Paisa Laya? The Akshay Kumar meme that explains the meaning of life
The words of the prophet might be written on subway walls, but they reverberate (or revert if you are Indian) through memes.
When Simon and Garfunkel announced to the world that the “words of the prophet are written on subway walls”, they were only partially correct.
The words of the prophet might be written on subway walls, but they reverberate (or revert if you are Indian) through memes.
Or to borrow a quote from my favourite Indian columnist Jug Suraiya, “the real nature of the perceived universe and all its creation”, is found in memes.
And one meme starring the NCERT absentee explains the true meaning of life more than any other.
I refer to the meme from Phir Hera Pheri as Akki tries selling Rajpal Yadav a Ponzi scheme and asks him: “Paisa laya?”
It’s the same thing we are asked time and again at every junction.
Eating at a restaurant? Paisa laya?
College fees? Paisa laya?
Whisky to soothe your woes? Paisa laya?
Need to take your kid to the hospital? Paisa laya?
Want to get an ugly girl married off? Paisa laya?
Those two simple words capture every aspect of the human experience which shorn of all its embellishments is just a monetary transaction. Our worth at the end of the day is decided by whether we could bring the dough or not.
And the world, like Deng, doesn’t care about the colour of the cat (black or white) as long as it catches mice or pays the bill.
In the Western world, there are three great individuals who have tried to explain the meaning of life and the currency that makes the world go around, particularly for those who aren’t part of the masochist cult that worships a zombie and his dad. They are Betrand Russell, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.
Bertrand Russell, Rajendra Kumar’s Bollywood co-star, argued that it was power that made the world go around.
In a book named Power: A New Social Anaysis (no one accused Russell of having an imagination when it came to his book titles), he claimed that our very existence was based on seeking power.
Russell wrote: “When men willingly follow a leader, they do so with a view to the acquisition of power by the group, which he commands, and they feel that his triumphs are theirs. Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy.”
Sigmund Freud on the other hand argued it was – and there are no eye-scratching surprises here – that it was coitus.
For him, everything we do is because we want to sleep with our mother and then scratch our eyes out after doing so. Women on the other hand were just upset they couldn’t have sex with their mothers because they didn’t have penises. As an aside, the world could’ve avoided a host of problems if Freud’s parents believed in corporal punishment.
Karl Marx – the one-half of the delusional adolescent starter-pack along with Ayn Rand as my highly-intelligent friend and author Vivek Kaul pointed out – believed it was money.
(PS: If you call yourself Rand-Marxist on Twitter, a lot of folks assume you are a communist with some strange perversions.)
For all of his faults – which includes giving a bad name to an excellent mind-altering substance – Marx was right on the money when he said that it was moolah that made the world go around.
Of course, the workers didn’t rise up.
Perhaps because they were too busy sharing Instagram reels but then again that was because a billionaire spent a lot of time designing something to distract people from the inevitable doom and gloom of their life.
(Fun Fact: Kurt Vonnegut pointed out that the quote given a bad rap and opium could’ve been very well replaced by the word tylenol for modern-day context. Today we could replace tylenol with Instagram reels.)
And that is our only raison d’etre.
Earning and bringing money to the table is why we live.
Because when we have money, everything else is feasible.
You can buy power, elicit sex, create a legacy and shut up critics if you’ve the moolah.
(There are some tribes that function without money but that’s pretty complicated involving among other things huge stones at the bottom of the ocean (pictured below).
Everything is feasible when you have money which is why those who have a lot of it try to sell us the mendacious lie “money can’t buy happiness” to ensure we remain mendicants.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my post-Marx, post-Rand adult life, there’s nothing else that can buy happiness.
This is why Akshay Kumar asks Rajpal Yadav: “Paisa laya.”
That’s why everyone – from activists to alternate media portals to companies to political parties – ask the same thing: “Paisa laya?”
Because if you didn’t bring the money, honey you have no worth. And that’s also why capitalism – despite the emergence of so many different economic models – always remains undefeated.