What if…

When I see the kind of woefully amateurish writing that RW media accepts for publication, I regret that I am unable to suspend my morals for a wee bit and simply separate out my need to be on the right side of history from my need to not starve.

What could I do if I could write for the RW? I’d be an effing star with OpIndia or PostCard News, for example. That’s what I’d be. I’d become world-famous in parts of interior UP, North Karnataka, Burdubai, and the suburbs of New Jersey. I’d be in line for awards and felicitations, perhaps even a minor state minister’s berth, a chief of a small PSU, the President of some commission/committee, or a spokesperson’s role. I’d be on TV defending masterstrokes and hate speeches. I’d be invited to Prayagraj and Haridwar as a leading intellectual. I’d explain to whoever is willing to listen (and there’d be millions) that the caste system is an invention of the British and how it’s dead long back as I raise questions about whether the people who pulled down that groom from the horse and paraded the mother of the bride naked could actually be Muslims. I’d get to give speeches in universities where I’d rue the end of ‘merit’ as I demand that doctors put up their caste certificates in their clinics, so I know if they got admission into the medical college through a reserved seat. I’d attend private, paid dos in Oxford and Harvard and pass them off as authorised events. I’d call for the UN to recognise Hindu genocide from 50,000 years ago when Homo Sapiens outbred Homo Erectus. I’d be at Jaipur Litfest flogging my latest book on revisionist history, while I debate Shashi Tharoor and insist on being referred to as an ‘Indic historian’. I’d be a Twitter (or at least a Koo) star, explaining economic or foreign policy to experts even as I mock their formal degrees and start my sentences with, ‘I’m not an expert, but…’. I’d slide into DMs of strange women who simply happened to ‘Like’ my post with a ‘Hello dear, you are beautiful, but you should…’ and give advice on fashion, dietary preferences, marriage, career, politics, sex, or indeed life. I’d evangelise compulsory military service to instil discipline and patriotism in today’s ‘woke’ youth. In fact, I’d use words and phrases like ‘woke’, ‘gender fluidity’, and ‘political correctness’ ironically and in a mocking tone. I’d be a minor celebrity invited to inaugurate beauty salons and gyms. I’d recount with great detail how Modiji did this, and then Doval Sir said that, and how the Army Chief responded and how the President of the USA was scared of what India would do and so on as if I was in the room with them, and I’d be taken at my word for it. I’d be doing the lecture circuit and co-authoring papers. I’d be asked to debates and discussions where I’ll defend the Supreme Leader, though my arguments would begin with, ‘I’m not a bhakt but…’. I’d receive my own quotes as Whatsapp forwards in my family group. I’d be called Sathguru or IntellectualBhai or Sir Kedar or something equally meaningless but profound. I’d be flattered to be compared or spoken in the same breath as Elon Musk and Ayn Rand. I’d be free to declare myself a ‘Hindu Atheist’, even as I defend ‘Indic Culture’, and will be seen as some kind of a brave, courageous rebel for it. My presence would be requested at parties thrown by social butterflies and Bollywood stars. Indeed, I’d be wanted, loved, feted, and celebrated.

Because the RW seems to have such low standards for their thinkers and writers that even if someone wants, they can’t slip below it. I’d have been their world record high jumper over that low bar.

Unfortunately, though, this seems more fantasy than something I could actually do in real life. Why? Not because I can’t. But because I won’t.

That does not, however, stop me from wistfully looking at the other side from time to time.

And then looking at the mirror, to sigh deeply and say to myself, ‘What a waste of a colossal talent!’

Anyway, here’s a selfie of me thinking of the dark side.

P.S: In the movie ‘Dirty Picture’, the ageing film superstar that Naseeruddin Shah plays, when being flattered and called a genius for his non-existent creativity by a sycophant, looks introspectively at the horizon, lets out a deep sigh of despondency, and says in all seriousness, in a grave voice, ‘It’s a curse, I tell you. It’s a curse.’