May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss

It was a year ago, I was surfing randomly for some info and I landed on this page.  I really loved the humor and started visiting greatbong more often.  As I liked Arnab’s (This is not that Arnab on Times Now) humor,  I went ahead and bought his books.  “May I hebb your attention pliss”  is his first book and in this he takes a funny and sarcastic view on a range of topics that affect Indians.  Here is the blurb of the book.

The cover page of the book

The wave of liberalization in the 1990s changed forever the face of India. It bolstered the economy. It raised the stock index. It raised hemlines of skirts even more. It led to the growth of the fashion police And also the moral police. Numbered items became item numbers. To the twenty-two scheduled languages were added C, Cobol, Java. You were either watching sitcoms or starting dotcoms. News became entertainment. Entertainment became news. Terror struck the country – sometimes in the form of gunmen from across the border and sometimes in the form of Bollywood movies. 

To SMS-ize – ‘It wuz da best of tyms, it wuz da wrst of tyms’ 

Having been a part of this chaotic revolution in popular culture, blogger Arnab Ray of greatbong.net takes a funny, sarcastic, politically incorrect and totally irreverent look at assorted random stuff including Bollywood C-grade revenge masalas, ribald songs of the people, movie punching, fake educational institutes, stubborn bathroom flushes, unreal reality shows, the benefits of corruption, opulent weddings, brains in toaster ovens, seedy theatres and pompous non-resident Indians.

Nothing here is off-limits and no cow too holy. 

This is one of the books that made me laugh out loud, Arnab at times is really really funny.    I grew up  in India during the nineties and yeah I can indeed connect with most of the things Arnab depicts in the book .  Let us see as to what all he has in there.

The book starts with the great national terror strategy, it depicts the way a typical terror attack is handled in India. Arnab was not very humorous in this one , however he dealt this one  in a way that is close to the reality.  The we move on to the Moro cop and here we have our fun bones tickled, the tickle gathers momentum as we move on to the “Nowhere Resident Indians”.  This is one of the chapters I liked the most. I liked the parts where Arnab speaks about the various visitors and situations NRI’s would encounter  and the way the Aunty’s behave when they meet NRI boys.  This one is a refreshingly new take on things.  It is indeed very funny.

After having laughed at the various troubles and travails of NRI’s we take a leap into the future where the future inhabitants of the planet, the homo sapiens  and other species try to understand frustrations and fantasies of Indians who grew up between  1980 and 2000.  The piece is definitely an entertaining one and most of the people who grew up in 1980’s and 90’s in India would connect to it.

After having dealt with Aunties, frustrations and fantasises Arnab again takes us towards terror and terror groups, here he creates humor that would enjoyed by one and all, as we grin and laugh at the terror leader we would also feel sorry for some people in the eastern part of the nation whose livelihood was damaged by the misguided zeal of some politicians.   Arnab takes on these politicians in the very next chapter.  It (the following chapter) is a beautifully written piece of sarcasm that’s aimed at Indian Politicians, the laughs get louder as you cruise through the pages.

By the time you’d finish reading tips for management schools , Indian weddings , Indian TV ,Bollywood and the I-Hotties you would find yourself exhausted as you laughed a little too much. I loved his takes on Mithun da and the B-grade C-grade movies of Bollywood.  His take on Indian weddings was awesome, the way he makes fun of a few things is real good.  As he does in the blurb, he takes on the SMS English in the book also. Then his takes on the Hindi serials and daily soaps is something you would not want to miss. All in all a very nice take on Indians and things that Indians consider important.

This book not just for fun, it also has some interesting and important message. Pages 232-234 bring out the message well.  I really enjoyed reading the book.  Do read the book, you would really enjoy it.