A Questionable Headline?
The media seems to be focusing less on rhetoric and more on rhetorical questions.
Has Arnab gone totally mad? Is the IPL magic over? Is China preparing for an all out attack? Is the UPA going to fall? Will Mukesh ever move into Antilla? Is Arundhati a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)? Can Nargis Fakhri act?
Clever, isn’t it?
Do you think, for posing these innocent queries, I am liable to be sued by the combined forces of Arnab Goswami, Rajeev Shukla, Hu Jintao, Digvijay Singh, Karan Johar, Mukesh Ambani, Arundhati Roy and lastly, Ms Nargis Fakhri? Are they well within their rights to drag me out of my WagonR at Ashram signal and shake me slowly by the neck for slander and vilification?
Does it sound too farfetched a scenario that they do indeed decide to meet up at Café Coffee Day one fine afternoon and plot to gang up on me? Is it at all possible that this curious cartel -hereafter referred to as THE AGGRIEVED -manages to put me in the dock at Patiala House?
Well, what of it? What do you think the Magistrate would say in response to all the charges being read in his airless courtroom against me? Wouldn’t he at least bother to ask what this racket is all about?
“Now what is this racket all about? Is this simply all what you’ve got against this poor man?”
Mr Ambani would pinch loose his ill-fitting safari suit from the shoulders and shore up his belly in response, but Ms Fakhri would be more direct: “You call this nothing, judge?”
“But I don’t understand the reason for your anger, Ms. Fakhri – and besides, isn’t it a sensible question to ask in the first place?”
To which Ms. Fakhri would growl and stoop a little and shake her ample tresses like Duran Duran and submit: “Are you saying that I can’t act?”
“Look,” would respond the judge, “all I am saying is that the accused has only asked a question, the answer to which could be a simple yes or a no – you get me?”
“But, Judge, in asking the damn question in the first place, hasn’t the accused mischievously tried to corrupt the minds of the public?”
“How so, young lady?”
“Well, for a start he’s asking the question, which means he isn’t sure himself, is he?”
“But why else would anyone ask a question –any question, young lady?”
“Yes, why would anyone?”
“Well?”
“Well what, judge?”
“I asked first, didn’t I?”
“Did you?”
Here, sensing the gavel coming down hard on the starlet’s head, Ms Arundhati Roy would slowly unlock her third eye and step forward with a well-crafted outlook of her own: “Your honour, what this ravishing doll means is that the defendant has no right to ask these questions in public – he can very well contemplate whether I’m a Marxist or a Leninist in the privacy of his bedroom, can’t he?”
“But, madam, all this poor man is doing is asking one billion men and women to contemplate whether you are a Marxist or a Leninist in the privacy of their respective bedrooms, is he not? Does he say anywhere that you are indeed a Marxist or a Leninist?”
“He doesn’t, my lord, but that’s not the point, is it?”
“Well, what is the point, then?”
“Er, you corrupt, malicious, spiteful, arrogant, ignorant, well-heeled capitalist, you purveyor of hollow justice, you builder of dams, you digger of mines, you distributor of spectrum, you – well, I can’t get justice in this smelly, filthy, suffocating little airless courtroom, can I?”
Seeing the judge starting to carefully roll up his sleeves, Mr Johar would intervene: “Come off it, darling, cut her some slack, will you?”
“And what in heaven’s name seems to be your grudge, young man?”
“Simple, love – this man has asked if I am gay and I find that slanderous sweetheart, is that understood?”
“One more endearing epithet and I’ll hold you in contempt, is that understood?”
“Oopsie, my lord, but don’t you think he’s gone too far with his question?”
“But he only asks if you are gay – you may not be, is it not?”
“But he doesn’t ask this of Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgan, does he, my lord?”
“Admittedly, he doesn’t, but then again, could it be the case that he knows about their orientation? And moreover, doesn’t gay also mean ‘happy’?”
“Then why ask if I am happy or not?”
“But why not? Are you not aware, young man, that gay can mean happy, that intercourse can mean discussion and ejaculate can mean express? Have you not read any Wodehouse?”
Before Digvijay Singh can take the floor and relieve Karan of his misery, the judge would step in with his closing comments: “Don’t all of you realize that the defendant has not, repeat not put a full-stop at the end of any of his sentences? Had he done so, I would have packed him off to Tihar or Puzhal,or perhaps even Arthur Road, who’s to tell? But by cleverly employing a question mark, the defendant has absolved himself of any libel, don’t you think? This wicked genius has said what he wants to say without doing any research, or finding out the truth, or simply lifting his bottom from the couch – brilliant, isn’t it? He isn’t saying that you are gay, or that you are a commie, or that you can’t act, is he? All he’s doing is simply asking – and look at him, such an innocent looking fellow; does it look like he’s got a single mala fide bone in his fat and lumpy body? Defendant, if I may ask you, what do you do?”
“I do a bit of this and that, your honour. But before a bit of this and that, I used to write headlines for news channels – a nice livelihood, don’t you think?”
“Which channels, defendant?”
“All English news channels, my lord, and I worked the longest in the channel whose boss now stands right there accusing me of the tricks I learnt under his tutelage – now is that fair?”
Here, the bored judge would ask his inner soul: “Shall I dismiss the case?”
The inner soul would reply: “Yes, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
