Life in the Charlie Times

 “I satire, therefore I am Charlie” … Featuring Muhammad Tahir as the frondeur who dared to write ….

So, we heard British PM David Gillett-shaved Cameron had his Gieves & Hawkes black suit and silky blue tie on at grand Paris rally – estimated to be over million souls strong. However, in an amazing turn of events Bibi Chutzpah Netanyahu suddenly bobbed up dressed in a black long coat and standing just four souls away from old man Abu Mazin in a solidarity chain. While balding bespeckled blank-eyed Francois Lilliputian Hollande, the President of République Française maintained a somber posture of the grieving host.


The crowd was sartorially elegant and refreshingly political! It was one of the most somber of Dionysian creations and all around an awe-inspiring wave of banners, posters, placards swelled with ‘I am Charlie’. It is reported that everyone also chanted ‘I am Charlie’. After all, République Française seldom gets a chance to display to the world that it is, indeed, a Charlie.

So what was this Charlie hoo-ha all about?

Charlie Hebdo was reportedly apparently a satirical magazine nestled in the République’s one of the finest and notoriously mollycoddle corners. Its comrades-de-ridicule in their poppycock zeal would resolve every week, after a long shared drag at the altar of that heartless bitch of freedom of speech, that: “they shall not spare none, except one”. And they did spare none, except one. For more reference please grab that old josser Maurice Sinet. But please don’t disturb young Sarkozy out of his perforated sheet act.

As the God/Gods and, lest we piss off the comrade-de-feminista, the Goddess would have it, two tall, pouty, light skinned and not so handsome progenies of banlieues (suburbs), or as some say it, persons of Algérie Française descent, dropped by the mollycoddle-poppycock district and popped the Charlie. On their way back, they popped a fellow banlieues guy called monsieur Ahmed.

Hours before the French Police nationale had even briefed the jumble of press crew, Senor Roberto Fishki, given to his occasional clairvoyance, had yelped before the TV:  Algérie, Algérie. The Ragdoll cat tucked on the news anchor’s lap perkily followed the pinky face of senor Fishki and caterwauled Algérie, Algérie. The anchor frowned, kicked away the cat, and shouted out: Muslims, Muslims, setting off a hullabaloo and everyone falling to the spell: Muslims, Muslims.

Holding a greasy second-hand smart phone on the barren mountain skirt of Timbuktu a simpleton scrambled himself up and nervously holding the phone away from his face like a thing on fire, ran away, crying: Non, Non.

On the streets of London, New York, and New Delhi, bourgeois men, looked up from their phones and, in vague wonderment, said: What is the big deal! Why these bad guys kill for a harmless satire? It was just a satirical magazine, fellas! Freedom of speech!

Satire is harmless, monsieur. Don’t you listen to the guy in New Delhi? It was just a satire.

A white ghost clad in deep orange Khadi tunic shouted near his ear: Freedom of speech is a heartless bitch and Doniger knows no Batra. Rushdie is a cow, M.F. Hussain is a goat. Taslima Nasreen is a cat. Give me Laine?

So it goes.

Just before the New Delhi guy, disappeared into the silicon chamber of NCR office a tweet arrived on his iPhone 6: ‘I am Charlie’. He retweets @Ganesh: ‘I am Charlie’. And lo and behold, Ganesh gets a new avatar, too: Ganesh is Charlie.

Jaswant Singh’s grey bushy eyebrows twitched. He gulped down a peg, frowned vaguely, tore a pencil into two angrily and dashed off with both hands:  Patel was good, Jinnah was bad. Jinnah was lovely, Patel was crude. Modi is nude, Jaswant is dude.

Elsewhere two old buddies in pepper and salt beards adjust their stiffen asses on a flat rock. X asks the Z:

X: So, what does this devil of a word satire actually mean?

Z: Etymologically, it once meant ‘mixed dish’ or ‘a dish filled with various kinds of fruits’. So, accordingly, Charlie was serving mixed dish.

X: Why did those two brothers popped the Charlie, then?

Z: Because, Charlie served the wrong dish.

X: Hmm.

In London, a visibly anxious Nigel Farage thumps his oak table, turns to his comrade-de-ukip and says, “Guys, election is just four months away and Mr. Cameron, that son of the Gillette, is stealing the show.” He paused, a shrewd smile crossed his face, “Lets us go Charlie”, he shouted. The comrades raised their fists and boisterously replied, “Let us go Charlie”

Tahir is currently a research scholar of Politics and International Relations at Dublin City University. He finished his masters in International Peace Studies in 2014 from International University of Japan. He has previously worked as a features writer and correspondent with Greater Kashmir for two years. His articles and poems have appeared in Greater Kashmir, Kashmir Reader, The Conveyor Magazine, Reading Hour, Kindle Magazine, The Japan Times, The Caravan and The Express Tribune. When not reading current news or a piece of fiction, he idles away on bottomless Facebook or keeps thinking about his next write up.

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