Society

‘Sethji’

My lawyer told me I should ‘soo’ <i>Outlook</i>. I’ll do one better. I’ll go to their office and make ‘soo soo’ on the copies.

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‘Sethji’
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Yeh sab kya ho raha hai? Log kahte hain my bahut phamous ho  gaya? Kaise? Idhar udhar pooch liya. Let me continue in angrezi because mujhe angrezi sudhaarne ki zaroorat hai. Suniye, I am told I am now famous in beauty parlours, five-star coffee clubs, murgi parties, page 3 functions and so on. Should I be happy?

I don’t know. For years, no one liked Sethjis in India. Raj Kapoor, Mehboob Khan and others made pots of money but always depicted Sethjis as greedy, immoral, uncouth villains. Humko kaise kaise naam diya in logon ne! Seth Dharamdas, Seth Gadbad Das and so on. The filmwallas became Sethjis themselves but gave us a bad name. Why did they do it...haan, ‘Chochialism’ or something like that.

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Leave the Sethji alone, that is all I ask. Humko badnam karna bahut asaan hai, so everyone does it. Now I have a new avatar, a book character, which is even worse. I am allergic to perfumes, yet am surrounded by the smell of sandalwood paste, rose petals, joss sticks, pure ghee and so on. Poore sharir mein allergy ho jata hai. What is the use of bringing this Amrita? Dekho bhai, Maha Vishnu along with 33 crore devas churned the milky ocean and ‘Amrita’ came out. It was for the sake of mankind, and Sethji too had a taste of it. Kuch bhi likh sakte hain? Aisa affair high society mein nahin hota hai?

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Why should Sethji be disturbed with the news of a rape? Open any newspaper, you read about dozens of rapes...models, actresses, foreign girls, call centre girls and so on. And to disturb Sethji’s maalish session with a rape-cum-assault case! Ha, times have not changed. Who says rape is a serious crime now? How many Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh rape cases have been solved and the gunahgar punished?

So much bakwas about TV anchors grilling me over my kaam as minister of road transport! Rubbish. Yes, I did appear on many channels, mostly hi-fi English. Yeh anchor log kidhar se aate hain, maloom nahin. Sethji cannot follow their English Vinglish. Aur the questions are so long, their shouting is so ear-piercing and before I clear my throat, they jump to the next question. In a way that is good, I don’t have to answer any problem questions. I stopped reading newspapers and magazines, kuchh bhi likh leten hai. Rape, rape ka puraan chalta hi rahta hai. Sethji does not care if ‘bloody Suraj had kept his pecker to himself’. That is his constitutional right, each one to his own pecker.

Sethji ke baare mein bahut galat likha hai. Normally media people asked me my views on economic outlook etc. I put them off because I am interested only in my ‘inlook’, not any ‘outlook’. I am upset Outlook slandered Sethji. My lawyer told me I should ‘soo’ them. I’ll do one better. I’ll go to their office and make ‘soo soo’ on the copies.

The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com

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