Add one part AC and one part Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Mix well, plagiarize liberally, and try not to try too hard. And voila…
Note on characters: Deepak and Varun are two nondescript desi guys in New Jersey, in their late 20s.
Varun: Chandramukhi Baba says, ‘These days unnecessary things are our only necessities.’
Deepak: I thought that was Oscar Wilde.
Varun: The British steal all our best lines. Anyway, he is referring to the transient nature of material possessions, and encouraging their immediate acquisition in the interest of achieving inner peace. I think it makes a lot of sense, actually.
Deepak: All that religious talk gives me a headache. So, anyway, what happened last night?
Varun: With Smiti? Yaar… what can I say? (smiling, smug)
Deepak: Really? Man, you seem to have really hit the jackpot with this ApniShaadi thing.
Varun: I know. A different kuri every week! Too bad you gave up the game, married guy. This internet thing is fantastic.
Deepak: I don’t miss it. I actually don’t think I could be happier. Incidentally, how do you work it?
Varun: How do I work what?
Deepak: I mean, the desi scene in New Jersey isn’t that big. Aren’t you worried you’re going to run into some girl from the Bridgewater mandir on one of these dates?
Varun: Oh — different names. On the internet I’m Arjun.
Deepak: Arjun, huh? Nice. And the picture?
Varun: It’s called Photoshop, dude. Arjun has a big nose and puffy cheeks…
Deepak: And no zits, presumably? Don’t the girls notice that?
Varun: No, definitely no zits. And they don’t say anything, ’cause all their pics are doctored too.
Deepak: I like my system better.
Varun: I know, it’s crazy. You must be the only guy to have met the girl of his dreams on an arranged marriage date in some remote village in central Punjab…
Deepak: Word — but you know, it was time to pull the plug. I was tired of the bars, the soul-killing NETIP scene, the websites… I was even tired of having to fork over $100 a week just to get my hair done by some puffed up dude who calls himself a “stylist.”
Varun: Hey, I like Jorge. As Chandramukhi says, ‘Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.’ What’s $100 if you end up with hair as good as mine? (runs hand through hair) But don’t forget the most important thing: you were tired of your mom calling every five minutes…
Deepak: …With the email of some random desi girl studying dentistry in Iowa, yeah, that too. But really, it was just time to roll the dice, and say, ‘it’s going to just be this one girl, no more waffling.’
Varun: You don’t miss being single? The thrill of the chase?
Deepak: Let me put it this way: my sex life has never been better. What about you? Don’t you get tired of lying to all these girls?
Varun: Lying, who’s lying? As Chandramukhi says, ‘Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.’ Actually I sometimes think I’m more myself when I’m Arjun. I’m so bored with just being Varun.
Deepak: Wait, isn’t that Oscar Wilde again?
Varun: What’s with all the Oscar Wilde? And hey, is your cousin sister coming over tonight?
Deepak: Gayatri? You still have the hots for Gayatri?
To be continued, possibly. (Along these lines)
Genius. Why didn’t anyone think of this before? I heart AC, and his unbelievably drrrty mind.
Oh, and I heart Oscar for doing the gay with such wit.
Thanks Prof. Who needs the Village Voice when they’ve got Shaadi?
All we need now is for someone to do a remix of Jai and Henry James: “Portrait of Weatish Lady.” Pure sub-clause heaven.
Mr. K., I might have to defer from that task — I think I already have a reputation for rather over-long posts!
All I gotta say is, you better find a nice desi equivalent for ‘Bunburying’, else I’ll never forgive you for trying to take on my favorite piece of literary work.
howling
Oh, rare! 🙂 Love it.
And to AC – Totolal? Heeeeee!
Portrait of a Wheatish Lady
Chapter 1
UNDER certain circumstances, and I apologize if I’ve said this before, but one needs to be very clear about these things (as anyone who’s been reading this forum for a while knows) there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated (at least in the UK, though the same may apply to the US as well, whether or not the desis there relate to the dominant culture in the same way or not) to the ceremony known as afternoon chai. There are circumstances in which, to a certain extent, whether you partake of the tea or not—some people of course never do, and this is a perfectly understandable response—the situation is in itself delightful and absolutely matches my own personal experience. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history-though the word “simple” obviously has nothing to do with the color of your skin”- offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast, not to mention a few idlis, some pakoras, and various assorted vegetarian snacks, had been disposed upon the lawn of an old country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon, or the moment foreshadowing the coming evening or, I could say, both. Part of the afternoon had waned, but — and yes I know I’m preaching to the converted, but hear me out — much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality (though some people might want to debate the nature of this quality, etc…, and I don’t really think it should be such a big deal, but these things can’t be said often enough/clarified so that there’s no possibility of confusion). Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf, and a certain tendency to perpetuate unthinking stereotypes was beginning to make itself felt in certain corners of the Indian community.
Methinks a new trend has developed, here on the Mutiny!
cute idea… in the spirit of haiku fridays – it begs for classics desified in one’s own style – that is, if one had a style…
hmmm. i can see gautham doing “The Ravan” or manju doing “the crepes of rath vanaspathi ghee” … but lots of potential here. i would probably do “Ulhaas” – suits my writing style 🙂 (hey! it’s good to think big).
You know, my first words every were “Gayathri”.. can you believe that?
Speaking of which, if you are interested in another hilarious perspective of arranged marriages written by a sardar professor. Check this out. It was a legend back in the days before the www. It was written by this gent.
Methinks Amardeep invited us over for Raitha, but ate it all before we arrived.
I’m so glad someone picked up on the AC geniusness! The post where he describes his phone convo with Pinky is the shiz 🙂
Long live the Pinkyness
Mr. K: amazing. Standing ovation from the peanut gallery!
But why focus on just Wilde? Whimsical, to be sure, but there are so many other authors’ works that should be adapted to this style, though most reflect the desi fascination with food. I refer, of course, to Buntu S. Thakkarsen’s culinary masterwork about royalty, “Paneer and Roti with Das Begum.” Or how about Raman Karva’s amazingly epic short story about fast food spreading from the streets of Manhattan, “Khati’ed Roll.” Or Ram Dishan’s touching courtroom drama about a misunderstood and misrepresented (and underinsured) street vendor, “The Paanmaker.”
So much fodder, so little time.
Kobayashi-San,
Re: #7
Wonderfully amusing post. I didnÂ’t see any references to those wheatish ladies you mischievously alluded to, which was certainly a grave disappointment; nevertheless, it gladdened the heart of this old Colonial hand and reminded me of a conversation I had with the Nawab at the local Residency earlier today while we were watching our respective Memsahibs play croquet on the front lawn.
First of all, I tip my turban to you regarding your joke about “sub-clauses” (I should have listened to my father and become a lawyer, instead of joining this nasty overseas conquering and pillaging malarkey). These things are apparently necessary in the gentleman’s club that is Sepia Mutiny, in order to pre-empt the usual fist-shaking harridans arriving on the scene with their strawman arguments. Ah, such nostalgia for the time when all a lady of good breeding would do in these situations would be to silently lower her gaze and then bitch about you behind your back for the next three days in the zenana. You see what happens when you allow the gentler sex to invade the hallowed halls of our club, which was once such a quiet refuge for tired imperial types to discuss weighty matters of the world over brandy and cigars and sherry and cigars and more brandy.
Arranged marriages ? Understandable if one is living according to the purdah system, where the only glimpse one would get of a beautiful woman before marriage would be a well-turned ankle under the burkha, those heavily-kohled eyes which are as dark as the night and just as enticing, those elegant long fingers with the French Tips which beckon one so alluringly, that tongue-piercing seductively clicking inside her mouth as she smiles. However, one has to wonder if it was always enforced as stringently as one might assume, considering that around the Year of Our Lord 1800, about 1/3 of all British men on the subcontinent were living with an Indian woman, and large numbers of us had taken on the ways, clothes, and habits of your venerable ancestors; some even changed their own religion. We were happily integrating and assimilating all over the place. Of course, some of our more dubious compatriots later decided to integrate and assimilate India itself into our Empire. Frightful business.
“Perhaps it’s time we civilised the natives”, I recall one unsavoury fellow remarking. “Good Lord”, I spluttered, nearly spilling my drink. “Perhaps we should civilise ourselves first !”
Anyway, I must turn my attention back to these lovely fillies blushing under their parasols. One twirl from my moustache and they burst right out of their corsets, donÂ’t you know.
Thanks for seeing the funny side of it Jai. Not everyone’s mature enough to tolerate parody. (and given #15 above, you parody yourself better than anyone else ever could…)
The amazing thing, though, was that I hardly needed to add anything to my piece because Henry James already sounds a lot like you. As comma succeeded comma, and dependent clause gave way to dependent clause, I found myself chuckling so hard it hurt.
Such a bloody plagiarizer, yaar, that Henry.
Back to Wilde: his hilarious, pun-and-wink-laden plots and his obsession with the social interactions between men and women would actually make a really good independent Indian film. Maybe our AC should hook up with Mira Nair for the next project…
As comma succeeded comma, and dependent clause gave way to dependent clause, I found myself chuckling so hard it hurt.
Good job Mr. Kobayashi, you had me laughing, and I’m not surprised you would “satirize” Henry James, given that his elegant gaze never veered off to the (apparently hillarious) scatalogical, favored by Rev. Swift.
And Jai is still the nano-champ – peerless, actually. It takes a real writer to be able to bloviate at will and then recalibrate his entire cognitive framework to come up with “epics written on a matchbook” as someone once said of someone else I think.
LOL! Funtastic stuff, Prof. A, Mr. K, and Jai! Since hairy_d has already appropriated “Ulhaas”, maybe I should throw my hat into the ring as well, and attempt to do “Main-bhi Dick”. “Call me Ishwar (or Ismail or Bunty?) tonight”.
AC is hilarious and his posts here aswellas on his blog have me in splits.
11 · Quizman, brilliant link!!
I should also point to the series of posts Ramesh Mahadevan wrote (mainly from the perspective of a desi PhD/grad student) back in the days of Soc.Culture.Indian bulliten board, on the issue of arranged marriages, and desi marriage in general: Mrs. Palvayanteeswaran Contest, Mating Patterns Of Certain Homosapien Desicus Males, and Marriages are Made in Heaven.
Shashi,
Indeed. In fact, Ramesh has begun to blog this year after moving back to India. mahadevan-ramesh.blogspot.
Amardeep – awesome ! i don’t deserve your Wildean treatment, but i’ll take what i can get!
(but if the rest of yous – the seedy Mr. K included – think that a few kind words will get you closer to my divulging the “Pinky After Dark” collection then THINK AGAIN…pervs! uff!)
So there really is a Pinky? Sigh.
amardeep…wow!…i wish u were more aksar wild…. 🙂
amardeep, You need to make a “Goodness Gracious Me” vid.
Colonial Jai, Spectacularly brilliant!
Thank you all so much for your kind words in response to my little anecdote. How perfectly gracious of you.
“Bahadur Singh — Bring some tea for everyone, would you, there’s a good chap. And by tea, I mean coffee. And by coffee, I mean the Irish variety.”
AC, Mr. Kobayashi, Amardeep, Jai (or Colonial), thanks for your witty humor! Makes my day a bit brighter.
Umm . . . this is hitting . . . way too close to home . . .
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a profile. This should surprise nobody who knows me well, but my personality when I have a moustache is totally different from my personality when I have don’t. These two said personalities are again completely different from my personality when I have a beard. So I have always felt totally entitled to create multiple profiles. Did you know that the guy with the Salvador Dali mustache and interest in romance poetry and model airplanes is, in fact, the exact same person as the one with a goattee and an interest in NASCAR and pickup soccer? Not until Google Romance have I had the chance to use a site which allows upload of said profiles quickly and efficiently. Thank you, Google Romance.