Almost Arnab

Arnab : 4 months after he was born , Rajeev Gandhi died . The year he was born , the Berlin wall collapsed , Union Carbide had agreed to pay $470 million as relief to the Bhopal Gas tragedy victims but it never happened . Communism spread in the Soviet Union after the cold war ended .

21 years later, he hung himself to death. Welcome to the Newshour tonight . Yesterday Ananth died under mysterious circumstances leaving no suicide note behind. To discuss about the possible reasons behind his death we have with us Arundathi Roy representing the national human rights commission , Manish Tiwari Congress spokesperson , a professor from his college , Rajeev Masand noted film critic . Your views Arundathi

Arundathi Roy: He did not leave behind any note. This is probably an indication of how frustrated he was copying notes in his college. The college had started to pressurize him too much and he couldn’t take all that. His friends included Rajesh , Shreyas , Anirudh to name a few who never took up a sport in their lives , who never bunked a day of college ,who knew “Python” before Anaconda released , who had a dictionary in their hand and America in their eyes . These were the kind of sad circumstances amidst which he had to live . Ananth also had to climb 8 floors every day to get to his classroom . This is the height of torture Arnab

Arnab : Mr. professor , would you like to react to that ? 8 floors daily. What do you have to say?
Professor: Since he was a student of telecommunication engineering, we wanted him to stay as close as possible to technology . Students were assigned the room on the 8th floor so that he could feel and experience the power of UV rays and high tension wires from as close a distance as possible

Arnab: Point justified but we have some CCTV footage from your college that says something else. The footage shows Ananth trying to swallow chalk pieces after the classes ended
Manish Tiwari: I can’t believe that the college had installed CCTVs in the classrooms. Students shouldn’t be monitored like criminals

Professor: Let me clarify , as soon as I saw this I rushed towards the classroom . He had already swallowed 10 chalks and he threw the 11th at me . He only did this because the canteen was closed and he was feeling really hungry . All he got was indigestion. Instances such as these cannot be treated as suicidal tendencies

Arnab: Nihilistic forecasts that went completely wrong Mr. Professor .
(The human rights activist interrupts)

Arundathi Roy: Arnab , I think that the college is trying to pacify us with evasive answers . He was a vivtim of the brutal aftermath of the degree called ‘Engineering’.I have a poem written by Ananth over here .It once again shows his aversion towards engineering . May I read it aloud?

Arnab: Go ahead
Arundathi Roy: It is called ‘ Daddy I want to become Alexi’ .He wanted to give it to his dad after finishing his degree. Unfortunately , the college murdered him before that


Daddy, I want to become Alexi
now that i have a bachelors degree
i wish to do something that interests me
Daddy , i want to become Alexi
i want to drown myself in music
get drugged in music
play the guitar like no one else did
i want to brood over Bodom
mix and match like Mozart
unravel the secrets of the gifted Gilmour
rip my shirt off in maiden concerts

'and what about a job? 'daddy asked
job with this goddamn degree??
i can always type codes of C
give me 2 years time please
allow me to do something i love
i don't want to become a cyber coolie
i don't want to lead my life like a sissy
daddy i want to become Alexi

'Can i not become Alexi?'daddy asked
you are already above 50
if you leave your job now
mummy is going to beat you up
she'll ask 'Who's going to pay my dry cleaning bills?'
granny will ask 'Who's going to pay for my pills?'


'So what do you suggest me to do?"
go and have some fun
flaunt your hairy legs on a sunday brunch
buy vegetables at big bazaar
watch the news and know what's happening in the Afghan war?'
'And you' daddy asked
'daddy, i want to become Alexi'

Arnab: We are now joined by Ananth’s aunt?
Ma’am, can you please tell us what kind of a boy he was?

Aunt : Children these days are aggressive ,arrogant, impetuous , make nasty decisions but Ananth was a good boy. When his mother told him as a nine year old not to go outside without sunscreen, listened and he could balance a spoon on his nose and stay like that for hours”

Arnab: What plans next ma’am?

Aunt: We will have the best funeral lunch . Dahi vadas , honey cakes . panner butter masala will be there on the menu . Those were the kinds of foods that my nephew liked
( Arnab smacks his lips . in his black suite he looks like a man who was ever ready to barge in to a funeral)

Arnab: Time for a break ladies and gentlemen . On the other side we will have Manish Tiwari and Rajeev Masand giving their points of view

Manish Tiwari: I have a completely different point of view . Forgetting the college and peer pressure there’s another thing which I’d like to throw light up on . Ananth was a peace loving man and a staunch believer of the congress . Strikes , Bandhs for no reason . Dharnas that hampered the progress of the country left him disappointed . I hold the BJP and the left responsible for his death
He had written another poem criticizing these kind of bandhs

One day Rahul told Sonia
“Let’s encourage farmers to implement bund irrigation momma”
A lazy, loutish, underpaid gardener
Stealthily hearing this from the top of a tree
Sent a mail to the leaders of the opposition
Informing them about the latest government policies
Staring seriously in to his old computer was Advani
An outdated version of MS Word 2003
Where words appeared like a lethal combination of
French, Lego blocks and mandarin
(the gardener sent the letter from MS word 2007)
Advani said ‘ah! We need to call a symbologist’
But Robert Langdon was busy in the Vatican city
‘What about a lawyer?’
Everyone was busy working for Lalit Modi
Finally came a cyber police
who had a penchant for silly spellings
after watching the morning show of ‘I hate luv storys’
He came straight to the office of Advani
The dumb cop couldn’t decipher much
Except that he wrongly indentified ‘bund’ as ‘bandh’
‘we need to start a bandh before them’ fumed the leaders of the opposition
finally they called an astrologer
he said ‘ let us toss a coin 10 consecutive times
10 heads and you watch’ Raavan’
Or else you start a bandh’

Arnab: He’s made some mention about some movies over here? What have you got to say Rajeev Masand?

Rajeev Masand : He watched ‘ Neal and Nikki ‘ and thought that it was the best romantic comedy that was ever made . He watched Ram Gopal verma’s movie ‘Darling’ 38 times .
His movie watching pattern was erratic . He would watch 15 mins of the first half of one movie and 20 mins of the second half of another
Later something happened . he watched Dev D . he got addicted to this movie , watched it 7 times . he then watched every Abhay Deol movie . he thought that everyone except the Masai Mars tribes , the desert men and the Eskimos would be rearing to get the first day first show tickets and booked tickets 1 week in advance for ‘Road movie’ only to find 12 people in the theatre . he wondered why the world dint think like him . He began to think if he were too alien in this world , were his thoughts so different from that of the others. Probably all this tensions made him take this extreme step

Later that day , a student from Ananth’s engineering college posts this status update on facebook that has received 7 likes within 3 mins of it being posted
‘ An idiot committed suicide today , we’ve all been asked to shed crocodile tears tomorrow in the condolence meeting to be held failing which we will all be given infraction slips’

Ananth in heaven
I was playing with the fan and the rope ,. I got a little adventurous and before I could even think I was pulled up forever . I am trying hard to jump down . I had finished watching episode number 763 of ‘Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi’ , 1600+ episodes left . Whoever was that imbecile who taught me that g=9.8 meters/second square and we could come down within the wink of an eye