Count the stars

On top of India’s list of people worthy of worship are film stars. Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan are the presiding deities. There is a whole gamut of lesser gods or goddesses to whom people also light agarbattis. Next to film stars come cricketers: Tendulkar, Kumble, Ganguly, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Sehwag, Gambhir, Zaheer, Irfan (have I missed anyone?). They don’t make quite as much money as the film actors do, but earn handsomely nevertheless. Men and women wept when Ganguly and Kumble announced their retirement from Test cricket. But other sportsmen don’t count as much — neither Leander Paes, nor Mahesh Bhupathi nor the pretty Sania Mirza who could have as easily made it in the film world as in Tennis. Footballers, wrestlers, boxers are largely ignored.

The third most-worshipped are godmen and godwomen who think they deserve to be worshipped. Many like Sai Baba, Asaram Bapu, Amritanand Mayi Ma, Murari Bapu, Kripaluji Maharaj and Ram Rahim Singh have hundreds and thousands of followers in India and abroad. Though averse to all forms of religiosity, I admit that most of them also run hospitals and schools. They also ignore caste divisions. I admire some of them.That is just about all I have on my list of the worship-worthy.

I have also noted down professions which are looked upon with disdain, fear or disgust. The first that comes to mind is politics. We make politicians our leaders, and then we start criticizing them as liars and untrustworthy. We have little right to pass such judgment. But we do it. Lawyers come next. In their case too, we hire them and then grumble that they fleece us. In any case, lawyers have never been loved. Akbar Ilahabadi called them “sons of Satan”. By general consensus, the least loved of all professions is that of the police. They have a very difficult job to do — power of the law in one hand, a danda in the other. The lower ranks of the police are filled with the most corrupt elements. They inspire fear and loathing. But still, we cannot do without them. More so now, when the number of people who think they are above the law has grown beyond proportions. It is time the police take them in custody. If they manage to do so, we may change our minds and put the police in the category of the worship-worthy.

Butterfly effect

Moni Mohsin is a Lahori; a Pakistani living in London with her doctor husband and two children. Some months ago I reviewed her novel, The End of Innocence, in glowing terms. I was then not aware that she also wrote a popular column for Friday Times published from Lahore by her brother-in-law, Najam Sethi. A selection of her articles has now been published in India: The Diary of a Social Butterfly. It is written in a khichdee language, mixing Angrezi and Urdu, hugely popular for its social comments and catty asides on members of her close-knit family, mainly her husband, whom she calls “Jaanoo”. It makes a delightful, light-hearted reading which will make your sides split with laughter. I give a few instances. About her conversion to Gandhism, she says, “Life is over. The Indians have gone back. The parties have ended. There is no more cricket and no more matches. There’s nothing to do and nowhere to go. But I’m so spired [sic] by our neighbours’ big-big planes that I’ve decided to become Indian also. I’m going to get thalis, wear saris, become a vegetarian and put that red stuff in my partition. I’m also chucking my ‘Fear & Lovely’ because The Look is all dark-dark. My mission in life is to be just like all my next best friends across the border. I’ve even started speaking like them.

“When people say to me why I have started doing all this, I reply, ‘Because I am like that only.’

“I told Janoo that I’m working on a complete transportation! ‘Transformation, you mean,’ he scoffed.

“‘Whatever’, I said softly, soothingly. I am a peacenik like Bapu. Oho, Gandhi, you know, Mohtrama, like him I won’t argue. I won’t shout. Just do quiet, peaceful opposition.”

Again, this from her maid-servant answering her call while she was in the bathroom: “Mulloo called up yesterday after lunch. Shanaz picked up the phone and when Mulloo asked, ‘Begum Sahib kya kar rahi hain?’, she replied, ‘Voh paat par bethi, su-su-kar rahin hain.’ Imagine!! I heard her with my own ears from the bathroom. I nearly had a ceasefire — sorry, I mean seizure. Honestly, these people are so crude! So I charged out of the bathroom like a heat-seeking missile and, grabbing her by the wrist, hissed: ‘How many times I’ve told you that if someone calls and I’m in the bathroom, you are to say that I’m taking a shower.’

“‘But you weren’t taking a shower, you were doing su-su, I could hear it through the door!’ she whined. I’m never doing su-su or anything else on the pot. I never sit on the pot. I only ever take a shower or wash my hands. Yes, you can say I’m doing vuzoo for namaaz if Sahib’s mother calls. But I’m never doing su-su. Never, ever !! And then I sacked her.”

A show for all

IPL took birth in the cricketing world,
Joyous batsmen thrashed the poor bowlers,
Lalit Modi shook hands with Zinta, SRK,
Ambani and Mallya flaunted their dollars.
Set Max TRPs got to Max high,
Charu was told, “Boy you are fired!”
Foreign players became so ‘paisa vasools’
Warnie royal showed he’s not retired.

It is the Indian Paisa League,
Jannat for our cricket geeks,
Bikini-cricket for many
Yet — money maker uncanny.

(Contributed by Parth Adhikari, Janakpuri, Delhi)