JEALOUSY IS RATHER UNBECOMING

FOR personal safety reasons I steer clear of sexist jokes. This one, however, has me cackling like a dimwit on Red Bull. It goes along the lines of: “If women ruled the world you will have no war, just a bunch of jealous countries not talking to each other!”

There was I floating the idea of Michelle Obama becoming president of the US and Chumpa turns the conversation to the former First Lady’s weight. “I wonder how she stayed so slim and trim with all those parties,” speculated my homegirl. To stir the pot a bit,

Babloo piped up, “As for Chumpa, she can have half snowball and people will say she looking a bit healthy.”

In the language of my beloved Bangladesh Market district in Chatsworth, healthy is a euphemism for packing a few extra pounds.

One can go from the scale of a little healthy to very healthy. The latter can be a polite reference to even rank obesity. Chumpa absent-mindedly flipped through my hardback copy of Mrs Obama’s autobiographical memoir, published by Crown and Viking Press.

“If I get the time I like to read how that family lived like Little House on the Prairie people for 10 years in the White House and no scandals,” she continued.

“Ja, our life like Dallas. If you ask me, that is one aunty who knew about dressing,” ventured Babloo bravely. Mrs Obama does not go into detail about her designer choices preferring higher grade topics like the struggle of a young black woman in the US to make her way to college and succeed. “What you trying to say, like we haven’t got nice clothes,” Chumpa clipped his ear before tugging at the lapels of her designer denim jacket with a bold red rose motif on the left breast.

Local distributor Anivesh Singh of #Hashtagbooks points out that the memoir has enjoyed the longest streak on Amazon for any book since Fifty Shades of Grey came out in 2012. His copies have flown like hens on heat. Chumpa’s eyes flared with recognition, “I bet there is no red room or hall pass in that book.”

From the tone and tenor of Michelle Obama’s tell-all it sounds very much like she is gearing up for a political campaign to dislodge one rather unhealthy Donald Trump from Washington.

Higgins and Babloo are at the Chennai Book Fair in India today before heading out to the Jaipur Literature Festival.