Karan 2

I know my post regarding Karan was excessive. Without actually reading a single page of his book and knowing the guy, I made broad sweeping statements - some of which have already been proven wrong.
More than malafide intentions, it comes from a stream of radical comedy i believe in - mastered by Carlin and Pryor - of politically-incorrect, over-the-top, tasteless generalizations just to make a point heard. I think it's much more needed in our country, where the mainstream corruption and mediocrity have entered the national psyche so deeply that we have even stopped realizing that.
An example is the intellectuals highlighting the list of achievements of NorthIndians in Bombay. Just by doing that they are acknowledging the right of a beat-up politician, propped by his dynasty and little else, to launch a violent ethnic attack on unsuspecting people struggling to make a living.
Who the fuck is Raj Thackrey to question anyone? A hair on the asshole of his patron that got shat away in the last elections. How can anyone question the rights of any citizen to his own country? It reminds me on the dialogue from Hey Ram where Kamala tells Shahrukh to go back to where he has come from and Shahrukh replies tersely – “Mere mulk se mujhe nikaalne waale tum kaun hote ho?”
Butcher this guy - lampoon him - and make jests about how he's really pissed coz he was buggered by a Bihari kid in a sulabh sauchalya. Make claims as outrageous as his, it can never be worse than the violence he manufactured. Take him seriously and you're giving him power.In fact, the scene of an unsuspecting LT passenger is reason enough for twenty years of incarceration for RT - and I am not going overthetop here. Our everyday inviolable rights are like the lady on a DTC bus – no one has the right to touch them. Period.

Unfortunately, we’ve forgotten that. We’re loud, cock-sure coz we know we’re standing over a pile of shit and we don’t want to look down. It’s time we start asking us some tough questions.

And I believe that the best weapon is humor – tasteless, irreverent and loud – questioning the limits we have set for ourselves on what can be said and what cannot; exposing the everyday hypocrisies of our lives.
Sometimes, you need to keep slapping a person to bring it to senses. Likewise for nations.

What vexed me was that KB was not a RT. I was doing the broad generalization against a guy who was nothing like RT and whose only sin was the employment of a shamelessly deceitful mean to promote his book; though only a subtle one.
Amit tells me that he is a "placecommer, top 10, P&G PPO kinda crap". For the non-IIM guys, that means a BigSwingingDick (BSD), at least in IIM jargon (a jargon some of us don't give much credit to). But all said and done, KB is an achiever, who also managed to get a book published. Laudable - not many of us have the patience and application to do that - at least, the person in this room hasn't.

But if this is so, my frustration is aggravated.All the more reason that Karan didn't really have to do this. He should have the guts, the confidence to be willing to be judged on merit alone. He has the privileges of talent and achievement to show the way; instead he’s resorting to shameless and deceitful self-promotions. I would believe that his need to write a book emanates from a need to find a bigger truth in himself, just for the sake of himself. Money would not be the issue – he is not starving. His book might still be a good read but if I, a chef at a restaurant you’ve walked into, come out of the kitchen holding the dish you ordered under wraps, telling you to just have it since I went to IIM once and got an Aditya Birla school, what’s your first take on my cooking skills?
There is an artist – temperamental and pure; and there is a bhaand.
Of course, it is KB’s call where he wants to stand.The reclusive, eclectic PankajKapoor vs. the dancing at the wedding, anything for an extra soundbyte Shahrukh Khan – the king of self-promotion.
But Shahrukh is in an industry known to favour only star-sons – he’s clawed his way up.
What’s your story, KB? Why do you feel the need to spam like those mails promising me an extra 4”? Why do you want to taint the purity of your writing aspirations with a lie? You never did see what my friend’s reading list was, right? So, you lied. Period.

Can the most basic ethical system of truth and lies be subverted in the name of marketing?
Am I old-fashioned if I call KB’s mail and the email telling me that I have been chosen from 1lakh people to receive a personal loan – lies?
Isn't a lie anything contrary to facts stated despite the knowledge of facts?
Or have the marketing gurus found another jargon for that too?