Let’s go retro

What’s wrong in aping someone? See, the ’60s are a blur now… let the first person among us born in the ’60s and still sane and steady, cast thy first stone? Sorab Ghaswalla examines.

‘Copy cat, copy cat…” My mind goes on and on like news TV footage shown in a loop on one of the desi nuz channels. Bad TV, I tell my mind, shut up, go away, vamoose. I steal another glance at Raj Thackeray and there it goes again, ‘Copy cat, copy cat…’ Now I truly fear for my life. After all, I think in English, not Marathi. What if….?

HT Image

Nothing in life is original, every thing is ‘inspired’. Ask us Indians, we will tell you how. Clones, all of us, and every thing that we do. So why blame Rajji? He is only copying his uncle for Pete’s….oops….Sanjay Deshpande’s sake. What’s wrong in aping someone? See, the ’60s are a blur now… let the first person among us born in the ’60s and still sane and steady, cast thy first stone?

Remember Elvis, Marilyn Monroe or JFK? Or Morarjeebhai, Yashwant Chavan or Bal Thackeray? Hmm, the last sounds familiar. Ex-cartoonist, who first mocked life, then, democracy. In the 60s, he and his Sena went after the communists, then the Annas… the south Indians for the uninitiated. Next on the list — Gujaratis and Muslims. Then, Chhagan Bhujbal, Sanjay Nirupam, Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray. By which time it was 2008, where had all that time gone?

History books are quickly called for. “Where is the chapter on Bal?” Instead Bal Gangadhar Tilak and his talk of uniting India keep cropping up. “How do I take a leaf out of Uncle’s chapter now? Where is my inspiration?” Finally, the bulb pops, why not get history books re-written in Marathi so that nobody catches on? What an idea, Sirji.