How to survive in troll times

If our parties are winding down faster than the bartender can mix cocktails, blame it on the trolls who no longer confine themselves to insulting everyone anonymously in cyberspace. It’s no more considered bad manners to tick off hosts, accusing them of everything from anti-nationalism to religious impropriety while sipping their champagne. Once, parties in the capital celebrated snobbery, but also diversity, yet the suburbs are quickly dispensing with such niceties. The uninformed now spew a hate more chilling than chilled mojitos. Socialites let their Louis Vuittons as well as their attitudes do the talking, and if it bothers you, well, you can make yourself scarce, there’s not enough room for dissenting grown-ups anymore.

To refuse to believe the demographic that a minority community is breeding like rabbits to overcome our majoritarian effeteness in adding to India’s already groaning population is to be anti-national. Don’t I read the WhatsApp forwards that have proved this beyond any statistician’s doubt? If my neighbour three houses removed shouts that this is so, then I’d better believe it, because to openly disagree is to tempt him to send a mob over. Nor is he always lopsided in his opinion. Yes, he had black money — didn’t everybody? — but he made it white thanks to demonetisation. To abide by the law, he loaned his millions to his factory workers to deposit into their accounts. The real chors? Eighteen of his factory staff, plus his driver, and — what a case of villainy! — his own brother-in-law, who decamped with the cash. Who’s a man to trust anymore?

With India’s new moneyed class no longer confined to the fringes, the unpleasantness of pop-patriotism has seeped into drawing rooms. The breaking of rules is not considered taboo, being caught doing so is. Wealth is all that matters, not how it was acquired, so what if it’s ill-gotten and allows you to park a Merc or three in the driveway? Delhi weddings were known for their opulence, but also their conviviality, but now there’s only fiscal crassness as bride and groom drip enough brands and jewellery to erase the debt of small nations but refuse the little gratuities that might warm the cockles of their minions’ hearts.

It’s not the official bans that break the spirit of a nation as much as the many personal ones guided by fear. Love before or even in marriage must be spurned in favour of duty, for all else is jihad, even if it is goons who say so. If you won’t heed sense and cease from eating meat on festive occasions, what choice do they have but to shut down the supply? And if you profess a fondness for the flesh of a cud-chewing omnivore, you must fear not ostracisation but lynching at the hands not of strangers but kindly neighbours who, last week, supped at your table.

These days, therefore, Sarla has been teaching my wife things that, she insists, will stand us in good stead. She’s had our horoscopes cast (just in case), our house made vastu-compliant (to appease the staff), insisted we keep weekly fasts (so, okay, we cheat), turn vegetarian (in public), and trained us to be cavalier when discussions turn to the female gender, and to keep our opinions in check amidst chest-thumping dialogues about teaching a certain neighbouring state a lesson in physics. At least we’ve started lasting out at parties till dinner is served. Sarla says she’ll back down once we make it to dessert.