ess or a zed.

There is a word, terror; there is a word, terrify. Wherefore terrorise (with an ess or a zed)?

Thank you.
Lalita

Mukesh Ambani’s house

Dear Sheelah and few other journalists,

Yes. It is a big house. And yes, it’s calculated to fuck your senses. So?
And oh, leave the guy do what he is good at, no? Why fucking care about disparity and simmering class conflict? Why compare to the Tatas?
How many times will I have to read the growth-not-yet-growth and the seventy-percent-of-indians-in-poverty lines on a story about India? Any fucking story? Sports, films, business, Internet, healthcare, sex, education and how many more are they? If you need help coming up with a new cliche, let me know. I have some experience in the field.

Thank you, and please, again, let the man do what he wants to, no?

C

A lesson in English

Dear Ignoramus I overheard in the mall today,

Please learn something. Take it to heart, and never ever forget this. You cope.

You can clean up, mop up, sweep up, or keep up. You can eat up, drink up, and light up if you don’t care for your health. You can soup your car up. You can wind your clock up. You can back your files up. You can wash up after you cook. You can keep up with the current events. You can dry up if you run out of ideas.

You don’t cope up. You cope.

Thank you.

Lalita

FM radio in Dubai is as asinine as it is in Madras

There are a lot of FM radio channels here in Dubai. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. Let’s get the good one out of the way first. A morning show, called ‘English breakfast, desi ma’am.’ (Pronounced mayem) by RJ Kritika. Her voice. And her laugh.

Now to the bad one.

An afternoon show. I have no idea what it is called. And don’t want to. The entire show is, apparently, about mushy, feely love songs. In Hindi. Which is enough to condemn the show forever to the fourth level of hell. But what follows is even, um, better.
There’s an RJ, obviously. He believes in speaking in a deep, manly voice. Except, it’s very hard to be manly when one’s speaking through one’s hat. And, if that weren’t enough, there are the callers.
Here’s how the show works. People send in mails/letters with their love/relationship issues. And this letter is read out to the whole world. Or, well, the part of the world that’s tuned in. With the sender’s name. Sparing no details.
Then the callers come in. The RJ asks each caller what the sender of the mail should do.

That’s right. Some arbit dude puts fundaes on some other arbit dude’s love life. And the RJ prompts him. And goads him/her. MTV Loveline, minus Malaika and Cyrus, multiplied by loads of stupidity.

Enough to make me puke my lunch out. Which’s a pity. They make good malai-koftas here.

On usages

Need to save Tirupati from the gults.
Need to save bharatanatyam from the tam-brams
Need to save ideology from the philosopher
Need to save Selective Amnesia from me

I now realise the whole attraction Tirupati has for people. It’s like sex, only a little less fulfilling. You wait and wait for 5 hours, for two seconds of movement. There’s wet skin brushing against wet skin. There’s pushing through tight openings. And then, there’s a 5 second window in which you (try to) achieve the whole objective. And by now, you are spent. And sweaty.—Middle class (in Madras, that’s predominantly Tam-bram) values and bharatanatyam don’t mix. For fuck’s sake, where is the sensuousness? Where’s the erotic? Where’s the whole sexual tension when Radha is seeking Krishna? Or when Bhaarathi says “Ninnaye Rathiyendru ninaikindren”? Please, if you do insist on dancing the Bharatanatyam, learn to be a little more evocative. Praying to Ganapati is only fun the first 15,967 times.

Tirupati | bharatanatyam | middle class | tamil brahmin |