Top 10 Surprises in the Modern Mahabharata

10. Sanjay uses his psychic power to help the blind king, Dhritarashtra, earn money by betting on IPL matches
9. Feeling left out and ignored by everybody, Nakul and Sehdev, write and produce an autobiographical movie titled The Excellent Adventures of Nakul & Sehdev
8. Bhim quits the army and opens an amusement theme park called Bhim's House of Blood
7. Shahrukh Khan makes a special appearance as the King of Bollywoodumprastha to do an item song called "Dard-e-Duryodhan"
6. President of the Hastinapur Human Rights Commission calls a press conference and says that Draupadi practically asked for the cheer haran by dressing too provocatively
5. Yudhistar gets a shot in the arm for his campaign to be king when he is endorsed by Oprah
4. To placate the MNS, 80% of the characters speak in Marathi
3. Abhimanyu finally breaks the Chakrahvyu by reading about it on Wikipedia via his blackberry
2. Instead of having the Mahabharata battle, the Pandavs and Kauravs decide to face off in a reality show judged by Javed Akhtar and Navjot Singh Sidhu called "The Great Indian Slaughter Challenge"
1. Bhishma dishes the dirt about everybody on his Blog on bigkurukshetra.com called "Confessions of a Pissed off Pitahmah"

All the news that's fit to print

The Indian media is going ga-ga over the impending deal between Steven Speilberg and Anil Ambani.

I just pray that there is no bollywood remake of Temple of Doom with Amitabh Bachchan playing the role of Indiana Jones.

The dispute between the Rajasthan Government and the Gujjars has been settled.

That's the good news. The Bad News: 1 down, 4312610987060 more castes to go.

Shiv Sena supremo wants to start Hindu suicide squads.

Yes, because that's the answer to terrorism. More terrorism. Even George Bush is like "Dude . . "

The left parties have made it clear that they will unseat the government if it goes ahead with the Nuclear deal.

Apparently, the left wants to fulfill the promise in it's manifesto. To take our country back into the middle ages. Seriously, what would we do without them?

Have lesser power cuts?

Last week, an anchor on Fox News called a fist bump between Obama and his wife a terrorist fist jab. And Fox news affectionately refers to Barack's wife as his baby mama, a slang term used to describe single African-American mothers. The anchor was taken off their regular programming.

After being benched, the anchor will now enter rehab to deal with his obvious Afrophobia and after a few months, will be hired back and get the Don Imus deal.

The coalition government in Pakistan has begun discussions to fire President Musharraf. In fact, the state media has been barred from acknowledging Mushie at all.

Yes, it's true. Mussharaf is now looking beyond the Presidency. In fact, today, his new agent in Hollywood faxed his resume to the producers of 'Celebrity Apprentice'.

The ICC recently changed it's rules regarding one day internationals.

To which Ricky Ponting replied, "Change in rules? Haha!! That's cute!!"

Pamela Anderson has gotten back with ex-hubby Tommy Lee.

Yes, they are now officially the creepy Ross & Rachel. I guess they wanted to film a sequel to their original video. Porn fans everywhere are already cleaning their hard drive. As they say, 50th time's a charm.

Overated Owards

Since the awards season is upon us, we at Overated Outcast thought that we would also give out some awards of our own. Around here we call them "owards". So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first edition of the Overated Owards. The lucky weiners winners are:


for the Can you check a dictionary to find out what the word NEWS actually means? oward: The Indian News Channels

for the Why in the blue hell does she still have a job? oward: Urmila Matondkar

for the OMFG I'm Brown oward: Shilpa Shetty

for the Honey, for the love of humanity, get a stylist, please oward: Vidya Balan

for the Ask not what you can do for your country but what you can do for China oward: The Indian left

for the I'll go anywhere, anytime for bucketloads of money, Hell I'll even jump out of your daughter's birthday cake oward: Shahrukh Khan

for the Best Employee of the month, every month for the past four years oward: PM Manmohan Singh

for the .. And what does an editor do, exactly? oward: Times of India

for the Showcasing Mindblowingly non-Talented people everyday oward: Indian Reality Shows

for the Me Casa, Su Casa, Marathi Casa oward: The MNS & Shiv Sena

for the Can you look to the left while we illegally occupy some strategic parts of your territory? oward: China

for the You mean to say that there are rules to play this game? oward: Ricky Ponting

for the Old? Who? Me?? Never ... I'm still young and angry .. Haven't you read my blog? oward: Amitabh Bachchan

for the I'm the best actor ever, yet I'm so petty, Oh so petty; God I hate Shahrukh oward: Aamir Khan

for the Gigli oward: Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor

for the Isn't it time to hit the want adds? oward: Jimmy Shergill

for the Sycophantus Maximus oward: Arjun Singh

for the Rip Van Winkle oward: Deve Gowda

for the Look Ma I'm on TV oward: Shatrugan Sinha

for the We get it.... You love metaphors and smilies... Stop it now! STOP IT!! NO SERIOUSLY .... STOPPPP ITTTTTT!!!! oward: Navjot Singh Sidhu

for the What? We live in a democracy ... You must be kidding us oward: The Indian Public

for the This blog is lame oward: OverRated Outcast

What I learnt from Hindi Movies: 80's Edition

- Rich people are really bad and hate poor people

- Poor people are really at one with the universe

- Rich people don't bring up their own children; because the father is busy working all the time and the mother is busy attending kitty parties held everyday after the children come home

- 80 year old maids make good surrogate mothers

- Women who wear "western" dresses will do anyone who offers them a drink or a smoke

- Women who wear suits will always be a virgin and will only be deflowered by her husband

- Whenever people get sick or almost murdered and are taken to a hospital, the doctors would rather wait for the police and let the patient die than actually cure them

- Whenever someone gets a serious ailment, his insurance would've expired just 2 days ago and his family will not even have the Rs. 50,000 that the hospital demands as initial payment

- White guys just want to lay poor suit wearing Indian virgins and white women are just dying to become suit wearing Indian bahus

- White women have are easy to lay

- White people speak can speak chaste hindi or urdu; albeit with an accent

- Hindi speaking white people somehow turn out to be racists

- Whenever a women's family needs money, she should always go to borrow money from the leech of a man who has been lusting after her and wouldn't think twice before raping her

- All self-respecting middle-class families in India have at least one sweet pomerian pet so that he can follow the people who kidnap their children

- Dogs of other breeds will give up their life for their owners

- People who come from "amreeka" wear pink jeans and orange shirts and speak English with a bhojpuri accent

- Conservative-minded parents will only let you marry either someone to whom you had been promised to when you were 3 or someone who lives in their village

- Open minded parents might let you marry people of the same or better economic status

- If you don't get dowry when you're married, you might get burnt/charred/beaten to pulp/ made to screw the mali

- 18 years old girls are really into 45 year old guys pretending to be college students

- Even though you don't worship God for most of your life, you can always bargain at a time of your choosing to start believing in him if he saves the life of a loved one

- Children can be had without any sexual intercourse whatsoever

- If you adopt a child, chances are that his birth parents are either the couple who's your enemy or your maid & driver

WTF Friday ...

Hereye, hereye! Calling all couples about to get married. AIIMS, Delhi is conducting a two day seminar on marriage.

No it's not a hoax. The same hospital which has been witness to the family feud between the health minister and it's own chairman, is now giving out tips for a happy marriage.

"The seminar will cover topics like marital dispute and sexual disharmony. Topnotch doctors in the country will provide suggestions on common sexual troubles in addition to sexually transmitted illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and gonorrhea."

Rush to register because as per the article registration is on "First come-first serve" basis only!! Hurry before all the tickets are sold out prematurely!!

What can be more auspicious than to start your marriage by holding a two day discussion on gonorrhea and syphilis? I'm sure the parents of these couples must be so proud.

Call me old fashioned, but if you suffer from sexual dysfunction and gonorrhea you should probably not get MARRIED before you get it cured? Just a thought.

************
Can someone please get Hard Kaur (she's a punjabi rap singer!! Stop laughing y'all) a career? She really seems to have bottomed out. I mean the other day she was singing in thew sidhu comedy show and today I read something about her singing at the launch party of some MTV reality show. I mean c'mon. That's even worse then singing at the Bihar Music Awards!!

************

Certain Bishops of the catholic church in India have been encouraging members of their parish to have bigger families so as to increase the number of dwindling number of their followers.

Cause that's the solution to the problems of our country. More people.

The sermon was titled The Missionary Position!!

***********

Recently, the Indian Media went ga-ga over the winners of the some national spelling bee contest in Amreeka. Why? Because the winners were people of Indian origin.

To spell it out for these people, we really don't give a F-U-C-K.

************
Sikander Kher's new movie has been released.

And judging by how he looks, it's a horror movie.

In fact, Sikander Kher was being considered for a role in Alien vs Predator 2. However, at the last minute the producers decided to go with the original Predator.

************

The genesis of an Indian reality show - Part 1

The following is a step-by-step instruction guide on how to be a judge on a reality show

Step 1: Make sure either you career is in the doldrums. Extra points if you were somewhat popular in the 80's or were a mildly successful actress in the 90's.

Step 2: Make sure you bring one unique characteristic to the table i.e. either you laugh unnecessarily or whistle like a roadside romeo or know millions of proverbs.

Step 3: Make sure you learn the following words and phrases: English: Mind Blowing, Outstanding, Impressive, Awesome, Rocking, Rock On, Fantastic, Superb. Hindi: tadka maar diya, raaita phila diya, masaladaar performance. As mentioned above, extra points will be given for quoting hindi or urdu couplets. In case of a really good performance one can combine two or more phrases eg: Mindblowingly Outstanding or Outstandingly Mindblowing or Masaladar-Tadkaydaar Awesome Mindblowing performance.

Note: In case your demographic is the 18 to 55 y.o. yuppie, then get a hindi to english dictionary to quote phrases from and act as if you are being forced to speak hindi for the first time in you life.

Step 4:

(a) Singing shows - There are a few character types to choose from. One can either be brutally honest and a total dick like Simon Cowell or say things which no one can understand ala Paula Abdul or act like a total wackjob who keeps repeating unintelligible phrases much like Urmila Matondkar.


(b) Comedy shows - For these types of shows, there are two character types. One is a person who will laugh out loudly at anything, the other is a person who will laugh at nothing. Pick your type of character and collect your paycheck. Since you have pretty much nothing to do, learning hindi, english and urdu proverbs will help you raise your profile. This can be done during contestant performances.

(c) Dance Shows - Always blame the choreographer. In case you like someone's dance performance, it is appropriate to give them shagun of a rupee or two even though the contestants are paid in lakhs. In case you love food, one can also award contests by eating an Indian Sweet on their behalf. In case you are really moved, you can shed a tear or two and induce false hope in the lives of these contestants by telling them that they are better than the actors in the original song. This gives the contestants an over confident and delusional sense of self that makes them self destruct later in the season which always makes for good crash & burn TV.

Note: If a contestant does not perform up to par (which they won't), while giving them low marks one should always say that the contestant(s) did not perform upto your expectations. This doesn't make you sound like the bad guy and the contestants go home happy and the people voting for the particular contestants are always encouraged to continue voting.


Step 5: What to say and when

Now no one really cares about talent and people just want the person from their chawl/city/village/state/region/gender/pastry shop to win, so whatever you say and the marks you give pretty much amount to nothing. So just say or do whatever the hell the producers want you to, collect you paycheck and go home.

However, once in a while, the producers would want you to feign disgust to add a little drama. Your profile in the Indian Media (mainly Aajtak, India TV & Star News) will be raised for a while and your "performance" will be shown endlessly on these channels.

Having said that, you still need to know the following basics:

• Whenever a supposed frontrunner is in the danger zone or losers circle or whateverthefuckitiscalled, always act surprised. This makes people think that you have an eye for talent. If the frontrunner survives and ultimately wins the show, your own career will somehow get a shot in the arm.
  
  
• To add more legitimacy to your show, always give low marks to the people you like and/or are friendly with. This gives you an image of a fair judge and might lead to other employment opportunities.
  
  
• Always appraise people like a mother-in-law appraises her daughter-in-law.
  
  
• If you are not sure of a performance, always use ambiguous phrases like "risky performance", "unusual" or the most popular "it was different". Then wait for the other judges to provide their opinion and give your marks based on what they say.
  
  
• Conflict between judges is always encouraged. To raise your own profile, it is advisable to feud with your co-judges. This takes the focus off the contestants and puts it solely on you. This will always keep you in the news, even English news channels will keep playing the clip of you verbally bitch slapping your hapless co-judge. This is a money-back guaranteed method of getting employment.
  
  
• Learn to be profound. You can give as much advice as you want on any topic you want. For eg: Even though you have not had a really successful career till before you became a judge on a reality show, you can talk hours about achieving success. This gives you an aura of an elder statesmen.
  

Before we end today's lesson, a special shout out goes to Javed Akhtar and his family, Shabana Azmi and Farhan Akhtar for holding the guiness world record for being the only family in the world to have judged 72365016126598016256 reality shows between themselves. In fact, Javed Akhtar has collected so much bad karma from contestants that he will be reborn as a reality show contestant . Though to be fair, being married to Shabana Azmi is punishment enough and does burn out a lot of his bad karma.

Now we hope that we have been able to provide all of you with enough tools to be a successful reality show judge.

After all, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it only matters who you have bet your money on. (That's an original Overism. Thank you very much.)

To the Finance Minister

Dear Finance Minister,

Yo! Long time no see.

I know you won't even be reading this. However, strangely that does not stop me from writing this. Even though I'm not technically working these days, I did for the past few years and my family does and pays a lot of taxes (despite my protests). So as my CA points out to me while doing my accounts that every financial year, the money I pay as tax is equivalent to the my first few months salary. So in a way, I do pay for your salary and your perks. Though of course, that's not your primary source of income.

Anyway, I don't want to discuss that in my letter.

Since you, along with the rest of your government grade yourself each year, I am reminded of those days when I was a kid when I used to grade my own homework. Incidentally, just like you, I came out with high marks. Cool, init?

However, this year I thought we'd do it a little differently and I had this crazy idea of your performance being reviewed just like any other employee by a "concerned" citizen. Since I am the only one who seemed to have time, I volunteer my services. Not a fan? I know. However, in the interest of fairness, please bear with me.

When you first took the oath of office in 2004, corporate India was gung-ho. After all, the man who presented the "Dream Budget" of 1997 was taking office again under a man who was partly responsible for ushering in India's libralisation. A Shaquille O Neal-Micheal Jordan dream team.

After all you were succeeding Yashwant "What's in an exchange rate?" Sinha and Jaswant "I should have been a voiceover artist" Singh. So everybody applauded when you were sworn in again. It was dawn of a new era.

Then just like what happens in Ekta Kapoor serials, you showed your true colors.

The taxpaying junta stood by in horror while you taxed the hell out of them. VAT, FBT, KBC, KLPD, every possible tax was thrown at them. But of course, what could the junta do? So it paid the tax. Like the good boys and girls they are.

In fact these boys and girls are as helpless as someone at a Sri Sri Ravi Shankar session. Not only do these hard earning boys and girls pay income tax, everything they buy is taxed too. Bottled Mineral water, mobile & land phones, Oil & Diesel, just a few things which are double taxed. Education cess, Development cess, Road cess, Bowel movement cess ..etc. the list is long.

Of course, Mr Minister, I have nothing against tax collection. However, what infuriates me is that all the tax that is collected is never spent fruitfully.

Yes, I know you do launch grandiose schemes in the name of a few dead people. However, though these schemes may really sound top-notch, their implementation is as fictional as Harry Potter. In fact, these schemes are just like a Jimmy Shergill movie. You know it's a big flop the minute it's announced.

Pray tell me sir, what happens of the education cess? Billions of rupees are collected under this tax. But they are never spent. Most government run schools only exist on paper. Others are just existing for the teachers to siphon of enough money so as to be able to send their children to real schools. By a one in a million chance if a child wants to learn in a school which exists, either the teacher is not there or he is sleeping soundly after devouring the free lunch which was actually meant for the students.


Now don't get me wrong. Of course you hear and read about one lone guy trying to teach a bunch of students the English alphabet. However, these people are few and far between.

I remember sir in the first year of your government's reign, there was a huge national disaster. The Tsunami. Now, with a single cess, you collected over Rs 5000 crores for the Tsunami victims. Now that may be shortchange for the Ambanis but for the affected villages, it was a large amount. And this does not even take into consideration the millions received in private aid or the money received by the PM's relief fund. What happened there? Most of those people are still living in the common areas like govt "schools" or makeshift shelters even four years after the tragedy happened. I actually feel physically sick to say that Vivek Oberoi has done more for those villages than the Government of India. Which in itself is not much.


Just like someone watching an Indian reality show on TV, the honest taxpayer suffers a lot already. People who actually pay tax are the only ones bullied by the tax department. There are millions of people out there who earn crores but never pay any tax. In fact the whole world know who they are.

Yes, India now has a burgeoning economy. India is the flavor of the season for the global financial community. Yes, we do have the highest mobile phone growth numbers in the world. However, all this has been achieved despite our government.

Yes the Indian dream is becoming the next big thing.

However, for millions of Indian children, having a full meal once before they die of malnutrition is the Indian dream.

For millions of our taxpayers having roads which are made of tar instead of dirt is a distant reality.

For millions of taxpayers, having continuous power supply during the hot summer months remains a myth.

For millions of Indians, being able to start their own enterprise without needing 47 permission slips is an impossibility.

Millions of Indians envisage a day when their city doesn't become like Noah's Ark when it drizzles heavily.

So until these dreams can come true, the impossible becomes possible, Mr Minister, you can take all your dream budgets and donate them to bhel-puri vendors to be used as plates because they aren't even worth the paper they are printed on.

And needless to say sir, in my opinion your report card should say "F".

However, what the F stands for is open to interpretation.

Have a good one,

A "concerned" citizen