Respected Sir/Madam,
I am sorry to say that I am writing today’s letter in a very foul mood. Problems started in the morning itself. After breakfast I was sitting in my living room and watching Gregory Peck and David Niven in Guns of Navarone film.
It is one of the great masterpieces. One day whether anybody in India will be able to make a film like this that can give thrills to your heart but also satisfaction to your brain?
No chance. We will just destroy it with nonsense embellishments. One cabaret song before WW2, one dream song on top of the guns, one politician who is chief minister of Navarone, and full thermocol special effects like Bahubali . And in the climax scene there will be some twist like there was only one gun and it was double role.
Hopeless country.
Usually once a week I see this film in the morning, as I relax in my living room. Not this morning. This morning just as the film was starting Mrs. Mathrubootham ran into the living room and started shouting: “Hey old man, my friends are coming from the Housing Colony Ladies Association, you please put something with dignity on the TV.”
Stupid woman, I am old man?! Hello, our age difference is one year and 17 days. You are talking as if you are some Miss Teenage Anna Nagar 2017. Then there is your stupid ladies association. Full nonsense talks and gossip and jealousy and backbiting.
Prison food
Sir/ Madam, usually when we are alone at home and I ask her what is there for lunch she will combine rice from last week and curd from Mohenjodaro period and make curd rice. But when her Ladies Association is there suddenly new dialogues will be released. She will make three curries and two vegetables and pudding also. And then act as if this is what we eat every day.
The ladies will say Mr. Mathrubootham, you are such a lucky man. And I will say quietly in my mind: Get out of my house stupid women or I will kill all of you and I am not at all afraid of life imprisonment because I am already used to prison food.
So, anyway, I put some business news channel and sat in the living room looking very professional. The ladies came and started interactions. One lady asked if I had any investments in the stock market. Mrs. Mathrubootham said oh, he has so many investments. (Sir/ Madam, in my whole life I have made one stock market investment. Some software company in Bengaluru. Not even Subhas Chandra Bose disappeared so quickly.)
Then the pleasant lady on the TV channel said one news: Apparently banks will have to take haircut of 6,000 crore rupees from loans they have given to some Reliance company. What nonsense is this 6,000 crore haircut?
Sir/ Madam, you are editor of this esteemed newspaper. You only tell me, why are we using devious terms like haircut and all? When we should just honestly write headline like this: “Banks will lose Rs. 6,000 crore due to becoming muttaals by giving loan to company.”
When people do stupid things we should call them idiots. Instead, if we give nice fancy names like haircut for total stupidity, they will do it again and again and again. So, instead of saying ‘downsizing’ we should say ‘destroyed livelihood of families’. Instead of saying ‘business restructuring’ we should openly say ‘compensating for previous stupidity with new stupidity’. Like that.
Whether I go to barber shop and say: “Murugesan, can you please downsize my top extremities?” He will laugh in my face and then call police station.
Yours in exasperation,
J. Mathrubootham
