Cyrus Oshidar

I don’t know, man. Guess MTV is an equal opportunities employer. Or could be because they are unemployable elsewhere.

I am half-Irani, half-Parsi, what they call ‘soda-lemon’ for some reason in our community. I don’t know what the hell that means. One bawa from Godrej who came to fix my cupboard, asked me if I was Irani. I said, “Half”. He said, “I am also Irani – ‘soda-lemon!” (A tiny animal scurries in.)

This is exactly Leo, the dog. It’s a Jack Russell, which is half the dog for twice the money.

(Grimaces) Don’t ask. Twenty-five. (Pauses) Thousand. To keep my children happy. I didn’t want a big dog. We used to have a boxer, but it is difficult maintaining a bigger dog. When they crap, it’s double the shit. This one shits very little. Also, I hate dumb dogs. This is a smart dog – it simply doesn’t listen to me. It’s just seven months old. When it came, it would fit into my palm. I don’t think it’ll grow much bigger than what it is now. Thank god for that.

I actually did, believe it or not.

Trade and development, but don’t ask me about either – what I learnt could be written on the back of a postage stamp. I did it for my Dad, I think. He’d gotten in, but he couldn’t go because he couldn’t afford it, and that was one of his big regrets in life. So he wanted me to get into either Oxford or Cambridge. I duly passed the exams of both, but f***ed up the interview royally so I didn’t get in there. But I did get into LSE, and spent three years there. After college, I worked almost one-and-a-half years in a bank. They almost killed me, and I almost killed them. I just could not work in that kind of an environment.

You’ve travelled to most parts of the world...

Not really, I haven’t been to Africa or to Australia, either. But I’ll get there soon.

I hadn’t completed my question.

Oops, sorry.

Hot chicks, right. Now we’re getting into Maxim territory. I think Latin American women have beautiful skin, and Indian women can be the most graceful. Among Europeans, I think it’s the Italian women – not that I know very many.

What about East Asians?

They are very graceful. But you said hot!

So ‘hot’ and ‘graceful’ are mutually exclusive categories?

I think so. In a graceful woman, there’s a deep, sensual, sexual beauty that’s like the perfect woman. That’s the one you want to marry, procreate with. And there are the ones you just think hot, you know, basic boy stuff.

Personally, yes. I find a confident but subtle beauty – which you discover over a period of time, rather than that which hits you upfront – much more attractive, in the long run. As for the hot ones, many women are hot now, man. Any woman who knows how to look after themselves can look hot these days. Personally, I am not that choosy. And being a red-blooded Irani, when you say, ”hot”, it is a very basic emotion. So I guess I find most women hot, doesn’t matter where they’re from.

A vast range, actually. I know it’ll sound pretentious, but I like a lot of stuff that’s coming out of Senegal, there a band called Orchestra Baobab. And then there’s a guy called Salif Keita from Mali. He’s an Albino black man from Mali. There’s a lot of stuff from Senegal and Mali that’s wonderful, very infectious music.

Are they being played on MTV?

Yeah!! Paagal hai kya! They don’t play English music, you think they’ll play African music?
MTV Loveline isn’t as edgy in India as it is elsewhere. Why? Well, you can’t talk about sexual issues. If I talk about masturbation, someone will complain, take me to court, file four PILs in six different states, and just make a mess of it. Such stupid things we thought we could do without. I think there are too many holy cows in this country. We’ve become a nation of conscientious
objectors, without any rationale. To say, a programme should not offend people, what does that mean? You can’t also always tailor-make your programmes to suit small minorities who’ll take offense at what you do anyway.
And whether you like it or not, MTV is an iconic brand, and it gets blamed even for a lot of the stuff it doesn’t do. We don’t make those videos, for example. We just run them. We ask for a ‘U’ certificate for most of them, most of them have U certificates. On the other hand, people have to understand that we deliver is what our audience wants. We can’t do all that goody-goody stuff, yaar. MTV is not Bhajan TV.

(Ponders, scratching his chin) Fat.

I don’t really think of all that shit. We are so overburdened with machoness in this country, and it is underlined by the stupidity we see in Bollywood films. The importance attached to being a man and all that macho f***in’ shit. It’s such rubbish, such overblown nonsense that personally I take offense to it. It perpetuates this whole male dominance and leads into issues of equality with women and all that kind of stuff. I’m not a big fan of macho. In fact, I find it extremely irritating. And extremely stupid.

What about the metrosexuals and the ubersexuals?

Just bullshit terminology. These guys don’t know one sexuality from another. What does metrosexual mean? You’re just more bloody vain, nothing else. It means you put moisturiser on – big deal! These things don’t bother me. I just feel you should be comfortable with what you have. I am not right now, because I am too bloody fat. I’ve never been this fat before, so I am gonna lose weight – but that is it. Now whether I am metrosexual, a goddamn bisexual, homosexual, it doesn’t bother me. I am okay, man. These labels really irritate me.  But there are enough people who live by all that shit, you know, a lot of these page three idiots.