Woman of letters: Down and Dirty

Dear Mound of Celebrity Dirt,

Nudged at gingerly by plutocrats, poked at tenderly by politicians of various hues, approached with an endearing timorousness by the leading women of this country, ever since our honourable PM launched the Swachh Bharat cleanliness campaign from the portals of Madison Garden, you have become the subject of much breaking news media gush and breathless enthusiasm.

It's your days in the sun, dear mound of celebrity dirt. Take a bow-badhaiyon and salaams! And in the order of congratulating you for your arrival on the national radar, let us begin by commending you for your many and delightful appearances on the national stage.

Sometimes you've been an elegant pile of leaves, almost first world and autumnal, on Mumbai's humble streets, awaiting the languid, patrician strokes of a decorated Diva; at others, you've been the gritty but kosher mound of pebbles and paper lying enthusiastically at the feet of a sports icon as he demonstrates the power of his peerless forehand while blasting you into smithereens and often you have been the artistically arranged heap of flotsam and jetsam on a Lutyen's dotted Delhi bylane waiting for the decorated hand of an MP as he does his duty for God and the Nation.

So famous have you become, dear mound of celebrity dirt, that denizens of the United States of America, land of the vacuum cleaner and mechanised dust buster, have immortalised you in their midst by wielding that most coveted of international accessories — the jhadoo (LVMH is reported to be working on an initialised version even as we speak).

And to think that till now your glory had lain unnoticed and unsung. Your ability to bestow instant credibility on the country's leading celebrities had been ignored. Your potential had been unnoticed.

Why, they used to brush you under the carpet (which, of course, is a metaphor: they used to have their staff brush you under the carpet)!

But to get back to singing your praise and enumerating your hitherto unacknowledged many sterling qualities, dear mound of celebrity dirt, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. For one, you must be congratulated for having the smarts to take on the qualities of the noun 'dirt' while not for once its 'verbs.'

You do not smell putridly like your more savage and treacherous uncles and aunts who can be found in mountainous heaps across the roads of urban India. You do not make children ill and senior citizens gasp, as do your brothers and sisters outside the factories and hospitals and workshops and markets of the country. You do not blight the eye with offensive stomach-churning reminders of human waste and apathy as the rest of your clan does. In fact, you must be complimented for being unthreatening, approachable, almost cute as you lie there patiently, awaiting the presence of a celebrity, quietly playing your part in nation building.

And now, ever since reports appeared of BJP's Delhi unit chief Satish Upadhyay, and former AAP leader Shazia Ilmi sweeping a freshly minted, recently poured can of celebrity dirt outside the Islamic Cultural Centre in Delhi, your presence in our life has become even stronger. So important have you become that there is talk of a black market that exists in celebrity mounds of dirt and people cannot get enough of you!

So here's to you, dear mound of celebrity dirt, may you live long and happily in our midst as each day, new instances of your sterling appearance in the lives of our celebrities unfold.

Here's to the clean sweep, new brooms and getting down and dirty.

And above all, here's to making molehills out of mountains!Yours sincerely, etcmalavikasmumbai@gmail.comThe writer believes in the art of letter writing