Hindustan Times Feat. My Life is a Jalebi

I opened the papers this morning to see facebook being turtle-slapped Mutant Ninja style. Why and how, you ask? Every time that I open my facebook page to promote a post from my blog, Zuckerberg’s greedy blue HTML codes suggest that I pay them Rs. 609 to keep my post on the home feed of a few hundred people for one day. And today, the Hindustan Times featured a little piece on My Life is a Jalebi under the “Delhi Blog of the Week” section, thus putting the word out about this cheeky little online trashbag on not just the “home feeds” but in a few thousand actual “homes”, for *free*!

As I was making a day-dreaming-pulao, thinking about all the traffic this could get on my blog, I noticed how the paper also showed a one page advertisement of the new burger at Dunkin’ Donuts, and a very scandalous picture of Beyonce. Both these things shifted my attention away from the blog of the week and I figured that the only way in which my blog will get any attention from this coverage is if chana jor garam sellers across the city decided to make paper cones out of it. This pseudo-stardom may live a day longer in case the housewives of Old Delhi make up their minds to dry some red chillies and dhaniya in their verandahs, carefully spreading it over a newspaper whose fate is the kabadiwala’s furnace. Also, I hope the Delhi Jal Board quickly replenishes its resources as the Delhi water woes will otherwise lead to newspapers being used in place of the early morning bottle of water in all the JJ colonies of the city.

On reading the little article, I realized that the writer, Usama Sulaiman, must have read through every post on this blog to have covered it so beautifully and in such flattering light. It’ll be unfair if his patience, dedication and lies about the blog’s magnificence go unacknowledged. So, I would like to thank Usama, who is nothing less than a very good looking dashing man, and who I now wish to meet and treat to some really good food. I’m also thankful to my friend Ashna, who used her Pandora’s Box of a phone directory to dig out my number and pass it on to the cool peeps at HT City.

And now, it’s time for a glimpse of the actual coverage in the papers. The text of the same follows after the picture.

Before a smart aleck points out the date written on the article and says, “Aaj Saturday the 13^th hai, na ki Friday the 13^th. Newspaper walon ko date bhi nahi pata. Haha”, I would like to come to HT’s defense and tell you that a horrendous blog like MLIJ was being saved for a horrible date like Friday, the 13^th. But then they couldn’t keep such awesome news from the readers for very long. It was for your benefit, so STFU!

Open letters to street staples such as a flavoured soda bottle and moong ki daal, the connect between bowel movements and spicy street food in the city, people’s fascination with calling everyone bhaisaab or uncle — these and many such topics make the blog this week, My Life Is Jalebi, unique and interesting at the same time. The blogger, 23-year-old Sarthak Ahuja, has “an assortment of different types of jalebis”, as he calls his posts, to tickle your humour taste buds. From government officials to relationships to barber shops to Indian weddings in this part of the country, the witty commentary on the multitude of subjects is filled with funny observations and occasional sarcasm that doesn’t let you stop at just one post. Among the more interesting entries, like ‘Halwais of Rajinder Nagar’, ‘Love Maths or Dhoka’, ‘The Roohafza Social Revolution’ and ‘Date a Girl who burps’, is one definitely worth a read, called ‘Water Balloon Warfare Tips’ which has some 39 tips on art of throwing balloons on Holi, and reminds you of your own balloon warrior days. Another one is ‘Open letter to Banta (kanche wali botal)’, as mentioned at the outset of this piece, where the blogger talks about how his love for the soda bottle began and blossomed. The blog, which began as a means to express himself better for the blogger, has now transformed into a full-fledged humour station. “I realised that the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities in everyday life were not limited to just me and my family, but belonged to the whole city. (And) as humour is all about pointing out “the unthought-known”, I thought I could continue writing about the way Delhiites carry out their lives and make them chuckle a bit at their own lifestyle,” says Ahuja, a professional cost accountant and company secretary.