Celebrity Column: Tongue in check, writes Ayushmann Khurrana

My Twitter timeline at the time of any sporting event — mostly cricket or tennis — looks like that of a sports editor of a college magazine. There are random musings about odd happenings which I observe sitting on my lazy home couch or crazy airport lounges.

Be it Roger Federer resembling Arbaaz bhai (Khan) or my female friends feeling Nadal will be better than Federer in bed. Which I clearly doubt. Because Federer would definitely be calmer and patient in bed sans premature ejaculation issues.

Federer is the epitome of classical tennis and Nadal is sheer emotion and passion. Before serving, Nadal wipes his forehead and nose, adjusts his T-shirt, takes his shorts out of that wedgie and then tosses the ball. He also sticks his tongue out at times when he loses a point.

Pete Sampras also used his tongue a lot to express emotions while at the No. 1 in the early ’90s. Our homegrown living legend Virat Kohli also sticks his tongue out to express disappointment on field.

The other day, I came across this video which explained how Andre Agassi cracked Boris Becker’s serve just by observing the latter’s tongue position. Yes, you read it right, the tongue position. When Becker kept his tongue straight touching his nose that meant he would serve straight and when he kept his tongue on the edge of his mouth that gave the indication he would serve on the side.

I bet even Becker’s wife wouldn’t have observed his tongue so minutely. And Agassi kept this secret till the very end of his beautiful career. And eventually revealed it to Becker only after retirement, when one day, they were sharing a beer at Oktoberfest. The revelation left Becker flabbergasted. He always used to tell this to his wife about how vividly Agassi could read his mind. And all this while, Agassi was just reading his tongue.

The tongue reveals a lot about your personality. Your oral capabilities, in life you can manage a lot of tongue-twisters (apparently, the hardest tongue-twister in English is ‘The sixth sick Sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick’) and can also send a lot of twisters in your partner’s body if you hit the spot right.

Sigh. Sometimes, I think, does size really matter when it comes to the tongue? Ahem. When I had my first kiss, my girlfriend complained of too much tongue. She was like of course this is your only muscle which doesn’t get tired. Technically, male tongues are longer than female ones, but Miley Cyrus breaks that law, as her tongue can also cover her cleavage.

In Tibet, sticking out your tongue is a greeting. And in Indian cinema, too, tongues have been used very creatively and extensively. Anil (Kapoor) Sir and Rani (Mukerji) Ma’am exchanged a paan through their tongues in the film Nayak. Govinda Sir used Karisma (Kapoor) Ma’am’s tongue as a stamp in Raja Babu’s song Aa Ee O O O (remember that line — Main Angootha Chaap Padhna Aur Likhna Jaanu Na?).

Now, you must be wondering why I am using Sir and Ma’am for Indian actors and not for the Federers of the world. Respaact bro respaact. Main issi industry ka hissa hoon. Jeena yahaan marna yahaan, iske siva jaana kahaan. Ab please meri ‘tongue’ kheenchna band karo.