Here's Your Birthday Gift, Sucka! (Guest Post)

‘Ello! I hope you had a bright and brilliant Diwali.

I had been asking my friend Ankita to write something for my blog for a very long time. On spending months to come up with an interesting topic, it seems she found nothing more interesting in the world than me. “Girls” I tell you! So here she’s written a little piece, which she says had been written for my birthday, which passed away on the 3^rd of November. I’ll take credit for selecting the picture for the post. That’s me in her arms and she’s making me cut my birthday cake. *Woof*

Sarthak Ahuja has been badgering me to write him a guest post since the day I sent him a mail appreciating his blog (well, the time frame would be an exaggeration. But anyone who has had the fortune of talking to this lad would know that he can talk in an hour what Arnab Goswami talks in a year. No kidding). I hate writing. I started hating it since I was compelled to make stipulated submissions within a deadline for my college magazine, and the beauty and magic of inking words into a composition lost its charm. And here I am, attempting to write something funny. I cannot write anything funny or humorous. So if you wind up nauseated at the futile effort towards wit by the time you laboriously reach the end, please kill Sarthak Ahuja.

I came upon this blog through a friend whose friend is friends with Sarthak. And I liked it so much that I decided to write him a mail lauding his blog. Actually, the deceiving header photo which is displayed on the blog was the trigger for this impulsive action, but we’ll assume for the time being that my interest in the blog and its author’s writing skills far outweighed my interest in the author, and me and my roommates swooning over the cute guy did not even list in the scheme of things considered before shooting the mail (I tell you, the picture is very, very deceptive). So I sent the mail.

About a zillion mails and gtalks later, I have qualified enough to blabber away at the slightest provocation reasons for NOT sending a fan mail to your favourite blogger. You see, when I first sent the oh-man-you-write-so-well-as-to-dazzle-my-overbearing-stephanian-roomie, little did I know that the man was as garrulous and over-zealous as Rakhi Sawant blustering away to glory on the sets of aap ki adaalat (For all that he knew, I might have been a lunatic stalker with a SSSSSarthak fetish, out to pester him for the rest of his life until I died a martyr’s death trying to extricate him from his millionth girlfriend. Indiscreet much, huh?). So interacting with I-can-even-talk-to-a-lamppost Ahuja has consequently given rise to many contingencies, the following to name a few (you can add to the list, of course. Listening about every random dweeb to inhabit this planet can only cause so many grievances)

A LAPTOP CLUTTERED WITH PICTURES

The first e-mail I sent across got in its reply some attached pictures of some random person’s guinea pig, and in its wake brought along a deluge of pictures with every e-mail. Some days back, as I casually sifted through the pictures in my laptop, I realised that I had Sarthak’s girlfriends’ photos, their doggies’ and guinea pigs’ photos, some pink-coloured piggy-shaped USB photo (why would anybody send a picture of a USB?), his aquarium’s pictures and some XYZ’s birthday gift’s photos. And I am not adding to that list the numerous guy pictures he’s sent across (the prospective boyfriends for the single me) since he was doing me a favour with that. But the end result was the same- an avalanche of pictures.

I have reciprocated in kind, though. I didn’t desist from attacking his phone and mailed him every random picture I could lay my hands on. Prospective ‘4^th’ girlfriend for him, some friend’s crush’s photo, roommate’s horrendously hideous high school photos, I sent them all. Pictures, pictures everywhere…not one worth glancing at.

EARLY MORNING CALLS

Now this is something I hadn’t bargained for. I need 8 hours of sleep, and an early morning (read 9 O’ clock) call is completely unwarranted. I am still in college, fella, so please let me fill up my required sleep quota before I am forced to get up at the ungodly hour of 6 at dawn and slog my way through my sucking future job. And Sarthak Ahuja has a particular knack for waking you up when you need to sleep the most- the holidays. You are happily dreaming about your crush taking you out to some club-cum-restaurant, and then, well, trying to rape you, when suddenly Sarthak Ahuja- the saviour comes to the rescue with his phone call! Your dazed mind tries to process the flood of words flowing from the other end, and by the time you’ve got hold of your bearings, Mr Ahuja has reached his office and disconnected the call. You’re wide awake now, and no matter how much you try to regain the lost sleep, it just evades you. Your Nani, who’s been trying to wake you up for over 2 hours for breakfast, silently thanks the caller who saved her granddaughter from eternal breakfast-damnation.

RELENTLESS REQUESTS FOR A GUEST POST

Since July, Sarthak has been plaguing me to write for his blog. Not a conversation goes without a subtly brutal reminder of my non-compliance. One blog post…Can’t you write just one blog post? I have dodged even my mother’s requests for an article on some outdated and over-discussed economics topic for some outdated magazine, because I have lost the patience to sit back and write, but Sarthak was unyielding in his pursuit. Throwing in some feelers that he wrote well and his blog was popular enough to not need anybody else guest posting didn’t help. His other nikamme friends gave his requests a wide berth (very intelligent they are, I must say), but my refusals always fell on deaf ears. So I finally gave in, and decided to caricature The Sarthak Ahuja on his own blog.

After reading this, I don’t think he will ever ask me to write for him again. But if he does (you thick-skinned Gandhi ke chele, will you ever give up?), I know what his blog needs to be adorned with- his I-am-so-cool-yo teenage photos from Facebook, which look like stills from some Karan Johar movie. Yes, that is exactly what his blog lacks.