Teri Keh Ke Loonga!

As far as Hindi cinema goes, one would have to try unbelievably hard to depose the sentence – Teri keh ke loonga! – from the Everest of extraordinary catchphrases. There has never been anything quite like it, and it would take years and umpteen copycat attempts to better this gem. That single, crisp sentence, uttered in wry humour and with an undercurrent of vengeful anger by Sardar Khan (in the film Gangs of Wasseypur) – and subsequently incorporated into a stunning song – is in its raw I-dare-you-behenchod bravado, the height of butt-squirming offensiveness. For that very reason, it is also brilliant and marks a moment of explosive catharsis for the nation.

The truth is we are born-hypocrites. The middle-class values of Delfjizhlity, Seuqwflkgting and Mdefrihyrtliousness have held this nation on a tightleash for too long, and it is time we discarded them to that dustbin of history where other such unintelligible and nonsensical value-systems are left to ferment to their slow deaths. The nation wants release from that leash, and Anurag Kashyap has applied the first cut in no small measure. He has liberated us from the prowling gangs of wasted purists that we had become, sniffing each other’s piss scent to hunt out anything new-school so as to burn a few tyres and demand an immediate ban on it.

At long last it’s good to be offensive. Say what you want, man! Just say it!

Except that the goggle-eyed rabbit that Sardar Khan has furnished today, the internet junkies had pulled out from the old hat years ago. And there was no one to pat their backs, no one to pen a tribute in their honour. They trolled on silently through the murky, shark-infested waters of articles and op-eds, inventing the choicest of abuses for the dedicated columnist, and in the process venturing anonymously where few previously could.

Yes, I am talking of the Caesars of the Comments section, who routinely set their alarms to the next piece by their favourite columnist. Just to wake up at four in the morning and ruin the poor fellow’s sleep with a short paragraph of verbal quinine.

Offensive is the new liberal and there is great liberty at work here, a Sardar Khan-type liberty, and they spare no one the hot, scalding rod. The best, the most offensive, and by corollary the most liberal heart-pouring, is reserved for the comments section of Youtube, where the rightful inheritors of Marquis de Sade’s legacy don’t waste time on preliminaries. No never. Theycome straight to the point, in the kind of language that’d require special characters like $, @, #, and * if it were reproduced in The Hindu. Take it from me: there’s nothing quite like the Youtube commentary. Next comes Rediff. In third place and catching up fast is NewsLaundry.

This growth expansion in one sense is an awakening of sorts. Twenty years ago, the voice of the reader had no release. He would read a column and seethe inside, turning red neck-upwards, but other than writing a protest postcard to the newspaper or the magazine he had no option but to kick his dog or do 1001 skips to burn off that rage. The only folks who were clinking their glasses in merriment were the columnists and op-ed conjurers. They rose through the ranks, totally oblivious of how much they were loathed by their ‘consumers’, and gained an ever-more prominent voice and space in their respective mediums. They failed to grasp that a column is not the same as a book that the disgusted reader only has to hurl at the wall opposite, vowing never to pick anything by that blasted author again; it is much worse. No doubt, an enraged reader could do the hurling bit for that particular day’s edition, yes, but the smiling columnist would be staring right back at him from atop his piece the very next day, his pen-wielding digits having regenerated like a hydra, ready to confound.

In the days gone by, this happened regularly, so regularly, in fact, that people stopped subscribing to a particular newspaper and switched to another – only to find that even there a collection of smiling columnists lay in wait to ruin one’s day. There was no hope, no release. One could only fume and foam and keep inventing newer and newer expletives, in the belief that a day would soon come when they could be employed fruitfully. Enter the internet and ‘Please post your comments here’ and the rest as they say, is history. This is true democracy if ever there was one. No coalition, no sycophancy, no sweet-talk shit. This, in fact, is what Galileo strived for – a comments section under a Vatican Oped denouncing his idea -but died in vain.

An offence provider deserves respect that the content provider seldom grants him. We forget that the stilts on which our house of virtues stands may well save us from the torrent of abuse and slander, but it is feeble and hopeless against the answer that’s blowin’ in the wind: A free man and his voice. We only see that man as racist, bigoted, fascist, Maoist, a leftie, a right-wing ultra, a capitalist, a communist, a religious fanatic, a real nasty piece of work the world would be much better without. He may doubtless be. But we fail to appreciate that he is being true to himself, he is actually saying what he justly believes in, like Rushdie, or Nasreen, or Naipaul. Allow him! Allow that voice that was stifled for decades and found no release, allow that voice to ring. A metaphorical stone never broke a window. And those who tell you that it did are the same liars and hypocrites who burn books and paintings and cartoons. Let offence prosper. Let the troll roar: Teri keh ke loonga! After all, emerging from the midnight shadows cloaked in ‘anon” or ‘loonygoon’, or ‘pseudo-secular ki maka’ (not a Japanese lady, I assure you!), he is that fearless Zola, the embodiment of gut-wrenching truth. He is that Henry Miller, and that Manto, and that junkie doubled over the shit-laced WC of Welsh’s Trainspotting. He is the new Socrates and the comments space is his upturned soapbox. Power to him!

Sometimes, though, he gets it wrong. And the wrong is difficult to right, now that a mob has collected below the window and is enjoying the stone-pelting. A case in point is Madhu Trehan’s recent posting (http://www.newslaundry.com/2012/06/response-to-an-angry-tweeter/). It is a riveting read – the post as well as the comments. Clearly a lot of raw nerves were touched on both sides, and while it was the last day of Madhu’s holiday -before she plunged back into work as she said – for the commentators the holiday was just beginning. Tomaytoes, tomaatoes; trending, trolling.

While pouring over the comments, I was struck by something peculiar: the regularity with which Madhu had been labelled as liberal: a liberal media person; a liberal journalist; a liberal intellectual. I would have thought that’s a fantastic compliment. Only that it wasn’t meant as one. The offence providers were using it as a pejorative, as something to be ashamed of. They are fed up of this liberal media they say has been conducting a relentless campaign against a man who they think is the real liberal. Indeed! But I digress, wander into a battlefield scarred with dismembered journalists and hacked spokespersons and bloodied internet commentators. Let me presently concern myself with my odd discovery: of the phrase “liberal journalist”having become a curse. I hate you, you liberal journalist! You’re just the same as all those liberal media guys! Go to hell and take your liberal values with you! Et tu, Madhu?!

What a strange thing to say! But this, I discovered as I read on, was because, in the opinion of the commentators, a liberal media person, a liberal journalist, and a liberal intellectual is one who belongs to an English media house, and in particular NDTV, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today, andTIMES NOW.

The commentators couldn’t be more wrong.

To be liberal is to be fearless, to say what you’re crying out to say and to ask what is crying out to be asked. Liberal was Gandhiji, who answered every probing question relating to his sexual desires. Liberal was Sardar Patel, who said Kashmir – a Muslim majority state ruled by a Hindu must go to Pakistan through referendum, just as Junagarh – a Hindu majority state ruled by a Muslim came to India through referendum. Liberal was Jayaprakash Narayan, who, under the low-hanging clouds of Emergency recited Dinkar’s epic, Singhasan khali karo ki janta aati hai, at a bursting-at-the-seams Ramlila grounds. Liberal was that BBC reporter, who, in the aftermath of the “sexed up”dossier and the David Kelly suicide, asked Tony Blair point-blank: “Mr Prime Minister, have you got blood on your hands?” In every case, their utterances were offensive to many. But they said it nonetheless. They were the real liberals.

Our media houses, on the other hand, are anything but. The extended television interviews given recently by Mr Pranab Mukherjee to various news channels – those the offence providers call “liberal” – came across as little more than parting gifts to Pranab da in lieu of a shawl and a wall clock. He was asked about Durga Puja, about his village life, about his food habits, about the many long walks he’d be taking soon on his sprawling estate. No one asked him the kind of questions a liberal journalist would, questions the nation wants to know the answers to: of our future President’s role during the Emergency, of the Ambani shenanigans, of the Nasreen episode, of the indictment by the Shah Commission, of the fact that all copies of the commission report were ordered burnt; questions only one man in our country of 1.2 billion has dared to ask (http://www.newslaundry.com/2012/06/political-pussyfooting/).

Yo, offence providers: that’s liberal!

For the Sardar Khan of TV debates, who claims to speak frankly and appears in promotional ads where he’s walking against a Guantanamo Bay-like backdrop and purports to be Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan rolled into one, for him to cop out too, exposes a deep malaise that has set in our fourth estate. Fortuitously, it can be surmised in a two-bit dialogue:

Interviewer: No offence, sir.
Politician: None taken.

And everyone else taken for a right royal ride round the Mughal Gardens, trollers and Sardar Khan included.