From the Desk of Ajay and Atul Gupta, Esquire.
For Immediate Delivery to SA, By Hand, Via A Courier Wearing Nothing But Silver Styrofoam Cupid Wings And A Silk Sash Reading “Thanks, Suckers!”
Dear South Africans,
We have been told that many of you no longer trust your media, and are reading even less news than you used to. We and our people at Bell Pottinger call that money well spent, but it does mean you probably haven’t read the wonderful tidings that our sons are getting married. (Not to each other, although our lawyers say this would help a great deal with estate planning.)
Obviously we can’t tell you the exact date in case some of you try to gatecrash: we believe that inviting yourself into someone’s home and helping yourself to their stuff should only work one way. Suffice it to say that the Indian press is reporting dates in “late June”, and they are not wrong. We have such happy associations with this time of year, what with the days growing shorter in SA, the coal getting wet, and all that money rolling in like a monsoon …
We would, however, like to quash certain rumours doing the rounds about the specifics of the weddings.
Firstly, you might have read that they are going to cost in the region of R400m. This is obviously absurd. We agreed from the outset that we would never have to pay someone more than R100m to marry into our family.
Secondly, you will have heard that the wedding invitations are made of sterling silver, which has led some killjoys to suggest that we are tacky, new-money rubes with Las Vegas mafia bride taste. This is incredibly unfair because it is taken entirely out of context. We can assure you that the invitations are going to look spectacular when they reflect the disco lights beaming down out of the giant scale model of Ajay’s head, slowly revolving over a dance floor covered in the skins of rare reptiles and SA job seekers.
But enough negativity. Let us hasten to address the purpose of this letter: gratitude. Thank you, SA, for paying for our sons’ weddings. We couldn’t have done it without you, honestly. We also couldn’t have done it without you honestly. Were it not for your hard work, dedication, endurance and forbearance, we would have had to go and capture another country, and not all of them are run by compromised hayseeds who can’t read a spreadsheet. So thank you for giving us Jacob Zuma and the ANC, and for giving us everything else, too.
We wish we could have invited all of you to our happy days, but there just isn’t space. Also, we really, really despise you. We really mean that. Not because you were such easy marks. Anyone can have a bad year and find they’ve sold the family farm for a potato. No, we despise you because it turns out many of you don’t even have the sense to understand you’ve been taken. We can hardly believe it when we read what remains of your press, but it actually looks like many of you are still ardent supporters of the traitors and saboteurs who let us in the back door. Still. Even now, as your economy folds because they hollowed it out, some of you stand up and say you want uBaba back, and that Ace Magashule should be listened to. Even now.
Speaking of Ace, we want to go on the record to state that we never met, worked with, or had any dealings whatsoever with Mr Magashule or his children. (Is that OK, Ace? We’ve tried to remember the precise wording of our plausible deniability agreement but all we remember for sure is that we wrote it in chocolate mousse on the billiard table, and there was lots of laughing and high-fives.) But if we had met him, and saw that he was not only employed but a very senior member of the governing party, we would gaze at your country in amazement, shake our heads and affirm to one another that, really and truly, you had it coming.
Ordinarily we would now cut off all contact with you. Paper trails and such, you understand. But you are not an ordinary country. You have the potential to make us great again. Yesterday it was Zuma, today it is Ace. Tomorrow it might be Julius. (We see good things in him.) So this isn’t so much goodbye as au revoir.
Either way, please know that you have made our family very, very happy.
Yours, potentially,
The Guptas.
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