TOI's Renuka Vyavahare - Meta-Satirist?

First, watch this clip -

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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Now read this.

I think Renuka Vyavahare, who wrote the article, is some sort of a meta-satirist, satirizing satire itself, by pretending to take it wayyyyy too seriously, fake-projecting some complexes and biases, and getting worked up over nothing. That has to be the case. NO ONE can be capable of missing the forest for the trees by as wide a margin as the article, if seriously written, would imply.

In case Ms. Vyavahare was serious, here are some pointers for her -

- Jon Stewart's ridicule is a defence mechanism that is part of crisis management from the "American press"?? Hah! that's like saying...... gah, similes fail me! The very idea is so absurd! Clearly, this woman has no idea what The Daily Show does. Which begs the question..... how will she react if shown clips of Stephen Colbert? Specifically, Colbert taking the credit for Shashi Tharoor's Lok Sabha win? I can just imagine the headline "US Media Falsely Claims Credit for Tharoor Win". Followed by a poll question - "Do you think the US media is wrong in taking credit for Shashi Tharoor's win?"

- She writes that Stewart mocked SRK by showing clips of him not being recognized at Newark. Ummm.... he was actually mocking the ignorance of New Jersey, incidentally his home state!

- The little bit that he talked about SRK was also basically just a set-up for Aasif Mandvi's clearly self-deprecating bit....including calling Stewart a "m***-chod".

- Random people like Omar Qureishi and Taran Adarsh are quoted, supposedly sticking up for Shahrukh and taking potshots at America. Their quotes are hilarious enough by themselves.

In conclusion, I have some sobering pieces of news for Vyavahare, Qureishi and Adarsh - The parrot in the Monty Python sketch? Not REALLY dead! More like a stuffed or toy parrot. Inspector Lobo in the Chocoliebe ad? Wasn't REALLY turned down from a police job. Eating Center-shock will REALLY NOT make your head look like a porcupine. Udham Singh on Channel V was not REALLY a jatt bumpkin, nor was Apple Singh on Star Sports an actual villager. And Jaspal Bhatti doesn't actually have a REAL political party.

And at night, the sun doesn't really go to sleep. It just happens to be shining on the other side of the planet.

Interesting Dinner at Mahesh

Paras, Maithili, Rupal and I got our table in Mahesh. In a few minutes, some folks came and sat at the table next to us. And when I say "next" to us, those that have been to Bombay restaurants in general and Mahesh in particular will know that tables are placed really close. Paras said "We are lucky to be here today", so I looked over and spotted Naseeruddin Shah seated at the table, barely two feet away from Maithili. The four of us whispered excitedly amongst each other, stole a few glances at him, noticed that his wife Ratna Pathak Shah was also with him, as was a kid who was presumably his son, and two other folks.

Now, anyone who has dined in the Juhu area knows that spotting some Bollywood celebrity in restaurants there is a fairly commonplace occurrence. The norm is to not "disturb" them, and "respect their privacy" and so on. So we did that, despite being huge fans of Naseer. No gushing or fawning. No omigawdyouarethegreatestactoreverrrr!!-ing happened, neither did any sosososorrybutcanipleasegetanautoandphotographnaseersirji-ing take place. We went back to studying the menu, with the occasional quick glances out of the corner of our eye. After a while my eye wandered to the other side of the table which was occupied by what I presumed were two random young people. There was a young woman sitting almost right next to me, whom I did not recognize. And some dude sitting next to her whom I had not noticed. Till then.

I looked at him...stared a bit... he looked by and also stared... and gave a tentative half-smile as if to say 'why is this creep staring at me?' I leaned towards my wife the other way and whispered to her "Is that Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show?". She looked over, and yelled out "O MI GAWD, ARE YOU AASIF MANDVI!??" Their table suddenly started looking at us, and the wife and I both started gushing and fawning at him. How we are big fans of him, The Daily Show, Jon Stewart.... so on and so forth. He thanked us, smiled, then asked us where we were from, because I am sure it must be pretty rare for him to be recognized in Bombay. All this while, Naseer and his wife seemed to have a clearly amused expression on their faces. I am sure they found it hilarious that a bunch of folks in India kinda ignored Naseer's presence, but went gaga over some random ABCD actor. I later overheard Naseer asking what we were talking about, and the woman with Aasif explaining what The Daily Show is and so on.

We all returned to ordering our meals, and no more conversation happened for a while. In the end when we were leaving, Aasif very nicely called us over, shook our hands, said goodbye-take-care etc. Some more gushing happened again from Rupal and me. I believe I also said rather doltishly "Say hi to Jon for me" (yeah right!). Paras says that Naseer was laughing again.

I think we inadvertently made Aasif Mandvi's day. Being out at a table with Naseeruddin Shah in India, and then being fawned over by a bunch of Indians who ignore Naseer completely? That's gotta boost his ego at least a little. It's not that we wanted to ignore Naseer. He is of course Da Man. But spotting Aasif Mandvi was such an unexpected surprise, that it made the wife and I react like complete nerds.