Oh pleeeeeeeeze! Don’t call me the old lady of boribunder. It makes me shudder! So what if I am over 150 years old? Whazzat in the timeframe of a nation as old as the Himalayas? Look at me - My breasts are not sagging… like a chameleon, I am ever-changing, dancing to the latest tune, keeping up with the orgies of the sleazebags, moneybags and all those who rule.
But of late I’ve been a victim of heavy criticism, for no particular rhyme or reason. Not that I care. For I am used to it and never affected by it..otherwise for so many decades, like an empress, I wouldn’t have been standing so tall..though occasionally I do crawl (like when my mistress indira ordered me to - during those dark days when she disrobed democracy)
They used to call me the old w-hore of boribunder alleging that I slept with the who-evers was in the powers, weather it was the Britishers or Nehru. Very much true! But now things have changed – those grandly sophisticated aristocrats have been replaced by trishul-bearing brats. Time for me too to change - and to innovate.
Haven’t you noticed by latest innovation? That is - my multiplication. My metamorphosis from a single entity to a multiple personality. Call it schizophrenia or a mind disorder – which is funny since I never had a mind to begin with. I prefer to call it a state of no-mind – where all things exist simultaneously - complimentary or contradictory – a logical extension of which led to the development of my two minds.
Are you still wondering what I am blabbering...dahlings? So let me introduce my two minds. One I call “View” the other one is “counterview” each exactly its opposite – One proposes, the other opposes. If one thinks India should send its troops to Babylon, the other refutes. If one thinks bollywood rocks, the other reminds us how it only rolls – or recycles. You get the picture, right?
My two minds never agree. They are not meant to. Why else would they be called view and counterview? So what’s the reason for their mutual antagonism? Don’t you understand? – it’s the oldest trick of the game – create your own opposition.. take all the space there is, so that nothing is left for the competition.
And then there are practical reasons – my mailbox used to be chockablocked with opinions of thousands of no-gooders - with ample time on their hand, who used to differ with every opinion I had. And so with a stroke of a genius, I created my alternate mind and rendered all of them speechless. Now they have nothing to protest - for my two minds do all the arguing and protesting. Neat isn’t it? saves mailbox space and all the bother of reading their useless junk for which I never really cared.
As is the custom, I will now handover the keyboard to my two minds to write the rest of the review – Over to you - View
View – (spoken as a third person) The Times of India, which all its detractors forget is the largest circulated English daily of the nation, a position it would not be occupying were its hand not on the pulse of the nation. It is a trendy paper that caters to all the segment of the society, reflecting the changing times and moods of the nation...blah blah blah…
Counterview – It is the quality rather than quantity that matters. Times of India is nothing more than a glorified tabloid – a carrier of second-class junk borrowed from the trashy glossy rags-mags, a shameless self-promoter of its business ventures. Does anyone care about wars of Disc-jockeys or TRP’s (or its radio-world-equivalent) of radio Mirchi or the latest opening of Planet M? Planet M-oney – yes, this is where it lives – now that it has even started selling editorial space to the highest bidder. blah blah blah…….
Sorry dears, no need to go in the details… all of you have heard and read this zillions of times.
Now it’s time for the ratings. Both of my minds are jockeying for the right to rate this piece. Predictably “View” wants to give five stars, while “counterview” thinks that I don’t even deserve a solitary star!
Over to you - narrator of my tale…
Narrator : Unlike the paper, I do have a mind; a single-solitary mind and being reasonably grantified with intelligence, I have no hesitation in casting my vote with “Counterview”
Over to you, guys.