The Idiot of the Month

Among my deeply intellectual pursuits is the effort to ensure a monthly nomination of an Idiot, a prized personality of this humanity-enriching tribe.  Sometimes I post about these, sometimes I don’t (in the fond hope of reserving them for a future book that will fetch me a monthly royalty as a result of one half of the population wanting to read about the other half).

Now, I have been watching this Oh-la-la Agarwal guy with considerable interest and am enchanted by his affable, spiritual and warmly affectionate personality.  In his engagingly empathetic moments, he refers to people who argue with him in touchingly endearing ways, using references to their parental lineage which, he insists, is unknown or to their failure in serious pursuits in the broader canvas of Life (such as comedy).

To make matters interesting, he has now grown a ponytail which, when it becomes longer, will resemble that of a donkey.  The bray of the two personalities – I have heard both with deep absorption, missing no detail however slight - suggests an affiliation closer than friendship in an earlier life.

He makes stuff that looks like scooters (the Agarwal guy, not the donkey): they are shaped like scooters, they have buttons in the right place and speedometers that show the latest buy-value of Bitcoin because they fluctuate randomly and are unhinged to any known part of the scooter. These scooter-like-thingies even emotionally bond with scooters and sometimes catch fire after being overcome with explosive mirth and someone said that you can even do wheelies on them using photoshop.

He (Ponytail Oh-la-la, not Donkey) has an enviable business model: someone buys this scooter-lookalike, does the mandatory puja, without which this thing-that-looks-like-scooters will be a psychological wreck and need a sedative, and then rides out to the service centre owned by the same Agarwal, where it is parked for the rest of its short life for people on Instagram to post reels and for a look-how-funny-I-am guy called Kamra to write stuff on that X thing so that Ponytail replies with deep affection and love, all the while coming up with new products that will stagger civilization (but will not work).  What unites Kamra and Ponytail, of course, is that both of them are comedians.

I know what you are thinking: Agarwal is my Idiot of the Month.  No, no, you have got it all wrong and I would be unfair to this affable, spiritual and warmly affectionate personality (the last thing I want is a reference in Larger Society to my parental lineage).  If you know anyone who has bought one of those things that look like scooters and have buttons in the right place and even a headlight that works only when you lift the back seat and if you know anyone who has invested in Ponytail Oh-la-la …….now that someone is the Idiot of the Month.

It is time to apologise.  Did I say that Ponytail reminds me of a donkey? That is most objectionable being egregiously insulting to the donkey.  For one, the donkey moves. And when there is output – we intrepid wildlife biologists call it dung – it is from the other end (of the other side).