A short story by Anand Ramachandran
“Fuck! I hate my job.”, said Sankalesh Jimmy in exasperation. He would have slammed the phone down in disgust, had it not been a mobile phone. He suddenly hated mobile phones for not being slammable. He then proceeded to hate his coffee, his cubicle, his nose, and even his beloved collection of old 'Dipy's Cowboy' memorabilia – all of which were blameless for his current state of agitation.
“Fuck! I hate my job.”, said Sankalesh Jimmy in exasperation. He would have slammed the phone down in disgust, had it not been a mobile phone. He suddenly hated mobile phones for not being slammable. He then proceeded to hate his coffee, his cubicle, his nose, and even his beloved collection of old 'Dipy's Cowboy' memorabilia – all of which were blameless for his current state of agitation.
But most of all, he hated Aamir Khan, who wasn't.
“What's the matter? You seem upset.”, said James Dare, keenly observant as always. James was one of those guys who, if you had chanced upon his visiting card without having met him, you would have imagined looked like a dynamic, rock-jawed, spacefaring captain who saved the universe on Thursdays. In reality, he looked more like 'Mirchi' Siva in a foul mood, perhaps after losing a closely fought table-tennis game from a winning position.
“Now he wants craters on the fucking SUN! Screw this.”, said Sankalesh
“What?”
“It's bloody Aamir. Ever since that stupid moon-crater was named after Shah Rukh, he's been desperate for attention. Now he's asking us if we can get a sun-crater named after him. Sun-crater. Can you fucking believe that?”. Sankalesh slumped into his chair and buried his face in his hands.
“You'd think it was a blast being Aamir's PR manager.” he said wryly.
“So you're saying there aren't any craters on the sun?” asked James
“Of course not. You're telling me you didn't know that?” asked Sankalesh incredulously.
“I didn't even know that there were craters on the moon. And that you could name people after them. So there aren't any on the sun? Why not? You can't name people after them?” asked James cheerily.
“Yes there are. Yes you can. No there aren't. Maybe because the sun doesn't have a fucking SURFACE! No you can't, because there's nothing to name.”, said Sankalesh, answering the questions in the correct order, through gritted teeth.
“Oh.” said James absently, peering into Sankalesh's monitor and reading his messages. At any other time, Sankalesh would have been annoyed at this, but now he merely ignored it. He looked up at the ceiling.
“It's always the same. Shah Rukh gets a six-pack, and Aamir invents the eight-pack. Shah Rukh picks up some awards, Aamir stops accepting awards altogether. Shah Rukh plays a psychopath, Aamir plays a violent psychopath with memory-loss, a bad attitude and his contacts list tattooed on his fucking body. Shah Rukh makes a bad movie a hit, Aamir makes the worst movie of all time the biggest hit of all time. It's unbearable.”
“Yeah. Aamir rules. He's the best at everything he does.”, said James, taking a break from reading Sankalesh's monthly accounts statement in order to perform the valuable service of missing the point entirely.
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“I know what I'm going to do”, said Sankalesh suddenly.
He picked up his phone and dialled.
“Hello? Aamir? Hi, it's Sankalesh. More news on Shah Rukh. Apparently this morning, he woke up and actually contemplated suicide. It's going to be in the TOI tomorrow – front page. Seriously. SRK contemplates suicide. Half-page with colour pictures. What do you suggest we do?”
He waited a few seconds, and then heard the gunshot.
He felt evil.
Note : This post is part of an experiment to treat the same subject of satire in three different ways. There's a cartoon here and a satirical fake news report here.
Note : This post is part of an experiment to treat the same subject of satire in three different ways. There's a cartoon here and a satirical fake news report here.
