Well as you heard, my name is Shashi Tharoor and, if you are surprised to see me here believe me, that’s exactly how I feel, Anyway, I mean I’m glad and proud to be the first politician to make you folks laugh… intentionally.
So before I start my set, I think I better ensure that we’re all on the same page, So, here is a dictionary for you perusal. For you perusal, sur. You’ll find perusal on page 410. But anyway, I mean the fact is that, you know I am an MP, I guess you’ve been told.
I represent Thiruvananthapuram Because any constituency of less than seven syllables would have been a waste of my, linguistic. It would have been a waste of my linguistic skills. But the fact is, I was looking for a constituency with a longer name.
Except that Mr. Yogi was busy changing all the names of the cities. And I knew he wouldn’t touch Thiruvananthapuram, because it already ends with Ram. But the fact is that they keep-Here I got my panama papers right here. 24 hours of preparation. But the fact is that But the fact is the stuff about my vocabulary is really overdone. I had a normal childhood, just like all of you guys I mean my parents would embarrass me too when guests came over.
Shashi, why don’t you speak English with Uncle? And I’d say “Daddy, please! I can’t entertain this. Pardon my recalcitrance!” Anyway, the fact is that it’s really got to a point where anything I say is assumed buy people to be more complicated than it is, Like todoy I was ordering lunch at a restaurant and I said, “Please may I have a Caesar salad” And this woman said, Oh Shashi, always quoting Shakespeare!” And I still haven’t got my salad!
There seem to be a lot of millennials in this audience, right? Lot of millennials? Give yourselves a cheer! Because nobody else will. Every time I give an interview these days, Whether in the west or here, people are tryin to say to me, Can you translate these words from millennial lingo? Like, ” Do you know the meaning of FOMO is?”
Now that I know okay fear of missing out, right? So But I mean if that’s the kind of lingo that I should be afraid of missing out, bring on the FOMO! I mean like they say for example, if a millennial finds somebody attractive, they say she’s SNACC? I mean since when was it a compliment to say to somebody, “You look like a sabudana vada!” (Indian snack) Now the fact is that before joining the Indian politics, I spent 29 years at the UN. The United Nations I was in the room when UNESCO declared India’s National Anthem the best National Anthem in the world.
Except that I didn’t hear it. But, but, but believe because the BJP said so and you know shortly thereafter, UNESCO declared BJP the most truthful party in the world! Anyway, I mean the fact is learned that from WhatsApp.
Do you get your news from WhatsApp, too? Yes yes. Yeah, I mean, I don’t blame you because journalis has gone to the dogs, right? And what are dogs? What do chowkidars (watchmen) rely on when they want to fall asleep?
So Now, the last people who were to appoint themselves, self-appointed chowkidars (watchmen) of India were the Brits. I mean the Brits came and they took a country which had been the richest country in the world in 1700, 27% of global GDP. And they reduced it to the poorest country in the world 200 years later when they left, with less than three percent of global GDP.
I mean the last time a foreigner had such a detrimental impact on India was Greg Chappell at the 2007 World Cup. Have you guys been to London? Anyone, here? Yeah It’s a niee city right full of all these gorgeous museums, Have you notioed every single museum there, is a chor Bazaar (flea market)?
I mean it’s just full of artifacts and valuable objects plundered from every corner of the globe that they’ve conquered and exploited. All the them. And only the British would have the gall to come and say why don’t you spend your money looking at what my grandfather stole from your grandfather.
They don’t teach their children about Colonialism. You can do an A levels in History. An A level in History which is the highest school qualification, at the best schools, in England without learning a line of colonial history They just don’t bother to tell you, in fact, they mention.
Colonialism in Britain about as often as Narendra Modi mentions demonetization these days. Imagine if they did teach their kids about the wrongdoings of their ancestors and you can imagine going to one of their star bucks, and you place you order and sure inevitably they get your name wrong.
So,you point it out to them and on cue they say, “Oh, I’m sorry sir!” and you say, “Just for the name?” In fact they gave about as much thought to the welfare and well-being of Indians as they gave Brexit. You know, what a massive screw up that’s going to be! You know, what’s going to happen to the UK’s GDP?
It’s already on its way down but once Brexit gets filly screwed up, you can just imagine. I think we probably paid Ben Stokes more than Britain’s entire GDP post Brexit. You know my argument for an apology is very simple. I say you know tell the Brits. I’m asking you for an apology is really nothing else you can give us. Right, what is it? You gave us cricket. We built a better cricket team. You gave us Benedict Cumberbactch. All right for that we are grateful.
You gave us the English language, and I gave it back to you! But I think I’ve probably gone too far along this line. You probably are wondering as some of you are millennials, what is this guy giving us a lecture in the middle of a stand-up comedy act. So, let me just summarize it in millennial language, all right?
So, the Brits were LIT AF when they saw India. They thought our resources were SNACC. So they built this Empire, that left us SHOOK, But were resisted the Empire Mr. Gandhi and all that, because YOLO.
And we drov them out with our non-violence SWAG. And finally, India can be like “Apna time aayega” (Our time will surely come) Well you’ve been a great audience Thank You. I hope you have a good time.
And it you didn’t. If you didn’t I’ll apologize. After the British have apologized for East India Company. And, Sapan apologizes for East India Comedy. And even if those things don’t work, then you can learn from Narendra Modi and just blame it all on Nehru.
Thank You.
Give it up for Dr. Shashi Tharoor, everyone! Thank You Amazing So, how was the experience for you, Doctor?
Well you know, I’m certainly a lot less nervous now than when I started. But yeah. This audience was great. It was a pleasure. Yeah? Talking to them, yeah. Would you want to try stand-up again sometime? You know, yeah maybe. I mean who wants. Perhaps I should just quit when the going is good, you know. I remember when Gavaskar retired from cricket saying, ” I want to go when people say wh rather than why not? So maybe this is the right cue. Please tell Advani that also.
Give it up one more time for Dr. Shashi Tharoor.
That’s your host Sapan Verma Thank You so much. Bye-Bye. Good night, Thank you off you go backstage sir.