Dear Bollywood,
I am so upset with you. No, not because you churn out one
mindless movie after another (that has become acceptable now), with that
occasional streak of brilliance in between to save your face. It is because I
am deeply hurt and offended by how you misrepresent South Indian-ness in all
the crass that you produce.
You know, you occupy a really huge mind-share in Indians,
especially upwards of the Vindhyas, much more than you are worthy of. Given
that, you ought to be a tad bit more responsible in your portrayal of people
and their sensibilities, however funny you may want it to seem. This is long overdue. I have a few things to tell you…
Food: You really touched a raw nerve here. I believe we have way
more advanced gastronomical acumen than to consume curd with soy sauce and
ajinomoto, and most definitely not with the table manners that you have
revoltingly depicted. Curd is our elixir. I would like to invite you home for
lunch. I will teach you how we eat our curd rice. It is with this mind-blowing
accompaniment called “vadumanga”, which is made during summers and preserved in
pickled brine. I should probably arrange to send you some everyday so that the
curd goes down your system and cleanses your brains, while the spice of the
vadumanga grinds down your thick skin.
People: Our heroes may not have the metrosexuality to lie in a
bathtub full of roses to advertise for beauty soaps. They certainly do not have
the machismo of revealing butt cracks in hot swimwear either. But I would like
to think most of the reigning heroes are comfortably in between, with way more
cerebral and creative wealth than yours. So please stop portraying our men like
big fat goons with drawn up veshtis, generous visuals of their underwear,
abominable mustaches, flashy jewellery and more than abundant body hair.
Speaking of body hair, let us rewind a decade or so and take a moment to digest
the volume of collective hair of the then Kumars, Kapoors, Deols and the Khans.
About our women, well, the lesser said, the better. I
don’t think you have the mental maturity for this discussion as yet.
Language: Let me do you a favour and help you enrich your
general knowledge a little bit. We have four states here, each with its own
beautiful language. So, one can safely presume that our vocabulary is more
advanced than the “Ayyos” / “Aiyyas” and the exaggerated “aaahs” / “ooohs”
that you pepper around your characters, especially in that irritating nasal
tone.
I wanted to end this post with a caustic remark on the
first and last syllables of your name. Well, I'll just let that be... because
it will take you light years to understand the joke.
