Going one-up. An Aamir Khan - Shah Rukh Khan rivalry story.

 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.

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.

The Sagar Sanjog Chronicles : Ep.1 - Raju and the Rat. (And no, I didn't forget about the cockroach)

Pramod is a good guy. A half-decent cook. Generally efficient housekeeper. Importantly, his demeanour is mostly pleasant and cheery.

The problem with Pramod is that he's on vacation. Gone to Gaon.

And hence, Raju. The cooker of cabbages. The shirker of sweeping and swabbing. The ignorer of things-that-he's-flaming-paid-to-do.

And when you're five guys living in a nice flat, and you have a choice between :

i) Pramod
ii) Raju

you'd have to go with i) every single time. ii) is not quite a viable option, unless you enjoy eating cabbage. No, I mean, you really enjoy eating cabbage. No, I mean, you wish to eat nothing other than cabbage every single day of your life.

But I digress. This was supposed to be about the rat.

It's a bold one, this rat. Earlier this afternoon, he sauntered into the kitchen, just as Shashi and I were having lunch. Having reached the centre of the kitchen, approximately equidistant from the fridge and the dustbin, he paused, and looked straight at me. I'm not kidding. Straight in the eye. For a full five seconds. Only when I showed aggressive intent by rising from my chair did the damn animal retreat. Not in any great hurry, mind you. He just sort of de-sauntered back under the sink, from where he had emerged a few moments earlier. I can imagine him rolling his eyes disdainfully , saying "Oh all right. Have it your way, then. I'll just come out when you're off to wherever you go to do your miserable job, and then who'll stop me, eh?" The evil bastard. I'm going to call him Jagmohan. And I'm going to work out of home. Now who's so clever. eh?

But I digress. This was supposed to be about Raju. And no, I haven't forgotten the cockroach.

After a few more appearances from Jagmohan, we decided that enough was enough. Can't have evil rats having the run of the place. Bad for the appetite, and all that.

We marched to the kitchen to take affirmative action, only to find Jagmohan strolling about the kitchen floor as if he was cooking dinner, and Raju lounging about the same location as if he wasn't. To make things worse, Raju was carefully stepping over the rat (so as not to disturb the vermin) and going about his duties without so much as a what-ho? As if the filthy rodent was some sort of favoured pet dog. A chihuahua perhaps, or a pekingese, but that's not important.

Hasty orders were screamed, and who do we send out to acquire a rat trap at a local merchant's? Raju. We must be shining geniuses. And we deserved what we eventually got - the empty-handed return of Raju, with the fantastic excuse that there were no rat traps available in the good neighbourhood of Versova. All fucking thirty square miles of it. Of course, his investigations revealed that rat traps were available in Andheri. Of course, he didn't bother to actually GO there or anything. What for? To him, the rat was no different from a fucking pekingese.

So night falls. Raju leaves. The rat stays.

Rahul throws out the mayonnaise.

I can't help thinking - maybe we would have got better results if we asked the rat to get rid of Raju. And while he was at it, to cook a decent dinner. I'm sure even Jagmohan could whip up something more interesting than cabbage.

Oh - and I didn't forget the cockroach. That story is coming up.