The best Gandhi commemoration E-V-E-R

Have you ever looked at your skewered history books, seen some obscure English words describe the freedom struggle and heard about a man called Gandhi?

If yes, then have you ever thought to yourself, that you should do something to celebrate his memory but have never found an appropriate forum/hallmark card?

Then you're in luck. Thanks to the wonderful people at Mont Blanc, now you can.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s iconic Dandi March in 1930 to protest against the British salt tax has inspired pen-makers Mont Blanc to come out with a limited-series pen on the Father of the Nation.

The high-end pen is priced around Rs.14 lakh, according to a watch retailer.

The pen comes with a gold wire entwined by hand around the middle, which “evokes the roughly wound yarn on the spindle with which Gandhi spun everyday.”

Inspired by the “241 mile” march, the white gold pen, of which only 241 pieces will be available worldwide, boasts of a hand-crafted rhodium plated 18-carat gold nib depicting Gandhiji holding his trademark lathi — all in gold.

You see ladies and gentlemen, nothing evokes the memory of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi then a pen which costs more than a million rupees.

Forget how many children you could feed with that money. Or how many medicines you could buy for people who cannot afford them. Hell, let's even forget how many cottage industries can be supported.

Gandhi never cared about shit like that.

Nope.

That dude was all about the bling-bling.

If you remember, all of Gandhi's clothes were custom made. He was a style icon for millions of people. He was busy spoofing Salman Khan's man boobs bare chest a few decades before Salman Khan was born.

Now go do your patriotic duty and buy this pen.

Because that's exactly what Gandhi would have done.

 

‘Mahatma’ pens from Mont Blanc [The Hindu]

Baba Ramdev on grand path to becoming C-Grade movie villain

Famous breath-inhaler and guy who does strange things to his stomach, popularly refereed to as "Baba Ramdev" has now convinced a few of his followers to pool their weekly earnings and buy him a small European Island.

Mr. Ramdev plans to turn the island into a riviera for really boring people. Since there would be no booze or sex or music or drugs on this "holy" island, the only thing people will be able to do the whole day is stand on their head.

I think this isn't really a step in the right direction. As all the hindi movies in the 1980s taught us, buying a tiny private island is simply a pre-cursor to possibly-delusional-but-still-really-grand plans for world domination.

There are other signs too.  The BBC provides an unintentional clue:

Bought by two of his devotees from Glasgow for £2m, the tiny North Ayrshire island of Little Cumbrae is being converted into an international yoga camp after a blessing from India's most popular lifestyle guru Baba Ramdev, also known as Swami Ji.

The only people who are referred to as "Swami Ji" are the ones who look at the bosoms of their young & nubile female followers and start salivating. Everyone knows that "real" gurus at least have the decency to add a couple of hundred Sri's to their name. Or at least are able to convince Monks to sell their Ferraris.

Anyways, the Times takes the cake in irresponsible journalism:

Swami Ramdev, who has 80 million followers around the globe, is the Indian equivalent of a rock star, with crowds of up to 10,000 at his outdoor events.

A. ROCK. STAR.

REALLY?

How dare they?

Is there NOTHING sacred left in this world anymore? Where is the decency and respect?

Do the hacks at the Times know how hard people have to work to earn that title?

Do you know how many near-death experiences you need to have to even be considered? Does anyone even have the slightest idea about the amount of cocaine you need to snort? The large number of syringe wounds that you end up having as you continue to battle life itself? Does anyone realize the countless STDs you catch because as a bonafide rockstar you need to make out and have sex with countless number of fans?

Does the Times think that all this is just a fucking joke?

If Courtney Love found out about this, she would be so angry she would post a rant on twitter.

Even the God who came up with Yoga millions of years ago is looking down right now, shaking his head, rolling his eyes and asking his fellow Gods in an exasperated tone "This guy? Seriously?"

 

Scottish island to become ashram [BBC News]
Yoga guru Swami Ramdev turns Little Cumbrae into Peace Island [Times Online]

If only Julia Roberts could fight terrorism, we would be okay

The opening paragraph of this 'report' is the most awesome description of why things in our country are so fucked up. [Rediff Movies]

Pakistan puts Hafiz Saeed 'in custody'. They will let us know what that means once they figure it out themselves. Meanwhile, intelligence sources told us that Saeed is still allowed to order his favourite biryani pizza from Dominos, everyday. So much for austerity. [HT]

After successfully ruining some dude's life by getting him to impregnate Rakhi Sawant with an alien child, the producers of NDTV Un-Imagine have decided to find a child bride for famewhore Rahul Mahajan. Mahajan's ideal partner should have long hair, believe in traditional values, be able to change adult diapers and have both male and female reproductive organs. [NDTV Movies]

Sonia Gandhi asks Shashi Tharoor to write "I will not twitter during class" a hundred times, using a Mont Blanc ink pen. This will also go into Tharoor's permanent record and might hinder his getting admission into a good college. [The Hindu]

Sarah Palin will address fund managers in Hong Kong because those douchebags have too much money and they thought that instead of a real person they would just hire a hockey mom who winks a lot. After she gives her 'speech', she will give each attendee a free copy of the      straight-to-dvd movie Knocked Up: The Bristol Palin story. Then, she will go sightseeing to the 'Americatown' part of Hong Kong. [Bloomberg]

The Union Home Minister says that Delhiites need to change their behavioural pattern and need to learn to respect the rules. Phooey! That's such false propaganda. Delhiites respect the law, we just tend not to follow it on rare occasions. Like I jumped only two red lights today. Okay, it was five. But I had a good reason for it. I was late for happy hour. Fine, whatever. By the way, someone needs to tell the minister that the biggest lawbreakers in Delhi are those guys he sits with in that Lok Sabha thing where he and his peers do that thing they do. As I said, whatever.[TOI]

Who wants to be a superpower?

The word on the street is that India is ready to finally rise and shine and take it's rightful place as one of the world's foremost superpowers. What is it about being a superpower that really attracts us? Besides giving nostalgic NRI's who meet every Sunday something other than marriage & food to talk about, what good is it, really?

Maybe it's because I never stayed in a hostel or joined the Boy Scouts, but I don't see the point of playing the geographical version of "Mine is Bigger".

If you look at the evidence, being a superpower is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Superpowers have to keep fighting wars. Even those which they have won. Did you know that there are still more than fifty thousand American soldiers stationed in Germany? Why? Probably just in case Germany gets that funny feeling in it's stomach and wants to try to take over the world again. No wonder McCain claimed that the US would be in Iraq for more than a hundred years. In India, we don't like wars. No, not because of the millions of lives that are fruitlessly lost. We don't like wars because they ruin the cricket season.

Superpowers also have to keep demonising an enemy with newer and newer stuff. We can't do that. We basically keep hugging Pakistan while it keeps stabbing us in the back. Also, the demonizing turns sadistic and people turn on each other (Does McCarthyism ring a bell? In fact, if had something like that in India, we would be like a nation of Vivek Oberois. That scares me. A lot).

Superpowers need to engineer & arrange coups in different parts of the world. Our intelligence department can't even arrange a dinner party.

Superpowers also need to keep messing with their smaller neighbors. And everyone knows that we love our smaller neighbours. Specially Bhutan, who we find so cute with their long robes and their pointy roofs. Let's face it, we quite love that little fella.

Superpowers also collect bad karma. As Sharon Stone told me one day during our yoga class with Deepak Chopra, Karma is a bitch. Between themselves, both the US and Russia have collected so much bad karma that it's coming to bite them in the ass. How else can you explain the career of Anastacia?

Then there is the superpower of yore, good ol' Britannia. If Britain were a person, it would presently be like a failed actor who shoots and releases his own 'sex-tape' which ends up getting him a half-hour "Where are they now?" special on VH1 and an interview with The Daily Mail. Even TMZ won't give a shit about that sucka.

A 'perk' of being a permanent member of the UN security council is something other former and current superpowers enjoy. Pfft. The security council reacts to events in two ways: (a) By issuing a strongly worded statement (b) By issuing a harsh, mean and really strongly worded statement which ends with an exclamation mark. The UN security council is as effective as my school's debate club. (Which, for the record, I was not part of. Why? Well, I think I was spending too much time studying the effects of medical marijuana. Also, the dude heading the debate team was sort of a cunt. Yes, I know. Sounds exactly like the guy who heads the United Nations!).

Being a member of the security council doesn't even get you tickets to a Depeche Mode concert. And no one really goes to their concerts! Also, despite all the rumors, there is no special supermarket for superpowers. It's just a sham, like the son of a deposed Nigerian prince and Shah Rukh Khan's marriage.

So instead of concentrating all our energy on being a "superpower", why not concentrate our energies somewhere else? Why not go in a different direction? A more saner one. Like Canada. Of course, you don't hear about Canada a lot. Which is a good thing. They've got healthcare for everyone, marriage equality, medical marijuana and authentic Punjabi cuisine. What's not to like?

Also, we're almost halfway there. So it won't take a huge effort. Like Canada, we have one huge national sport. Like Canada, our version of MTV sucks too. And as for the Prime Minister who looks like an old lesbian, well, for that we have Jairam Ramesh.

History is not something that can only useful to politicians so that they can distort it for their personal gain. It also helps us learn from the mistakes of the past.

So what we need to learn from history is that just like bell-bottoms and flannel shirts, being a superpower is so out of date.

It's a bird . . . It's a plane . . . No, it's Twitter-gate!!!

 

Leader of the freemasons, currently masquerading as Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor (INC-Twittervantupuram) , who leaves clues for Robert Langdon on the internets,  has offended 'cows' because he dared to infer that they would enjoy the indignity of travelling by Indian Airlines' Economy class. The cows have all gone on mass sick leave, in protest.

Now since all the 'journalists' will be talking about this 'important' issue for the next week or so, here is the sequence of events for you to keep in mind while wasting away your life in front of the teevee:

United Nations operative 'Skeletor' Shashi Tharoor, used his secret weapon '@shashitharor' to make fun and challenge the authority of 'The Sorceress' living inside 10 Janpath Castle Greyskull. He embarrassed the both the sorceress and Prince Adam by daring to make light of their totally sincere attempt at austerity.

This angered both the sorceress and the young prince, who then decided to take charge and set the record straight. So they sent 'Man-at-arms' Jayanti Natrajan (who causes millions of children to cry everytime she appears on teevee) to defend them by huffing and puffing while talking to fellow human & TV anchor Evil-Lyn. They could not send He-Man because he had just been laid off due to the recession. He is now busy writing a book about Jinnah.

However, since by then the cat was out of the bag and all hell had broken loose, even all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put humpty-dumpty together.

The End

p.s. The links are NSFW because of horrible pun porn. 

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe [Wikipedia]
Tharoor in tweetle-class trouble [HT]
Cong slams Tharoor's (t)wits on cattle class [TOI]
Rahul Gandhi’s flying visit to Tamil Nadu cost over Rs.1 crore [The Hindu]

Living with Judge Dread

I really don't understand what's going on with the whole Ishrat Jahan "encounter" fiasco and I'm not going to even attempt to go into it's intricate details. These days between the allegedly fake encounters, to the allegedly useless nuclear tests and the allegedly clunkety piece of crap we sent to the moon, it seems that the truth, just like Elvis, has left the building.

One would expect that there would be more outrage about "encounters" being that they are the complete anti-thesis of the constitution and impinges on the basic right to life and all that jazz which those stupid jhola-walas and their boring-ass NGOs keep blabbing about. But, hey, did you even see Shaenshah? In which Amitabh Bachachan plays a crooked cop by the day and a rugged one-man court by night? It was just like the sitcom Night Court but with more dead people.

Didn't you learn anything from it?

See, thanks to our totally useless legal system, evil men called JK get away from the long-hands of the law ALL the time. Because they have what we in the 'hood call cash money.

So what's a brother to do?

Simple.

Just go ahead and encounter those sum-bitches. Totally effective in decreasing crime. And also, a great method of crowd control. In fact, they do the exact same thing in China whenever some stupid democracy loving fool wants to question the totally excellent, awesome and glorious one-party rule.

Another thing, it is so cool when someone says "Shoot first and ask questions later". Except, of course, when you are the one being shot at. Tee Hee! Yippie-Kay-yay, motherfucker. That's just how we roll.

You see, we have to be very vigilant. When those evil-doers from that country we affectionately refer to as the foreign hand come over here, they take no prisoners and kill indiscriminately.

Therefore, we have to do the same. Even if most of the time innocent people get killed. That's what the term Collateral Damage was coined for. DUH. As the fellow once said, When in Paris, do as the romans do.

So what if the government wants to take away my civil rights under the guise of 'national security' so that they can protect me from the growing China-Pakistan-Bangladesh-Nepal-Sri Lanka-Maldives-North Korea-Papua New Guinea nexus?

 

Just tell me where I sign. 

This is why irony is dead

This is an actual news report on the site of an actual newspaper.

You know, let's go one step further. Let's add this to the Incredible India campaign.

In fact, we can even add a new slogan to the campaign.

"!ncredible India: Where statues are more important than actual people"

If that doesn't bring tourists in, I don't know what will.

 

Mayawati statues attract tourists in UP [Hindustan Times]

And that's how you secure the Indian-American vote for 2012

On Tuesday, the students of Wakefield High School in Arlington Virginia were welcomed back to school by President-Comrade Obama so that he could indoctrinate them and turn them into socialist zombies. One of the little Zombies had a very interesting question for Dear Leader. A question whose impact can be felt from across the Atlantic Ocean.

STUDENT: Hi. I'm Lilly. And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Dinner with anyone dead or alive? Well, you know, dead or alive, that's a pretty big list. (Laughter.) You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine. Now, it would probably be a really small meal because -- (laughter) -- he didn't eat a lot. But he's somebody who I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. King, so if it hadn't been for the non-violent movement in India, you might not have seen the same non-violent movement for civil rights here in the United States. He inspired César Chávez, and he -- and what was interesting was that he ended up doing so much and changing the world just by the power of his ethics, by his ability to change how people saw each other and saw themselves -- and help people who thought they had no power realize that they had power, and then help people who had a lot of power realize that if all they're doing is oppressing people, then that's not a really good exercise of power.
So I'm always interested in people who are able to bring about change, not through violence, not through money, but through the force of their personality and their ethical and moral stances. And that's somebody that I'd love to sit down and talk to.

[via The Chicago Sun-Times Blog]

Dear Times Now, why haven't you procured a you tube video of the event and  broadcasted it every five minutes branding it as an "exclusive"? C'mon Headlines Today, isn't this representative of the fact that India-US relations have FINALLY been de-hyphenated from the country who shall not be named? And TOI, isn't this more irrefutable proof that the Obama administration is full of people who heart India? Isn't this another feather in our collective caps? Isn't it another example of how India has finally made it on the world stage and that we are a superpower now? Why aren't you guys covering the "real" issues here? Do your job and tell us what we need to think. Hold our hands and guide us through the treacherous clusterfuck called real life. Thank you, good people. Thank you.

OMG, NEWS!!

This is almost one of the best headlines ever! Right next to "Man feels thirsty, drinks water" . . .

If we didn't have Jackie Shroff movies, there would be no point of reference to use for comparison with terrible things

The leaner and meaner version of the UPA has completed 100 days into it's second term. Coincidently, it's performance is as bad as the 1991 movie, 100 Days. The last time I saw such bad results, I was looking at my Class 12 marksheet. [Indian Express]

The Australian deputy Prime Minister tries her best to convince weary Indians that Australia is a safe and welcoming place, just like Sarah Palin's womb. [TOI]

Arjun Rampal opens a restaurant in Delhi. In honour of its owner, the restaurant will serve just one type of cocktail and everything on the menu will be overcooked and will taste the same. [IBN Live]

Trillions of dollars of ill-gotten money, which rightly belongs to the Indian government, lies in limbo in Swiss Banks because most of the shady characters who have been killed by Inspector Vijay failed to mention to their kith and kin that they might have terribly large sums of money hidden safely in their uber-evil Swiss bank accounts. In fact, if we could get back all that money, we could build so many statues that a certain Chief Minister's head would explode. [The Hindu]

A magazine in Germany came up with a fake "Michael Jackson is alive" video and posted it on the web. Minutes later the video went viral and everybody was convinced that MJ was part of the undead, much like the Zombie he portrayed in his Thriller video. Turns out, they just wanted to prove that people will believe anything. My theory is that MJ is still alive and has been recruited by the secret shadow Kenyan crime syndicate which planned Obama's socialist presidency about 50 years ago. There, I said it, no matter what personal price I have to pay. FYI, if I suddenly disappear, you know who to blame. [CNN]

Disney Inc. has just bought Marvel Comics. I'm not saying that this will ruin marvel comics, but in the sequel to this year's Wolverine, the self-healing mutant of Canadian-origin spends the first half of the movie trying to find Donald Duck's pants. [NYT]

They have got to come up with a better naming system for hurricanes. I mean, Hurricane Jimena? Are you fucking kidding me? That doesn't sound scary enough. It sounds less like an intense storm and more like what happens to your stomach after you happen to "accidentally" overeat at Taco Bell. [LA Times]