I’m Fofatlal, and don’t you forget it

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Hi there!

Fofatlal Popatlal, Esq., at your service

The folks at the Mutiny in their infinite wisdom have finally chosen a new permanent blogger. I was buffing Salman Rushdie’s cuticles the other day — oh yes, he’s quite the dandy, don’t let the jacket photo fool you — when up rolled a black Honda Civic with a metallic Ganesh on the dashboard. Two brown valets built like linebackers emerged and silently unveiled their cargo. Inside there was a hard-looking guy in a pink tutu and a flattop. Instead of a moll, this guy had fourteen. They crammed into the back seat, sitting on laps, alternating like checker squares, and my personal favorite, the layover. After the molls disembarked, the guy in the tutu put on a headlamp with high-lumen LEDs. All of us were agape. The guy in the tutu looked coolly at me, snapped his fingers and incanted these magic words: ‘O no you di’nt!’ Then the big boss, the molls and the linebackers squeezed in and rolled away.

Three days later a strange transformation came over me. From dawn to dusk I had an uncontrollable urge to spew my thoughts about everything: current events, movies, bowel movements. At first I jotted down my thoughts hurriedly in red and blue, but I soon realized that out of one pen flowed only truth and out of the other only lies. In desperation I downed a fifth of Black Label and passed out drooling on my laptop keyboard. When I awoke I found that I had been typing frantically in my sleep. It was all half-baked gibberish which posted itself on the Internets.

You know what happened next. The Mutineers knew I was a perfect fit. I could no longer fluff Salman’s combover between bouts of obsessive blogging, so he fired me over the phone from South America. Padma left him for me because I had bigger glasses and he was too self-effacing.

One day the earth opened up and swallowed her whole. It all came out in the investigation: the mole-men operating the mole-machines drilling the last big tunnel in New York. In a city of fury, the gods must be appeased. The last instant of her life was captured by a photojournalist who happened by, a stricken Medusa-haired goddess teetering on heels, the pavement rent behind her. That photograph is all I have, a sepia-tinted fame, a palimpsest of privacy, her final words my name:

F-f-f-fofatlal!

16 thoughts on “I’m Fofatlal, and don’t you forget it”

  3. Does anybody else find this a bit weird? And I kinda hoped SM’s next full timer would be female to redress the balance somewhat!

    What is the meaning of life? Who is fofatlal? Who shot KFC? What is the Matrix? Etc…

  4. with an introductory post like this, how can we NOT be excited? Besides, that shirt rocks.

  5. And we all thought SM couldnÂ’t get any more exciting, welcome fofatlal!!! P.S. Truth be told, I didnt think of it till Bong Breaker brought it up, but now…..It would be nice if there were more female representation on SM!

  6. Cinnamon Rani, yes and no– The way I see it, it takes 6 men (and 2 male guest bloggers) to hold their own against 1 ANNA. She’s fierce, and she’s got bigger balls than many guys 🙂

  8. “Who is fofatlal?”

    Bong Breaker,

    fofatlal = windbag in Hindi, but used more as an affectionate term

    DesiDancer,

    That picture is Rishi Kapoor of Bobby Days

  9. Cinnamon Rani, yes and no– The way I see it, it takes 6 men (and 2 male guest bloggers) to hold their own against 1 ANNA. She’s fierce, and she’s got bigger balls than many guys 🙂

    yo DD… leave us guests out of it! this is some intra-mutiny ish…

  10. I was thinking more along the lines of J.T. LeRoy. Fofatlal is really the mysterious Ennis in a wig and dark glasses and is the brainchild of Manish. I plan on doing some sort of NY times style expose. Proof so far: 1. Manish has blogged about Fofatlal before. 2. We have never seen Ennis’s face 3. Way too many in jokes 4. Like J.T. LeRoy, Fofatlal claims to have celebrity friends….. Fear not Mutineers, Fofatlal shall be exposed! 😛

  11. Ummm… Jo thinks Fofatlal shall be exposed on 4/1/06.

  12. Someone call Professor Donald Foster, or maybe the truth is here…

    True or False:

    Fofatlal once managed a call-center like the character he once played?

    Fofatlal dooesn’t care about brown people?

    Fofatlal once interned at Stardust during its Salad Days?

    Fofatlal watched Baywatch on bootleg satelite cable while millions watched The Ramayana on Doordarshan?

    Fofatlal is The One?

  16. Whatever happened to our favorite windbag? His posts had became increasingly infrequent and now his graceful mug has unceremoniously disappeared from the list of bloggers; on behalf of my fellow mutineers, I demand an explanation! Like Manish, has he left for browner pastures? Or did he pull an Apul and run off to join the circus? Inquiring minds want to know!

    Or a simple acknowledgement of his departure will suffice. You know, whatever.