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(Note: This is my HT column dated 31st May 2015.)

Earlier this week, a Muslim woman named Misbah Quadri alleged that she was forced to vacate her rented apartment in Wadala, Mumbai, because of her faith. This story came as a shock to exactly zero people, because if you’ve spent more than ten minutes in India, you know that bigotry and hypocrisy are our finest talents, second only to telling people that they’ve put on weight yaar.

But then came the twist: it was reported that the building she was evicted from houses other Muslim residents who’ve never faced such problems, and that she was evicted after a spat with her broker that had nothing to do with religion. If that’s true, then congratulations to Misbah for arming people with one more reason to turn down minority tenants.

This contradiction gave a bunch of people the chance to crow ‘SEE SHE’S LYING SHE’S A PAID COMMUNAL AGENT THERE IS NO BIAS BOOYEAH!’. That’s like saying that ‘I know a woman who filed a false dowry claim so
‘Honda City ke saath ek biwi free’ doesn’t happen.’

It’s not just religious grounds – the housing market is a basically a buffet of bias. You can pick the ideal tenant qualities like you’re designing an avatar in a video game. When you unlock the highest level, you get an upper-caste married MNC-employed couple with kids who cracked the JEE while still in the womb.

Of course, bias isn’t the exclusive domain of the majority. Like young women four drinks down at a party, it goes both ways. And you can see why. It’s because equality is terrifying.

I mean what if some heathen starts cooking meat in the privacy of his home, with complete disregard for the noses of people who live two floors up? What if someone starts drinking alcohol in his own house, not caring about some medieval definition of sin as imposed by the followers of Magic Sky People? What if kids see young men and women freely visiting each other and conclude that this is normal and does not mean that a brothel is being run on the premises? Does it not shake you to the core when you realise that people outside the radius of your tiny brain give zero shits about your prejudice?

What is amazing is that these are the same people who, when they’re abroad, will whine about how white people call them Apu-loving towel-heads. This is how Indians sound like when they’re abroad:

Guy 1: That guy just called me a darkie. White people are so racist!

Guy 2: Bhai, Indians are best. We treat visitors like god only!

And this is what they sound like when they see a black guy in India:

Guy 1: Aye Negro, how much for cocaine.

Black Guy: Dude, I’m Chris Gayle.

Guy 2: I loved you as Nick Fury!

If I ever own property – which will happen once I figure out how to monetize oversleeping – I too will have a set of rules and questions for prospective tenants. It’ll look something like this:

Do you watch Game of Thrones? Do you read Game of Thrones? Can you STFU about spoilers? Okay, we’re cool.

Are you gay? Are you straight? Are you turned on by Shrek soft toys? When is Ranbir marrying Katrina? None of this is my business, so carry right on.

Do you drink? Do you get drunk and quote cheesy Bollywood lines? Can you sing Hai Huku Hai Huku Hai Hai, and wake up the next day with not an ounce of shame? If so, welcome to the party.

Are you a pain at the dinner table? Will you put on a hazmat suit if the guy next to you orders meat? Or conversely, will you make stupid ghaas-phoos jokes if there’s a vegetarian at the table? Either way, I hope you catch a disease that requires you to only eat karela for the rest of your life.

Tina Fey or Amy Poehler? (There is no wrong answer here. Unless you say Comedy Circus, in which case you can go live in Archana Puran Singh’s mouth. It’s bigger than most Mumbai apartments anyway.)

There you have it. That was pretty simple. Now if only somebody could just gift me some property, that would be great. It’s an open offer to anyone reading this. Bigots needn’t apply.

Keep Calm And Ban Everything

Once again, India was witness to a colossal whirlwind of stupidity that began sometime last week and is expected to end by the year ‘Haha Are You Kidding Me?’. India and Pakistan stopped sparring over Kashmir for a while and chose to divert attention towards something far more important – the well-being of Shahrukh Khan.

The farce began after an essay written by Khan gained circulation, and left people shocked by the fact that Bollywood actors could actually string together sentences that weren’t typd lyk dis gng 2 gym lolgodbleess mwah. In the essay, Khan talked about how he often became the target of political machinations because of factors like status and religion. You know which religion I’m talking about. Yes, the one that people tip-toe around a lot. Scientology.

Khan’s essay caught the attention of Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik, who took time off from his busy schedule of denying 26/11 and asked the Indian government to provide SRK with security. It’s wonderful when two of the world’s most watched nuclear rivals set aside piddling matters like poverty, corruption and domestic strife, and choose to talk about a guy who peddles fairness creams. And because that wasn’t enough, Hafiz Saeed, 26/11 mastermind and Ugly-In-Chief of the JuD, said that Shahrukh was free to come to Pakistan if he felt unsafe in India. Now that’s just daft. The only Indian who can be safe in Pakistan is Dawood.

Then of course, every idiot with an internet connection had to weigh in, and this is what the comments section under every article looked like:

ProudIndian: (8 minutes ago)

SRGAYYYYY! Dey r all tarorist! Go bck 2 homeland u asterisk-loving asterisk-asteriscker!

SweetAnjaliTinaSimran4u: (3 minutes ago)

SRK da bessttt! ❤ u alwayz! leave gori, marry me!

JessicaMcBusty138179 (1 minute ago)

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If that doesn’t make you break down at the state of the gene pool, just consider the week Kamal Haasan has had. His six trillion dollar magnum opus, Vishwaroopam, was banned for hurting the sentiments of people who hadn’t seen it.

(The film, set in New York, is classic Kamal fare. It’s about Vishwanath aka Wiz, played by Kamal Haasan, who battles a jehadi, played by Rahul Bose, also played by Kamal Haasan. Haasan also plays his wife, the cops, the FBI, the bomb and the Empire State Building. In fact, this isn’t a computer – this is Kamal Haasan playing a computer. If you don’t believe me, rub the bottom of the screen gently. Go on. I dare you.)

The contention was that Vishwaroopam showed members from a certain religion (Shintoism) in a bad light. There were protests in Chennai, causing average commute times to soar to 4 hours instead of the usual 3 hours 55 minutes. Also, I’m always intrigued by the logic that goes into these protests:

Leader: This film/book/TV show/comic/web clip/text on shampoo bottle portrays our community as a bunch of violent fanatics. What should we do to counter this?

Follower: We could just ignore it and work on real issues –

Leader: WHAT ARE YOU SOME SORT OF PUSSY! LET’S SHOW THEM THAT WE’RE NOT NUTS BY ACTING NUTS!

At the time of writing, the protests had been withdrawn after the government and protestors sat down with Haasan and forced him to sweetly asked him to delete certain ‘offensive’ scenes. It’s nice to see our secular government ensure that no matter what group you belong to, you will be personally met and mollycoddled by our leaders as long as your cause is crazy enough. But fickle causes like justice for a gangrape victim – remember her? – or anti-sexual harassment reforms are matters that merit the attention of only inanimate objects, like water cannons, or Sushil Kumar Shinde.

Even though my name suggests otherwise, I am part of a minority. I’m part of a group that bases its opinions on something other than the honour of Magic People In The Sky, and then broadcasts those opinions into a world filled with petty agendas backed by powerful maniacs. I’m part of a group that will one day share jail space with murderers and rapists, because someone somewhere didn’t like the sound of our thoughts. So if this column offends you, I urge you to try and understand us, and join hands in espousing the one cause that we all believe in, regardless of faith, i.e. Hafiz Saeed should really take a bath.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 3rd Feb 2013. Cross-posted from here.)