(Published in Sify.com, on 23 February, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/of-blackberry-big-brother-and-suicide-news-columns-mcxlh5cbaei.html?ref=false)
“You use a BlackBerry, right? I’m writing a piece about the whole monitoring thing, so I thought I’d ask if you feel your privacy is invaded.”
“No, I think, contrary to personal belief, the government doesn’t think me particularly important. And I watch all the Achmed the Dead Terrorist videos on my home computer. What are they going to do reading my boss’ emails to me about reverting back by EoD anyway?”
“Apparently, they can’t access corporate mails.”
“Oh...can they access Gmail?”
“They’re trying to access Skype, Yahoo, Gmail and Nokia.”
“Oh!”
“Does that worry you more than BBM access?”
“Yeah, I’m in a long-distance relationship, so the stuff in there’s...sort of...umm, personal.”
“Yeah, they’ll probably discuss those in an Assembly or two, if it’s interesting enough.”
“I think this goes back to what you said earlier about the country being sex-starved.”
“I don’t think the point of the BBM access is an insight into your sex life.”
“No, but it’s infringement in the sense that the government is constantly monitoring what I can do, and what I can’t. I mean...quickly rephrasing that...what I have a right to do, and what I don’t.”
“You seem a lot more aware of your rights now than you were a couple of minutes ago.”
“Yeah, that has less to do with BlackBerry than with censorship in general. I just found out The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo isn’t releasing in India. Because they want cuts.”
“I thought that was an admirable thing to do. Say all or nothing. On the director’s part, I mean.”
“Yeah. Still means I won’t get to see Rooney Mara play Lisbeth Salander. I saw the version with Noomi Rapace on TV, and I think they cut about half of it.”
“Hahahaha! What did you even make of it? Must’ve been like The Last King of Scotland. One minute, the doctor’s having dinner with Idi Amin, and the next, he’s being tortured.”
“Yeah, man! I end up watching only censored stuff. My DVD guy got busted a while ago. You know, it’s bad enough raunchy died with Raj Kapoor. I mean, thank God for YouTube. That’s where I go for Mandakini and Zeenat. I mean, every damned thing is illegal in India – porn, prostitution, premarital sex...it’s like there’s a secret conspiracy to make us all impotent to bring down the population.”
“Wow, you should consider a career in politics. You get the facts wrong, but the oratory’s perfect.”
“I don’t have the money.”
“You needn’t win. You could just make some news. Come up with a nice name for your party – like Khudkushi Party.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“You know, when I first moved to Delhi a few years ago, I thought khudkushi meant masturbation.”
“That would probably be khudkhushi.”
“Yeah, well, you know we Madrasis have no aspirations. Anyway, I’d wonder (a) why papers were reporting it so often, and (b) why people were stupid enough to be caught...umm, pleasuring themselves in public. And I didn’t know whom to ask.”
“You should’ve asked me.”
“I wouldn’t have believed you. I checked on Google Translate.”
“What do you Southies say for ‘suicide’ anyway?”
“We use it as a verb. Like, ‘I want to suicide’, ‘He suicided himself’.”
“Suicided himself?”
“For emphasis, I think.”
“They say this in the English papers?”
“That would depend on the sub-editors, but that’s how we refer to it in speech. The actual Tamil word is tharkolai, though.”
“Does it have anything to do with Kolaveri?”
“You’re smarter than most Naarthies are given credit for. Anyway, I suppose you should be grateful that, umm, self-service isn’t illegal here yet.”
“They’re considering making it illegal?!”
“No, there was this proposal put up by an Oklahoma senator a couple of weeks ago, as a gimmick to spoof anti-abortionists. She said masturbation should be treated as action against an unborn child.”
“Is this conversation over?”
“Oh, we got sidetracked.”
“Discussing masturbation with a woman is strangely turning off. Not so strangely, bringing unborn children into the mix makes it worse.”
“Well, just remember that there’s a whole lot of women in Parliament who’ll be discussing it if such a legislation were ever to be proposed. You know, the likes of Sush...”
“Stop right there.”
“Did you know that Ashmit Patel’s doing a nude photoshoot for some magazine?”
“Isn’t he the one who circulated some MMS of Riya Sen a few years ago?”
“Well, now, he’s decided he should give as good as he got.”
“Can’t the government stop him, you know, for the love of aesthetics?”
“I don’t think the Censor Board can step in unless he wants to screen it in the cinemas.”
“See, that’s the problem with our country. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is not coming to the theatres, but The Pervert with the White Undies is coming to the newsstands.”
“Ah, so you’ve seen the picture.”
“Umm...”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with the long-distance relationship you were speaking of, does it?”
“I’ll answer the government if I have to. By the way, is it a crime to research suicide online?”
“Not unless you attempt it, I guess – attempt suicide, I mean. In which case it could count as aiding and abetting. So I’m safe for now. Are you researching this on your BlackBerry?”
“Don’t even think about saying ‘Research In Mortis’.”
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