Dear Nawab Sa’ab,
I would like to begin with a request. I write in peace. Please do not break my nose after reading this letter. I am aware such a request does not augur well for a correspondence, yet I insist you grant me this small wish before getting on with the rest of the letter. Unnatural. That’s what I thought when I first heard about what had happened at the Taj Colaba with you the other night. I mean can you believe it? Is this for real? Nawab sa’ab, for a few minutes I felt I was transported to a different country, a country with a constitution, a real government with a real police force full of real anally retentive gems.
Frankly, sir, I don’t care who started the fight or which one of you is right. It is not important in my opinion because a brawl is a very natural phenomenon. Agreed, fighting in a five-star hotel is typical Delhi behaviour but still it isn’t unnatural, is it? Talking loudly at a table of 10 isn’t unnatural either and getting annoyed dining near a loud table of 10 is often as normal as getting your nose punched.
You know what is abnormal Nawab sa’ab? The police actually filed an FIR. I can say this because though I am not famous like you, I don’t exactly like to go out and have my cocktail dinner in a library, if you know what I mean, and very often I find myself in situations where instead of trying to figure out who asked whom to grow up and who behaved like an idiot and got what he deserved, the police simply beats up both parties.
Nawab Sa’ab, instead of dividing the people of the country into rich and poor, weak and strong, those that have grown up and those that have not, I think you may like to consider the world as essentially comprising two sets of people: those who can file an FIR and those who cannot.
In an ideal society, a man with a broken nose should rush to a hospital and the police should meet him there, or if the bleeding isn’t so severe, the man should rush to the police station and get the cops to take him to the hospital, or a man with a broken nose should be rescued by the police and then taken to the hospital. In India, a man with a broken nose goes to the hospital and then goes home or, if the bleeding isn’t so severe, goes home straight from the spot of the incident.
Did you file an FIR 18 years ago when the son of the then Delhi Police commissioner thrashed you in full public view for allegedly making a pass at his girlfriend in a nightclub? I was 13 years old. My mother was very upset. She was, and still is, a big fan of your mother and for a long time after you made your debut, she refused to believe you were not a girl. When I was 15, and loved you to bits in Main Khiladi Tu Anari, my friends thought I had a boy crush on you. Obviously, you and the Delhi police commissioner and his son were all equal before the law, why then did you not file a complaint? Perhaps, like Shirish Kunder and me, you too have immense faith in Roman Polanski and no one knows better than you that what happens in Chinatown stays in Chinatown. Today, I am 31 but unfortunately I don’t think I have matured or grown up in your sense of the word. But I will grow up. I have hope in you. At 41, you are the bravest teenager I know.
You know what I think Nawab Sa’ab? I think this county is transforming itself into a no-country-for-ageing teenagers. I know what it feels like because I am an ageing teenager. Just think about it: Here you are, a brilliant chartered accountant or a businessman or a financial analyst with flashy teeth, basically a nobody, sitting with your boring wife and your stupid children having dinner at an expensive diner, tearing into the most expensive flesh money can buy wondering when you will financially evolve enough to be able to buy a decent conversation at a bar when a loud stream of consciousness, drunken perhaps, stabs the anxious joyless silence on your table, and, makes you aware for the first time that evening that at the helm of the next table occupied by as many as 10 people, sits your favourite celebrity.
What do you think will happen next, Nawab Sa’ab?
I would like to begin with a request. I write in peace. Please do not break my nose after reading this letter. I am aware such a request does not augur well for a correspondence, yet I insist you grant me this small wish before getting on with the rest of the letter. Unnatural. That’s what I thought when I first heard about what had happened at the Taj Colaba with you the other night. I mean can you believe it? Is this for real? Nawab sa’ab, for a few minutes I felt I was transported to a different country, a country with a constitution, a real government with a real police force full of real anally retentive gems.
Frankly, sir, I don’t care who started the fight or which one of you is right. It is not important in my opinion because a brawl is a very natural phenomenon. Agreed, fighting in a five-star hotel is typical Delhi behaviour but still it isn’t unnatural, is it? Talking loudly at a table of 10 isn’t unnatural either and getting annoyed dining near a loud table of 10 is often as normal as getting your nose punched.
You know what is abnormal Nawab sa’ab? The police actually filed an FIR. I can say this because though I am not famous like you, I don’t exactly like to go out and have my cocktail dinner in a library, if you know what I mean, and very often I find myself in situations where instead of trying to figure out who asked whom to grow up and who behaved like an idiot and got what he deserved, the police simply beats up both parties.
Nawab Sa’ab, instead of dividing the people of the country into rich and poor, weak and strong, those that have grown up and those that have not, I think you may like to consider the world as essentially comprising two sets of people: those who can file an FIR and those who cannot.
In an ideal society, a man with a broken nose should rush to a hospital and the police should meet him there, or if the bleeding isn’t so severe, the man should rush to the police station and get the cops to take him to the hospital, or a man with a broken nose should be rescued by the police and then taken to the hospital. In India, a man with a broken nose goes to the hospital and then goes home or, if the bleeding isn’t so severe, goes home straight from the spot of the incident.
Did you file an FIR 18 years ago when the son of the then Delhi Police commissioner thrashed you in full public view for allegedly making a pass at his girlfriend in a nightclub? I was 13 years old. My mother was very upset. She was, and still is, a big fan of your mother and for a long time after you made your debut, she refused to believe you were not a girl. When I was 15, and loved you to bits in Main Khiladi Tu Anari, my friends thought I had a boy crush on you. Obviously, you and the Delhi police commissioner and his son were all equal before the law, why then did you not file a complaint? Perhaps, like Shirish Kunder and me, you too have immense faith in Roman Polanski and no one knows better than you that what happens in Chinatown stays in Chinatown. Today, I am 31 but unfortunately I don’t think I have matured or grown up in your sense of the word. But I will grow up. I have hope in you. At 41, you are the bravest teenager I know.
You know what I think Nawab Sa’ab? I think this county is transforming itself into a no-country-for-ageing teenagers. I know what it feels like because I am an ageing teenager. Just think about it: Here you are, a brilliant chartered accountant or a businessman or a financial analyst with flashy teeth, basically a nobody, sitting with your boring wife and your stupid children having dinner at an expensive diner, tearing into the most expensive flesh money can buy wondering when you will financially evolve enough to be able to buy a decent conversation at a bar when a loud stream of consciousness, drunken perhaps, stabs the anxious joyless silence on your table, and, makes you aware for the first time that evening that at the helm of the next table occupied by as many as 10 people, sits your favourite celebrity.
What do you think will happen next, Nawab Sa’ab?
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