Modern Burlesque Fantasy: A Matter of Eating Sour Grapes

“These cash and carry chains would destroy our business; nay they are already destroying it.� A familiar sentence uttered by every maja, sheeda and meeda (tom, dick and harry now work at those cash and carry chains) living in the shadow of mount doom of modern world. Loud whispers could be heard from evening meetings held between the saabzi wala, chae wala, qasai and self appointed MNAs of the streets, forecasting the annihilation of life as we know it. And the thing that they believed would be responsible for it would be that giant plaza being erected at the main road. They would sell Flat screen Television sets along with vegetables, which would lead to epidemics of biblical proportions; my local saabzi wala would tell me sipping tea made of “every day milk� and Lipton. But today, he seemed different. His tone was not that of a story teller but like that of an angry slave, he was hissing, roaring, telling about the great wrong. This infidel, “gora�, Cash n Carry walas are selling onions to hotels for half the price in market. I was touched. Local hotels were “the� market for people selling vegetables like him.

“And you know how is selling the onions there in plaza, freaking kids wearing ties and trousers. Those freaking little pricks!�.

“What is wrong with them selling the onions?� I asked, or rather kicked him in his face, at least from his facial expression it seemed so. What followed next was an eloquent speech on the merits, and freshness of his special vegetables, the grand conspiracy theory involving the usual suspects like America and Israel with special appearance from China, a detailed analysis of the Capitalism and the Doom of this forsaken planet. The last two things were never mutually analyzed, but the conclusion would always draw casual relationship. But the most eventful part of discussion came at the end. While I was about to leave he threw a query about the Educational qualification of the “little pricks�, who were working at the Cash n Carry center. But the question proved to be rhetorical.

“These dumb heads, have they were seen any field? Have they ever even planted a stinky little seed? I bet my trousers, they haven’t. And all these monstrous air conditioners, how can they ever get fresh air which these vegetables receive when they are displayed in open like I have done. These pricks can’t even differentiate between spinach and mustered. How the hell can they know the secrets of keeping these vegetables fresh? I challenge these Cash n Carry people…… Give me Rs 20000/- as pay and I will bring revolution to their whole setup! I have experience of 20 years in this business.�

“Warfa rof� ……….err WHAT?

Ah finally I had got the point. It was not a matter of sour grapes, but rather how to eat those sour grapes. But was he alone. I think not. From those so called soldiers of Marxism, preaching the virtues of social justice, and waging ideological war against the mullas, the capitalists, and soulless celebrities with their articles sharing space with ads of beauty tips and bald celebrities selling burgers, to the fat, and Oprah rich corporate fishes disgusted with the policies employed by their companies, everybody was killing their souls by eating those sour grapes.

Is it Hypocrisy? No, it’s Irony, paradox, pragmatism. If such a life style is hypocrisy then what about those men in black, fighting for the restoration of judiciary. These are the same people who would literally rap the spirit of law to earn few extra bucks. Armed forces, ready to give their lives for the defense of the country, and yet well “exploding mangoes�, shall I say. Our media is such a beautiful amalgam of black and white. Where else in the world can you find religious programs sponsored by same yahood o nasara, from whose culture our moulvis sahibs try to purge our society.

Right, wrong, ideology, hypocrisy … It is the money that makes the bride happy. I hope someday somebody would write a fairytale with such moral so that young minds don’t get corrupted by such out dated concepts, or may be google may come up something like virtue 2.1 patch to get rid of all this corrupt and confused mindset.