Two guys are playing chess. The doorbell rings. Two beautiful women stand at the door with full bottles of Pepsi. ‘‘Can we chill these in your fridge?’’ they ask. Sure, the boys say. ‘‘What’s there?’’ Cut to later. The girls return to collect. The bottles are empty. They fume and fret. The boys cook up some lies: the bottles leaked, the fridge conked out. The girls aren’t taken in, call them ‘‘chors’’. The boys are unrepentant. ‘‘What’s there?’’Every once in a while a slogan, a ditty or a title comes along that seems to encapsulate the mood of the times; to express or reflect undercurrents and desires strongly felt but not perhaps as clearly perceived till the appropriate, catchy phrasing came along. From way back one can think of instances such as the line from the popular song ‘‘phir bhi dil hai Hindustani’’ celebrating a nascent nationalism; Indira Gandhi’s stirring call for ‘‘garibi hatao’’ in 1971, and the seventies’ idealistic rebuff to the spoils of crime: ‘‘mere paas maa hain!’’In more recent times — in the last two decades or so — a time of sweeping transformation for sleepy India — one finds them pitted even more frequently, like milestones or signboards telling us where we are and where we are going. And the picture they provide is certainly of a far less innocent, more brash, demanding society.Among the more memorable lines or slogans on the political front for instance one would probably pick Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘‘naani yaad kara denge’’ and Hindutva’s clarion call, ‘‘garv se kaho hum Hindu hain’’ — both indicative of a belligerent, intolerant notion of pride.On the social front, ‘‘chuma chuma de de’’, ‘‘ek do teen’’ and ‘‘choli ke peeche kya hain’’, visually enthralling, foot tapping scores, all found a life beyond as phrases that vividly described the thrusting, brassy vulgarity of a traditional society exploding slyly yet aggressively out of old sexual conventions.Then came Channel V’s ‘‘we are like this only’’ a line that spread like wildfire through college canteens, offices and newspaper columns; it appeared to cock a snook at the long shadow of colonialism as well as indicate a growing comfort with Indianness and all that it signified. Adnan Sami’s ‘‘lift kara de’’ and Govinda’s ‘‘what is mobile number?’’ enjoyed limited success but clearly pointed to urban India’s upwardly mobile aspirations and preoccupation with status symbols. Pepsi’s ‘‘dil maange more’’ and ‘‘dil chahta hain’’ played on the same theme evoking even more intensely the desire for unbridled materialism and unabashed consumption. In between we had Aamir Khan’s ‘‘aati kya Khandala’’ and Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘‘lock kiya jaaye’’ both owing their popularity more to the stars perhaps than social comment. And lastly there was the rousing ‘‘kar lo duniya muthi mein’’ denoting a pushy, winning, international India.What do we have to replace the above? Pespi’s latest ‘‘what’s there?’’ seems a feeble attempt. It has no grandeur, no style. It is difficult to roll off tongue, and difficult to catch. Yet it has a quality that seems to match perfectly, if rather playfully, with a serious contemporary trend. Which is? See for yourself in just a few scattered events of the week.You could start by reading transcripts of the alleged telephone conversation between actress Shilpa Shetty’s parents and the Surat-based businessman or recall the woman who was recently shot dead in Delhi for intervening in a roadside altercation and know that the culprits sat pretty because they thought the cops had the wrong car in mind. You can rewind to an interview with a friend of the current media heroine, the anti-dowry bride, Nisha Sharma and hear the boy talk at length about how he may or may not have been more than friends with Nisha; about how he may or may not have spoken to her prospective in-laws on the day of the marriage and how she may or may not have an ailment and by the way you would have heard him utter, clearly and categorically, the name of the computer school he has just started.Even if you missed this sparkling exclusive it is unlikely you have missed seeing the smug unruffled demeanour of Amar Mani Tripathi, the UP bigwig suspected of involvement with the recently murdered young pregnant woman. Or about the BJP MLA keeping watch over a key witness in the Gujarat riots case. And if you have been following the investigation conducted by this paper on Roofit Industries you would have read about a few men and how they led a plethora of small investors on a merry dance. You could call it brazenness. Or you could say ‘‘what’s there?’’
