Punchatantra

I gently wiped a tear as I looked at my phone with grief and concern. Kamala paused mid-stride, worried that I had got some bad news about an ailing relative or that Trump had raised the tariffs again. But this was worse. It was disaster on a global scale. Punch, the baby monkey in Japan who had been abandoned by his mother, had adopted a furry toy as his surrogate mother. I was totally invested in this – but Kamala was livid.

“There are domestic problems to deal with,” she said. “Instead, you are so easily distracted by a monkey – can you get up and deal with the gas cylinder that needs to be changed and go fill fuel in the car, if we can still afford that.” Even if I’m not working in an office, my boss at home makes me punch in on time every day for my domestic chores. I tried pulling a sad face like the macaque monkey, hoping to get sympathy, but Kamala beat me to the punch, by sighing sadly as she folded the washed clothes.

I quickly finished my tasks and got back to scrolling – I had not yet recovered from last month’s penguin that broke away from its tribe and wandered up a snow-covered mountain path. I had watched that lonely arduous journey on a loop, sitting comfortably on my couch, chomping on chakli. And last week it was the robotic dog Orion that had held me in rapt attention – as it shook hands at the Summit. Even if it had been bought online, it garnered enough attention from middle-aged Uncles who couldn’t spell artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, the cows and buffaloes in Kerala are beefing up their security after the controversial Kerala Story 2 trailer. Cows are being force-fed grass with as much enthusiasm as movie-goers are being force-fed propaganda. But God’s own country has no beef with anyone – the memes are keeping them amused as they consume content as avidly as meat and parotta. George Orwell had no concept of the Animal Farm that Indians would have to deal with, a few decades after 1984. And now the Tate brothers have offered to buy Punch the macaque – to distract from their toxic masculinity and prevailing patriarchy. There can be no better Punchline.

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