If the pop culture ref I used for my title didn’t float your yacht, try this one from tipster Raj, who single-handedly ruined my afternoon by sending us the bad news:
“Oh my God !! They killed Asok, you Bastards!!”
A moment of silence, please, for the adorable, paavam*, wide-eyed IIT alum who will no longer be available for scapegoating and abuse. Wait a second…maybe he’s better off away from Wally, the Pointy-haired Boss and everyone else he (got) worked (over) by.
Asok (pronounced “a-shook”) is an intern in the Dilbert comic strip. He is a brilliant graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology…Asok often solves difficult problems in a few keystrokes, but he is still naïve to the cruelties and politics of the business world. As a result, he often ends up being the scapegoat for his coworkers’ antics. Despite many years as an intern, and performing the functions of a senior engineer, Asok has been denied permission to be a regular employee and the usage of company resources for his work.
It has been mentioned that Asok once lived in the handicapped stall of the bathroom; he later moved to a storage facility (but was only allowed an hour leave for moving by the Pointy-Haired Boss). Asok is also trained to sleep only on national holidays, a trait that he allegedly carried over from his alma mater. In addition, he was trained during his time at the Indian Institute of Technology in telekinesis, using it once to vaporize an obnoxious Texan and more recently to stealthily steal donuts in a meeting, and remove asbestos from the office. As well, he has mentioned that he has the ability to reheat his tea by holding a cup to his forehead and think about fire. Asok appears to be a fan of Indian music: in the animated episode “Art” he is shown listening enthusiastically to a female vocalist singing in Hindi. Recently, the Pointy-Haired Boss announced that Asok died while on a test of a moon shuttle prototype. Asok had planned to reincarnate into his clone, unfortunately Carol had used the jar containing his DNA as a candy jar. It is not known how Asok will return. [viki]
If you are one of the three people reading this post who has not been exposed to the charm of Asok, read on:
Asok: You can use my key to open the box with its teeth.
Dilbert: To open this box I’ll need something stronger than a key.
Asok: I once killed a cougar with this key.
[pause]
Asok: It was a really small cougar.
[pause]
Asok: It might have been a potato. [IMDB]
A-shook, you will be so very missed, especially by our interns here in the bunker, who for some odd reason felt a bizarre solidarity with you. Here’s hoping you are reincarnated, and soon; while many lament the lack of brown faces on television and movies, I feel that the acute insufficiency of desis in comic strips is a cause for just as much, if not more concern.
Asok was a wonderful ambassador of everything right about us— he was the humble, industrious, IIT-educated genius who countered all of those icky images of convenience store clerks and turbaned-yet-beard-free taxi drivers; I mean, we ALL know that everyone in America who is brown is smart and rich, right? Shucks, I’ll bet Asok was upper caste, too.
Considering all that tarradiddle, let us not underestimate the significance of this loss to our community, nay, the entire South Asian diaspora. I mean, why couldn’t Groening have killed off Apu, that other infamous desi cartoon whose name also starts with an “A”? Why did it have to be the fair-skinned, brilliant one, why?
***It’s one of my favorite Malayalam words, one for which I haven’t found a satisfactory English substitute. I think in Tamizzhrl, the correct translation is “chamatha”, but that may be off (and if it is, I’m smacking the Madras-born-and-bred cunning linguist who sold me that noise). Does anyone know what “Paavam” would be in Hindi? There are so many Southie polyglots here, I have faith that one or more of you will be able to figure this out. ;)
