Now, I am not saying that he was going to win the best hygiene award in a couple of decades. I just do not want to belittle a guy who is now detested on general principle simply because two dozen people allegedly found him washing hands in his teapot once upon a time last Thursday. This is not a valid reason to hate a guy, any guy. In fact he did not once say any logical, let alone a rational, thing in his life; he was a perfect fit here. But this misdemeanour once upon a time this Monday, where he was found washing his feet in his tea pot probably aggrieved the general public. Being aggrieved I can understand, but what I do not comprehend is the boycott of his lowly establishment. Even boycott I would have understood. But taking out a rally, with banners and posters, people dancing naked, declaring him detestable? People in the march painting each other’s face black, as to symbolically represent how let down they felt by his repeated act of self-vandalism? It was all pushing it too far. Anyway, you probably would have guessed by now that I am talking about the popinjay tea-stall, which, let us all agree, had a certain je ne sais quoi about its tasty tea. People had written articles and editorials dissecting its recipe. The popinjay had himself said on several occasions, ”The recipe will go to my grave.” Not everyone finds his claim fascinating now. Some say that they now know what the ‘difference’ was.

A certain astronaut had betrayed him once when she said that from India she took only samosas to space. Well, what was the flask for? Damn it, people would argue. He was always invited along with dabbawallahs for fix sigma events, but never got an opportunity to speak because the dabbawallas usually spoke so much that he either dozed off or lost interest. The point is, he was a kind of a big deal, so I would not have hated him for the fairly immaterial incident in which NSA allegedly found him gargling in his tea pot some time, once upon a time this Wednesday, 8:32 am. What happened afterwards I do not condone, rather I would have condemned it much more had it set a precedent. But I would like to clarify once and for all that I am not on the popinjay’s side. What people in the rally did to him, I am nobody to judge. I could not even clear the LSATs, let alone join college; and the guy who promised me an admission on the sly at Bijnor’s Law College fleeced me of seven thousand rupees. My blood boils each time I am reminded of him. Raghupati Singh, spit! So what I am saying is, if the popinjay is missing now and world still has a nice cup of tea, it is probably for the best.