Some pages of this secret diary are torn. That is only natural because I am still in a state of rage. How can I be accused of rowdy behaviour and manhandling an old man? My girlfriend Bebo and close friend Malaika, in front-page newspaper articles, called me a “thorough gentleman, who would never get into a brawl when women were present”. Of course, some half-a-dozen times in the past, I was involved in brawls...but always in a gentlemanly manner. What upset me at Wasabi restaurant that day was the guy seated next to our table muttering something nasty about agents, presumably secret agents. I heard him say, “Ha, to hell with agents, 007 is nothing but 000.”
To add insult to injury, he ordered a brandy martini with no slice of lemon, shaken or stirred!
Now, we agents, Vinod or Bond, stick together and I was provoked. Mind you, for the past eight months I was under training to be Agent Vinod, learnt many new martial arts not only in India but also Vietnam. My trainer told me I would have made an excellent Viet Cong guerrilla and would have driven out the Americans much earlier. Initially I did not know about this ‘Viet Cong’ and almost bashed up my trainer for comparing me to King Kong.
But why were the South Africans so concerned about us making noise? Ask any page 3 journalist. Our table manners were so perfect the only noise that came from our table was the cutlery clashing. If that could offend the South Africans, they should not enter a restaurant.
My nawabi family never made any noises at the dinner table. Papa was strict on this issue, a couple of times I was sent to my room without dessert (‘gaajar halwa’) for slurping my soup. Bebo, Lolo, Dobo and the others in our party wrote of how I was hugely respectful to elders. Will the ‘Munni badnaam hui’ artiste ever tell lies? Against this you hear lies from a small-time actress who appeared in some dubious films? Didn’t she know anything about ‘star value’? How can this dame accuse me of ticking off her male escorts to “@#$% off to a library if we wanted peace and silence”. This was a total lie because neither I nor Bebo had ever been inside a library and hence do not know if it would be peaceful or noisy! How dare this woman say that male members in her family were familiar with only Amitabh Bachchan and possibly Shahrukh Khan? That kind of ignorance needed to be punished and now they will remember this Khan!
While I have been busy with Agent Vinod, the other Khans were making news. Good friend Salman, who’s always supported me, did so here too. Shahrukh hit headlines when he bashed up Farah’s husband. In a way I am grateful to Iqbal Sharma for giving me a shot in the limelight. I hit old men only when I am provoked and I never start a fight when women are present. I saw to it they ran away from the scene before starting the fireworks. That is my nawabi tradition.
The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’
Email your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com
