Dear [Pramod] Muthalikji,
Here’s fair warning of what we intend to do today, just in case you want to send your goons to play spoilers. My wife and I are getting on in years so, though we still go to pubs, nightclubs, lounges when we’re invited by friends, we’d rather party amidst people we know rather than with strangers, having a conversation that we can hear rather than sense, and in a place we can see each other without straining our eyes too much. Yet, this evening, we’re planning to go pub-hopping so your cadre of sourpuss acolytes will have something to rail against: About how the young generation is being led astray not just by the moral values of the West, but by refusing-to-age oldies who are leading the young along the path of decadence. I’m not sure of the actual places we might end up in, so it might be better for you to detail someone to trail us from watering hole to discotheque to club, and if you promise that he’ll be vigilant, I might even let him be our designated driver — that way I’ll get to drink however much I want, and you’ll have something to be upset about, making us both happy.
My daughter, who now that she’s eighteen you might think should already be married and having children, will go independently to a party where, she’s informed me, there’ll be not just alcohol but also boys. You might consider this shameful (or should that be shameless — I really don’t know) but I’ve actually encouraged her to go: It’s a friend’s birthday party, but don’t let that stop you from drawing all the wrong conclusions and denouncing it as further evidence of the vice that this country has descended to.
As further proof of my shamefulness (or shamelessness, if you prefer), I’ve let her order a dress just for the party this evening. I haven’t seen it yet, but once again — for your sake, of course — I hope it’s sufficiently provocative to draw your ire. But remember, diminutive though she might look, my daughter is fully capable of throwing the boots she intends to also wear tonight, with deadly accuracy. I hope you have trained your army of hooligans to duck, and duck fast — we don’t want the upholders of Indian morality to get injured in the line of duty, do we?
My son, who should have been in Pune but has bunked college to be with us for a special occasion — no, not Valentine’s Day, that’s merely a coincidence, though a fortuitous one — finds himself sans girlfriend here. But I can’t have him sitting at home, moping — that would hardly serve you as you unleash your vitriol on the morality of today’s youth. So I’ve given him money — rather a lot of it as it turns out — to buy flowers to send to all the girls he has known when he was in school in Delhi. It’ll go a little bit towards providing some stimulus to the Indian economy — do you even know how much roses cost today? — which will please me, but also anger you, making, as I said before, both of us happy, which might be the whole point of Valentine’s Day.
I thought you might be interested in one more fact. We — that’s my family, Muthalikji, not you and I — have never bought ourselves Valentine’s Day cards or gifts or flowers, thinking of it as nothing more than marketing kitsch. But this year my wife, for the first time ever, has asked that I buy her something — a pair of pink chaddis. Only, she says she doesn’t want them, that they’re meant for you. Funny, I thought you liked only khaki knickers.
Yours et cetera…
