Yesterday was a dark day for entertainment journalism.
An entire eco-system that came into existence covering the different shades of Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi, was mourning the embargo that befell them. In effect, they are now not allowed to click random spotting pictures of the two-year-old, upon strict instructions from mommy Kareena Kapoor Khan and daddy Saif Ali Khan.
In a country obsessed with babies — even Karan Johar couldn’t dodge the infection, why else would he direct a question like ‘babies or movies’ towards Deepika Padukone — the lack of drool-worthy pictures of Taimur is a serious problem. No way less than women’s right to enter a temple or men’s right to build one.
But being a country obsessed with obsessing itself, we’ve already found a successor. Enter Baby Mirza-Malik.
Excited to announce: Its a boy, and my girl is doing great and keeping strong as usual #Alhumdulilah. Thank you for the wishes and Duas, we are humbled ???????? #BabyMirzaMalik ????????
— Shoaib Malik ???????? (@realshoaibmalik) October 30, 2018
A world champion tennis player, Sania Mirza, and a world-class cricketer, Shoaib Malik, became proud parents to their newborn baby boy. But all that is not important because the real debate lies in whether he’s going to grow up to play tennis or will he be seen padding up for the cricket pitch?
Because Cricket is Love ❤????Congrats #SaniaMirza and #ShoaibMalik and God bless #BabyMirzaMalik :) pic.twitter.com/MpORrrPFhv
— Rohan Thakur (@baelessPurush) October 30, 2018
Heck, the bigger issue is whether he will make India or Pakistan proud? Given that our patriotism, and its first cousin, hatred towards ‘Pakis’, particularly find pronouncement in the field of sports, we must know if Baby Mirza-Malik will grow up to be a ‘desh bhakt’ or, well, the opposite!
Also, is he going to celebrate Independence Day on August 14 or 15?
finally Bangladesh is born. Congratulation. #BabyMirzaMalik
— rising gaurav (@GuranshDai) October 30, 2018
We must also know his name. Just for keyword and hastagging purposes. It doesn’t matter what Sania and Shoaib think — their sentiments in naming their firstborn is immaterial. We NEED to know what they’re thinking — they owe it to us, they really do.
‘Cuz we can’t have them make the mistake that Kareena and Saif did when they went ahead and named Taimur after a tyrant king, who was obviously anti-India. This time, we’re going to eliminate the possibility of any such goof-up by streamlining the naming process. Let’s have a poll! Let’s put all our misguided trolling energies to good use for once.
Finally a biggest achievement by #ShoaibMalik ???? that he made whole india mamooo....????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????#BabyMirzaMalik pic.twitter.com/EOge09aaQD
— Ā????AŁī Kīng (@AmanAliKing1) October 30, 2018
Let’s also fret over whether his first words would be ‘mamma’ or ‘ammi’ and if his gibberish is too difficult to decode, there’s always Google translate. Then there is food, attire, what kind of music he will like (Taimur listens to Chopin, just FYI)... oh, there’s too much, just too much to obsess about!
And then, let’s obsess about how obsessed we are.
How we’re robbing the 24-hour-old of his childhood.
Let’s blame the media for flocking around the trio to capture a glimpse of the baby.
Let’s blame anonymous social media handles also for ‘leaking’ his every private picture.
Is it just a coincidence that the embargo on Taimur and our new obsession came about the same day?
We think not. It gives us the opportunity to get right what we got wrong in the time of Taimur.
Until we find our new obsession, that is.