(Raj First) Can’t believe it, 20 years since I communicated with you all directly. Remember the thrashing I got at ‘Apta’ railway station near Bombay, which was actually 1,700 kms from Punjab, where all the action was supposed to take place!. But that is make-believe for you. Both I and Simran are happy, you guys still remember us and hopefully the Big Hearted shall win the Bride in the future too. But with khap panchayats around, will that be possible? We keep on shuttling between London and Punjab and I agree with Dad that vilayati sanskriti is better than Punjabi or desi. Look at the scars I still carry.
(Simran Takes Over) Love, desi or vilayati, is pure and strong, keeps the world going. Pappaji toh ooper chale gaye, I hope he will support romances in various parts of heaven. You see, despite 20 years in London, he would not believe any culture was superior to India’s. In London, he regularly fed the pigeons at Trafalgar but maintained they were nothing compared to those in Punjab. Of course, he almost had Raj thrashed to death. His memory was short, he returned to London, resumed his grocery business and continued to talk about Bharatiya sanskriti.
(Back to Raj) But India is bad luck for me. This time, I was sitting outside the reserved section of the Rajdhani Express coach and I called out to Simran, “Senorita, senorita.” Some 6-7 toughies armed with lathis surrounded and abused me for talking in German. Didn’t they know ‘senorita’ was not German? Didn’t I know that the Modi government had banned German in India and replaced it with Sanskrit? One of the toughies poured water on me and forced me to recite shlokas from the Gita, which is the new national scripture of India. Rather scary, yaaar!
Simran: Trouble is always second nature to Raj. I enjoyed coming to India during the wedding season. In London, popular songs go on changing but in Punjab and Delhi, it is still “Mehendi lagake rakhna” and “Dekha to ye jaana sanam” and so on at all weddings. In our time, Kadwa Chowth was a simple affair, but now in Punjab and Delhi people spend millions of rupees. Who says India is poor?
Raj: We have been running for 1,000 weeks, very soon, our statues will be erected in Delhi and Punjab. We are also learning so many new things. Do you know that originally Saif was to play me!! Ho, in that case does anyone think the film would have run for even 1,000 hours?
Simran: Time to end the diary. We have to go meet Aditya Chopra and Rani and go for darshan at the Maratha mandir. The press is already there. And Raj, don’t start dancing there.
The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 [AT] gmail [DOT] com
