Hello there! This is your favourite uncle Anand Rangarajan offering his jasmine-scented greetings. I trust the good Lord Ayappa has been looking over you and not over looking you as is very often the case. Permit me to tell you that as I write this my mind harks back to my village school in Thrissur when our teacher, Dharmalingam sir would make us write pages upon pages of Wren & Martin on sand until our fingers bled. “Write properly, you copper-plated rascals”, he would shout. “Write in the hope that one day you might gain attendance with the Queen of England!”

Who was to know, dear readers, that, decades later, I would gain attendance not with the Queen but one of her choicest subjects? Let me explain.

A week ago, I was called into the Hon’ble Minister of Culture Chandresh Kumari’s office. She, as you all know, is my boss and treats me like her son. Which is strange because I am older than her. But what’s a year or two in the wonderfully feudal relationships that our ministers strike constantly with their chosen subordinates, I ask you?

“Ah, Rangrajan, come in, come in – and close the door”, she said removing her eyes temporarily from the bumper John Abraham issue of Cineblitz.

“Yes, madam”, I said, worried. Was it, I wondered, to do with the last minute photoshopping I’d been asked to perform on Mr Rahul Gandhi’s charming photos with the natives of Pappu New Guinea for our Annual Report? Perhaps I shouldn’t have raised Mr Gandhi’s straw skirt hemline too much? Oh, Balaji, I was surely in a soup!

“Why are you looking at that Yakshi statue so intently, Rangrajan? Goodness, you’re day-dreaming again, man!”

“No, no, madam”, I lied.

“Look, Rangrajan. The matter at hand is a little, shall we say, tricky.”

“Please explain everything forthwith, madam.”

“You know Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta?”

“Er…”

“Heavens, Rangrajan! Don’t you read the Indian Express? We pay for most of it, for crying out loud!”

“Sorry, madam, I-”

“Yes, yes. Anyway, Mr Mehta is a top-notch columnist who writes on strategic affairs of the state. He is sure to get one of the Pads these days – Vibhushan, if you ask me.”

“Yes, madam.”

“Or should I say, he was sure to get…”

I found myself staring at the Yakshi once again.

“You see, Rangrajan, he is a dear, dear family friend. His sister and I knitted crochets together and my elder brother played polo with his elder brother. You with me?”

I eyed the Yakshi and answered in the affirmative.

“Now as it happens, poor old Taps has gone ahead and written a real stinker against our government. Every paragraph of his piece, I am told, began with “Then they” “Then they” just like the famous poem by Niemöller. Pretty blistering, if you ask me. As Shashi Westend said, there was no need, really. And now, all hell has broken loose.”

Good lord, can a female body demonstrate such curves, I thought, transfixed by the Yakshi.

“Far from getting a bhoosh or a shree, Taps now tells me his house is slated for a full-body CBI raid next Monday!”

The word CBI made me lose sight of Yakshi madam.

“He’s in deep shit, is Taps, umm. He might as well have ended his piece with ‘Then they put me in jail.’ You with me, Rangrajan? Or you want to take that piece of rock home?”

“Er, no-no, madam, I’m with you”, I replied hastily.

“…So I told Taps not to worry, his aunt’s still around, what. And here’s my cunning plan to stall that wretched CBI raid. We need to call upon the services of the one and only Karan Thapar. So this is what you need to do…”

“Anything, madam.”

“Go to CNN-IBN headquarters and meet Karan. Tell him he needs to interview the CBI Director pronto and haul him over red hot coals. Tell him he needs to ask the Director point-blank about his agenda vis-à-vis Pratap Bhanu Mehta.”

“Yes, madam.”

“I can’t risk calling Karan as I’m certain my office is bugged. And blasted Thapar has stopped coming to Suhel’s orgies lately, so I can’t meet him on the chance occasion. You are my only hope, Rangrajan, my son.”

“Er, yes, mother.”

“Now go forth and conquer. God-speed. Dismissed.”

First thing you must know, dear readers, is that much as the voiceover might proclaim: “Live from its studios in New Delhi, this is Sagarika Ghose…” their blasted studios are not in New Delhi but rather in Noida! It took me half a day and two punctures to find that out, may Balaji curse their OB vans. Anyway, once inside, I asked a group of anchors who were blocking the corridor and strewing peanut shells all over as to where I could find Karan.

“You mean Karan Thapar Esquire. Learn some manners, old man!” said one bald and fat fellow.

I offered my humble apologies.

“Go straight, then turn left – third door. Knock gently”, said the rascal.

“Thank you,” I said and left their company.

I went straight, then turned left, and soon was standing opposite a glass-panelled door that said: Karan Thapar Esq., Devil’s Advocate, B.A. Tripos, Law (Cantab). I knocked. Gently.

“Hop right in, old chap, whoever you are!” rang a croaky voice.

I entered and was transported right back to my school days. In the middle of summer, with faulty air-conditioning and no ceiling fan, sat Mr Karan Thapar Esquire, bedecked in the finest of London tweed three-piece double-breasted suits. The bow-tie was also tweed, so was the towel on the chair back-rest, and so was the piece of cloth under the mahogany table-glass. Dear readers, it was as though I had stepped back in history and in the middle of a tweed dream.

“Hello, what’s this? Crikey, old man! Fancy a cuppa?”

“Er, hello, sir. Myself I am Rangarajan, son of-”

Lord Ayappa! I was about to make an ass of myself. This is what conditioning does to you – years of handling ministers and their files.

“Now look here, old bag”, said Mr Esquire, “I’m a touch knackered here, what with this terrible native heat and some-such. So would appreciate your coming straight to the crumpet – I mean point.”

“Right Mr Esquire – I mean Mr Thapar.”

“Right, ho, then. Fire those ol’ blighty cannons, my man.”

“Er, yes, sir. I have been sent by the hon’ble Ms Chandresh Kumari to-”

“Chandy, my hen, by the whiskers of Macaulay! How’s the old biddy doing?”

“Er, the old biddy is doing fine, sir”, I said. This blasted quaintness was growing on me.

“She wants you to interview the CBI director for your show. This is regarding a prospective full-body raid on Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s residence.”

“Slow down, you rickety old Dornier. Now be a good chap and pass me that spoon. My tea is cold as a cucumber, I fear.”

I slowed down.

“Now hurry up, you weasel. Arthritis in those fingers or what, I pray ask?”

“Er, no sir. Ms Kumari wants you to scare the daylights of-”

“Living daylights, you muppet. If you must, speak propah.”

“Yes, Mr Thapar. Ms Kumari wants you to scare the CBI Director and ask him a few direct questions regarding Mr Mehta’s impending raid horror.”

“Hmm…tricky that, did you hear?”

“I did, sir.”

“Six of one and half a dozen of the other, I’d say. Still, old Chandy is a dear cup-cake, is she not? Anything for her!”

“Er, thank you, sir,” I said.

“Let me see what I can do. There’s nothing that a little grinding of one’s choppers can’t achieve in this day and age, what?”

“What?”

“I said, I’ll crack the whip on the chav and Bob’s your uncle.”

“Sorry, sir, but there’s been a mistake. My uncle’s name is Ramachandran.”

“Ha, you old bugger! You’re a cheeky one, aren’t you. Now off you go. Leave it in the capable hands and narrowed eyes of yours truly, what.”

“What?”

“Pip pip, cheerio and all that rot. Naff off now, you little fermented marmalade!”

“Er, yes, sir.”

“Hear, hear, chocks away!…Gangadin? I said, Gangadin, where’s the scone I’d asked for…?”

Lord knows what happened to the full-body CBI raid on Taps’ house, dear readers, but what I do know is that for the next week I had to detoxify myself by watching Lagaan and Kranti and Mard several times. All those esquires and tally-ho and whoopsie-daisies and old blighties were pounding my head so much that I needed to see Manoj Kumar and Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan spank these firangi rascals and make their upper lips soft. As my revenge, I now upload Mr Karan Thapar’s doodle that he made at the PM’s editors meet. Here it is:

For a man who can’t string a sentence without inserting cheerio and chappie in-between, you’d agree that Mr Esquire certainly has a steady hand. I wish him luck and I hope his practice flourishes. He is truly the devil’s advocate, wouldn’t you agree? Tally- and Rambha-ho to that, I say!