Not one to read up my news like a good Mumbaikar ought to on my daily commute towards the workplace, I missed out on the Great War being waged over a Mr. ST’s ‘cattle class’ tweets and the indignant horror from the all-encompassing guardian deities of that great , ‘Indian Culture’ or IC. What finally caught my attention were the two (not one, but two!) articles, one filed in at 0252hrs IST (!) and the other at 0836 hrs IST in today’s Economic Times. For the benefit of the other daily ignoramuses like me, Mr. ST had seemingly insulted the sentiments of the thousands of Indians who take pride in being able to eat their mini idlis in sambar piping hot some 10,000 ft. in the air by tweeting something about cattle class and holy cows and his solidarity with the same.
First came the howl about the ‘cattle class’ when some vigilant rakshak noticed the slur on our precious, precious holy cows and thus, led to the filing of the aforementioned reports. This brought back to me the entire hullabaloo over a certain Hindi movie and its title when the ‘Hairdressers’ Association of Mumbai’ had to be given premier passes to the movie as appeasement and a word had to be blacked out as it once again, was an insult to the thousands of Indians who take pride in being able to shear the mighty Indian Moustache daily (I am still trying to figure out the exact machinations involved in the slur cast and yet, failing miserably). Since clearly, it is supposed to be against the very ethos of the IC for a profession to get a mention (and there was me thinking all this while that the only thing an honourable bharitya naari should never mention was her husband’s name), should I not be staging a protest and asking for the time honoured method of blacking out the words ‘investment banker’ from the headlines of every newspaper worth its penny spewing out diatribes against those greedy I-bankers?
So going by antecedents set by those guardians of the great IC, I should ask for (big black blot) (big black blot) by Sarah Macdonald at my friendly neighbourhood (big black blot), sue every white skinned man who exclaims ‘Holy (big black blot)!’ as an alternative to taking a certain name in vain, vilify the (big black blot) if he is late with my dinner order and cuss at the (big black blot) if he refuses to ply his auto at my request. Sigh! All hail the great Indian Culture!
