Somewhere between “Aami tomake marbo!” and “Thobor Dekha”, I think we all grew up. One of the instructions I get from my editor is to ensure my humour columns always have a local Kolkata and Bengali flavour (I am happy to add a flavour of my fellow Marwaris too, but only if they pay me). Luckily, Pushpal Roy has ensured this is taken care of in this column simply by being himself. For he has given us the new war cry for freedom and genuineness in this fake world with his screams of “thobor dekha” or as HR would call it “Can employees kindly put their video on when attending the compulsory diversity & equity seminar?”. Unlike HR though, he made it clear in the call that he will get back to you every hour.
The whole pandemic was about all of us screaming at our colleagues on Zoom, while cursing anyone who demands we do the same because we are attending the fourth-quarter unbalanced scorecard Freeview in our night suit. Girls would be laughing at Pushpal Roy and saying, “At least he is only demanding to see your face. You should see the requests in my DMs. One asked me to send nudes of my optic nerve. So I asked Superman to X-ray me… Now I have fallen in love with him and am off to Krypton”. (With Superman, not the guy screaming “Tui optic nerve dekha!)
Was it really a middle-aged man screaming at his minions because he was angry at the sales numbers? Or was it his three-year-old inner child channelising the anger he experienced when he felt other faceless adults were fooling him?
While everyone has blamed the high-pressure performance environment and the toxic cesspool that is financial-products sales, just like Albert Pinto of yore, no one has bothered asking the question “Pushpal Roy ko gussa kyu aata hai?”. Was it really a middle-aged man screaming at his minions because he was angry at the sales numbers? Or was it his three-year-old inner child channelising the anger he experienced when he felt other faceless adults were fooling him? So, he screams from the void across the screen “Thobor dekha” — “Show me your real faces, you faceless men”. At which point Jaqen H’ghar from Game of Thrones appears and tells him “Valar Appraisalis!! All men must suffer death and appraisal”.
Pushpal Roy’s scream of Thobor dekha is also a symptom of our entitled attitude towards instant gratification today. Tell someone, “Hey I wrote this wonderful 500-page note on mental health after thorough research”, and they grimace, “Pfft! who reads this. People want an instant answer. Explain everything in a 7-second Insta reel. THOBOR DEKHA!!”.
Perhaps Pushpal is suffering from this same pressure to relentlessly show his best face everywhere all the time. From the lunatics of ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ in HR to the woke child calling him a misogynist from an air-conditioned room. For the child is also now living in the delusion that I all he has to do is shout “Thobor Dekha” for likes, shares and subscribers and his life is sorted.
Perhaps we feel relentless pressure to show our best face everywhere all the time Shutterstock
One hopes that the all those pointing fingers at the finger pointer also take a moment to turn it towards themselves and ask: “Mujhe gussa kya aata hai”? Well, I have the answer to that. Mujhe gussa aata hai when people don’t leave likes, shares and comments on my column. NOW GIVE ME WHAT I WANT OR I WILL COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND SCREAM “THOBOR DEKHA!”
The author, Vikram Poddar, is a Marwari investment banker turned corporate comedian. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the website.
