Har Har, Jujhar.

Happened to watch Headlines Today the past two days. Was forced to run away from the drawing room leaving behind a half eaten dinner* for the first time in my life.

Day 1:

The Host: Jujhar Singh

The topic of discussion: Women’s rights groups up in arms against profane ads.

The cause of Nausea:

The ‘ad-nauseum’ in question was one advertisement for Amul Macho showing a couple of ladies grow green when the village belle seemingly sees bliss in washing her man’s underwear. The arbitrator Mr. Jujhar Singh pitted Mr.R.Balakrishnan (of Cheeni Kum fame) against a women’s rights activist. I am perennially skeptical about anyone with feminist leanings, and had been reasonably impressed by Mr.Balki from the reviews of his movie, and was naturally quite interested in how the argument was going to fare.

Mr.Balki defended his fraternity with a fairly lame argument saying the ad was infact liberationist by showing a female boldly expressing her sexuality. He also did not fail to commend the “creative” juices that poured into the “masterpiece”.

There are so many brilliant ads that so many of us have grown up with, and cherish even though the products they advertised have long become obsolete, and they did not resort to such blatant profanity to be creative. But our dear Mr. Arbitrator lapped up this argument, with a fervent “Aye Aye, Sir”.

This rights activist was slightly different from her ilk, in the sense, that she didn’t raise her voice, although she didn’t really approve of her opponent’s views. She quietly discounted all the aspects, that she had initially put forth, (like women’s dignity, sensibility, blah blah, and the like) but hung on to one particular PoV, that of the aesthetics that this kind of explicit lewdness would instill in young Indians. Mr. Balki had no solid answer to this.

That’s when our heroic arbitrator jumped in and drawled with a resonant belch (that was meant to pass off as a stylish nasal accent), “But, ma’m, don’t you think we are over-reacting and stifling the creativity of our talented young ad-makers?”

Tolerance Meter hit red, and I ran out, secretly wishing I had a stronger hold on my senses.

Day 2:

The host: Jujhar Singh again.

Heated Debate on: Yuvraj vs. Yuvraj.

The cause of Vertigo, Nausea, and partial deafness:

Yuvraj Singh’s birthday bash case. Neelam Mahajan poised to create a new record in pushing the decibels, the wronged mother fuming in the studio, and Mrs.Singh, on the phone. Our dear arbitrator went tipsy with glee. For the lady beside him was set for some action.

The matter being sub-judice was of course something that HT and our dear Jujhar had so graciously chosen to overlook. Mrs.Singh not being able to hold up to Mrs.Mahajan’s well-toned vocal chords looked like a lamb ready for sacrifice.

Had it not been Jujhar and HT’s shrewd move to keep the two ladies physically separated from each other, the damage to life and property would have been immense. A heated exchange of words ensued. Some even warranting a defamatory suit, that might have had Mrs. Singh in the studio, and Mrs. Mahajan on phone, maybe, for want of a refreshing change.

Jujhar gave a toothy smile, and blurted out something inane in his guttural twang. In case, you had been counting the morsels on your plate for want of a suitable diversion, and had to lift your head fearing a crick in the neck, the progress of the fight flashed on the screen, each scandalous utterance making way to a new line of trash, uhmm… flash.

Tolerance Meter went bonkers. I stumbled out of the room, fighting for dear life and desperately clinging on to what was once my sanity.


*: Was forced to flee, as for reasons best known to him, my father insisted on keeping HT on at full volume. Jujhar kept chasing me to the remotest corner of the house, with his debonair din.