Madhu and Narendra’s Excellent Adventure

As the evening dawned on yet another hectic week in New Delhi, the city’s residents were in for a surprise. After the last few days spent getting a small dose of the unbearable summer that we are heading towards, a bout of torrential rain was followed by a small, relief giving hailstorm. Praise the weather lords, spring was finally here! The sweet smell of spring was perhaps most on the minds of the overworked employees of News X. The channel’s staple program of a guy sitting on a plastic chair reading out things from yesterday’s newspaper was being pre-empted for an interview with India’s current Prime Ministerial frontrunner and future eternal President, Narendra Modi. Finally, someone other than their mothers would be watching the channel.

Eternal spring was also blooming in the heart of insane asylum outpatient and the person conducting the News X interview, Madhu Kishwar. Finally, the world would get to see the Narendra Modi she saw. Not the tough but brilliant administrator the world had come to appreciate. But the man behind the man. The kind, gentle soul who wouldn’t even dream of ever hurting a fly. Unless the fly had anti-national thoughts or wore a skull-cap because then HE WOULD LITERALLY ANNIHILATE THAT FLY INTO OBLIVION. NO ONE MESSES WITH INDIA. NOT ON NARENDRA MODI’S WATCH. Through her work, people would get to see what she saw everyday. That the man is pure magic. That he had the ability to turn everything into gold. Especially the fortunes of those of us who worship him. And anyone who didn’t see that was probably a sad victim of a SONIA GANDHI LED CONSPIRACY.

* * *

Last Saturday, as the breathless social media updates from various News X anchors informed us, we were going to witness the greatest television event of the century. For the first time in his capacity as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi would allow someone to ask him anything! Actually, not anything. Just things he likes to talk about! And not someone, but the President of his fan club, Madhu Kishwar. Sure, that seemed suspicious to the layman’s eye. But as Madhu’s twitter feed informed us, this would be Modi at his most candid.

So everyone who managed to find News X on their set top box tuned in. It was right between the channel that told you what shows other channels are broadcasting and the channel that exclusively showed advertisements for anti-acne medicine. And as promised, we learned a lot of things about the greatest thing to happen to this country since the first movie that had songs in it. Not only does he like to use red ink, but he once gave a presentation to Atal Behari Vajpyee. Anyone looking to vote for a person who uses red pens and likes giving powerpoint presentations to powerful people, he’s your guy! 

There were other interesting things we learned about him too. Apparently, Modi was a total Rahul Gandhi when he was deputed by the party to save Gujarat from the imposing weight of the Keshubhai Patel administration. He didn’t even know which side of the file was up! He was so embarrassed that everyone called him ‘Sahib,’ that he still hasn’t told them to stop even though it’s been twelve years.

Now, some cynics will say that calling this farce an interview was like calling Pramod Muthalik a feminist. They will ask why even though there are so many voices present in Madhu Kishwar’s head, none of them showed up to ask Modi a question. They will wonder why a news channel would present such a piece of blatant propaganda as an in-depth interview.

I, for one, was shocked that a person in a news organization fudged the truth to get a lot of people to tune in to their broadcast. And, I’ll have these critics know, that the propaganda wasn’t blatant. If you ask all those who worship Mr. Modi, they will tell you that it was the best interview they have seen on Indian teevee, matched only by the Indira Gandhi video profile presented by Sanjay Gandhi for Doordarshan during the emergency years.

Though I will agree that it wasn’t really an interview. This was the first part in Madhu Kishwar’s 6,999 part seminal, probable Pulitzer prize winning series, All In with Narendra Modi. And for the record, Madhu did ask Dr. Modi a question. She asked him how badly he was hurt when the media unfairly blamed him for a preventable event that happened in his state under his watch in 2002.

We also learned that a lot of muslim groups supported Modi’s first election to the assembly in that same year. It wasn’t mentioned why he would need to specifically highlight their support, but I guess to find out we will have to watch the rest of the series! (Can’t wait for the episode in which Modi tells his kids how he met their mother!) During the post-interview panel discussion with Ms. Kishwar, she specified again that some of Modi’s best supporters are muslim. I know that some people would call this vote-bank politics, but please note that it’s vote bank politics only if Sonia Gandhi does it. Modi simply isn’t into all that shit, okay?

Now, there are some vested interests who accuse Modi of not facing tough questions. That is another lie! Modi faces tough questions everyday from someone who knows him the most: himself. He looks into the mirror every night before going to bed, and asks himself whether he did something to help someone that day. And he goes to bed only if the answer is a resounding yes. And I’ll have you know, he has never had to answer in the negative. Do you think any of his opponents have such a well thought out, fool-proof, unbiased system in place?

I don’t think so.

* * *

Madhu closed the browser window and switched off her 486 desktop computer. She couldn’t handle all the negativity that was being spewed at her on twitter. Why wouldn’t all the paid congress agents leave her alone? She saw a shadow outside the window. She ran quickly to see who it was but they had already made their escape. Maybe it was just the moonlight playing its tricks on her. Maybe Sonia Gandhi had even paid off the moon. That woman was everywhere. If she could make a jumbo 777 jet disappear, what chance did a small, lonely activist have? Should she call the police? No, they don’t take her complaints seriously anymore. They probably have been given instructions from above to ignore her anyway. She checked to see if her gun was still safely resting under her pillow. She tried to calm herself but the worry kept bubbling into her mind. NO! She wasn’t going to give in to the anti-nationals. Not when she was this close to seeing her dreams fulfilled. There was only one thing that would calm her. She took out her phone and dialled his number. He would know what to do.

Indian Democracy, Call Your Office

(Presented by LexCorp)

As we began the week, a staggering scene unfolded on our television screens. The whole world watched in shock and awe as a hero crumbled right in front of its eyes. A messiah of millions revealed his true self. All the people who had invested their hopes and dreams in his success were now heartbroken and inconsolable. Overwhelmed with despair, they had nowhere to turn to. They couldn’t even commiserate  with each other because they knew that anything they said would sound quite hollow. They promised themselves never to worship another human being again. But enough about Justin Beiber’s imminent fall into meth addiction!

Last weekend, when it was announced that India’s #1 man-child was going to be interviewed by India’s #1 blowhard, people were excited! (By people I mean political junkies on twitter and by excited I mean cringing in anticipation.) Everyone was looking forward to interpreting whatever Rahul Gandhi said using the lens of their pre-conceived notions.

The interview began by both the participants talking about the interview. You could tell this was Rahul Gandhi’s first interview for anything because a few minutes later he was asking Arnab a question and then chastising him for not answering it, perhaps because he wasn’t aware that a person being interviewed isn’t supposed to be the one asking questions. At some point he started referring himself in the third person, thus reminding viewers of every middle manager in corporate India. He sounded like the sort of employee that old family owned companies in India don’t fire because of some sense of misplaced loyalty. The kind who ‘trained’ the current CEO when he was young but is still in the same position because despite having been in the business for forty years, he still knows nothing about it. And when he retires, all he will have to show for his decades of ‘service’ would be a yellowing certificate signed by the current CEO’s grandfather and a Quartz watch he got at his depressing retirement party.

A long, long time ago, during the final semester of my college, I had to give a presentation. I was actually looking forward to this one because for the first time, I had made it myself and not gotten some lowly junior to make it for me. I had barely started to show the teacher the first slide that she started asking me questions I had not prepared for. When my flailing got really embarrassing, she curtly told me that I was done and dismissed me. But I wanted to salvage whatever remaining prestige that I had and insisted that she see the rest of my presentation. I couldn’t answer any of her questions again and my friend, seeing that I would go on signalled to me to end the torturous session and get off the damn stage or he would punch me in the face. I still cringe when I think about this incident! Unfortunately, Rahul’s interview for me was a vivid reminder of this very moment. He had prepared so hard! But no one askedhim the questions he wanted to answer. And he kept rambling on long after he needed to. Maybe surrounding yourself with yes-men who never let you face even a smidgen of contrary opinion let alone allowing a friend to threaten you with bodily harm for fucking up is not the best idea? It was like Gotham city sending Robin’s intern to fight their biggest villain while Batman stayed back in the batlair, watching the destruction of his beloved home on teevee.

After the interview was over, the Congress trolls on twitter were doing extreme verbal gymnastics and calling it an insightful interview showcasing the humility of their lord and master while the BJP trolls were doing twitter’s version of dancing in the streets. The only good thing most sane people could bring themselves to say about the interview was that at least Rahul Gandhi has given more interviews than Narendra Modi. Even though he answered questions that had a simple yes and no answer with an incoherent word salad of meaningless phrases, at least he sat through them. Maybe we should get our Prime Ministerial candidates to do the limbo because the bar seems to be set too low.

One would have thought that the interview would yield a discussion around the fact that one of our supposed Prime Ministerial candidates and the vice-president of one of the country’s largest political parties was giving his first major interview on the eve of his third parliamentary election. That he was only deeming it necessary to ‘speak out’ to the general public now that his party is facing an electoral rout and his minions thought that putting him ‘out there’ might rejuvenate their campaign. That he found it prudent to give his first interview to the person who just last week had an argument with one of his guests, a member of parliament no less, the highlight of which was both of them calling the other “a child,” should give the journalistic fraternity some sort of pause. That the other candidate hasn’t even deemed it necessary to give in to even the pretence of facing questions from someone who might be a little hostile to his agenda should be worrying to all of us. That these are the sort of people populating the pillars of our democracy should be making us uneasy with questions of our own.

Or maybe we could just follow Justin Beiber’s lead and descend into an alternate reality too.

Wanted: A CEO for the Central Board of Film Certification

(After we discovered that the new CBFC CEO walked straight out of a teevee soap opera set in a tiny village in Northern India, we asked our sources to find out how this happened. After all, if there is anyone who stands up for liberal values and an artist’s right to express themselves, it’s the Central Board of Film Certification. Our source sent us the following job listing posted at ActualHumanMonster.com by the CBFC to fill the position.)

Situation Wanted

Seeking a self-motivated, highly capable candidate who loves to seek new challenges.

Candidate must have loads of free time on his or her hands. Former government bureaucrats will be given preference. If he or she hasn’t worked for the government, candidate must show job experience where they have been needlessly mean and condescending to people for no reason whatsoever.

Candidate should have no self-awareness. Should have no qualms in forcing his or her own worldview onto other people. Candidates who blame the state of the world today on young people without any irony whatsoever will be given preference. Under no circumstances should the candidate even try to think ‘outside the box.’

Having an artistic sensibility is a strict no-no. An exposure to real art will interfere with the candidate’s job of telling people who were born with a camera in one hand and a three film UTV pictures contract in the other how to make their movies.

Candidate should not have seen any human genitals willingly or unwillingly in the last fifty years. Must be such a prude that he or she even covers up firm tomatoes or really long cucumbers/bananas. Candidate must have a disdain for people who wear provocative things like jeans or fastrack watches.

Candidate must constantly live in fear that someone, somewhere might actually enjoy his or her movie watching experience. The Central Board of Film Certification frowns upon that and will not allow it to happen under any circumstance. Letting adults make their own decisions is against our culture.

After two rounds of interviews, candidates will be required to find things to censor in the following movies: Jai Santoshi Maa, Any random Rajshri movie, Mother India

Compensation: A huge salary and the satisfaction of preventing literally dozens of people from seeing a nipple because they haven’t yet heard about the internet.

Interested candidates may send their application to:

CBFC@nosexpleaseweareindian.com

Thank you for your interest!

Are You Ready for #VoterMania2014?

“Finally,” bellowed the announcer, “Arvind Kejriwal has come back to . . . Ramlila Maidan.” The crowd erupted with a huge cheer. They told him that this day wouldn’t come. They said that he would be a flash in the pan. They said that he was too insignificant to even be remembered as a historical footnote. Yet, here he was. Listening to the millions and millions of his supporters chanting his name. Arvind closed his eyes to soak in the moment. As he stepped up to the podium to take the oath of office, the noise was deafening. They could probably hear the happy roar of the crowd in the secure confines of a fancy bungalow in Janpath as well as the state capital of Gujarat. He smiled. From now on, he would be known as the most electrifying man in Indian politics. After everything was going to be said and done. After all the smoke will be cleared. There would only be one man left standing. And he will be none other than the trail blazing, Shiela Dikshit defeating, morning ablutions tweeting, muffler wearing, people’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal.

* * *

Previously, when we checked in with the people of New Delhi, they were busy haggling over who would get to play their chief minister and pretend to solve their problems. Since Shiela Dikshit had retired to spend more time with all the flyover models in her house and no one else had come forward to take her place, the city was being run by an empty bottle of imported whiskey. The Lt. Governor was so desperate to find a human administrator for the city that he even contemplated going old-school and settling the dispute as they used to do in ancient times: hosting a butter chicken eating contest and awarding the chief ministership to the winner of the contest. 

This situation came about because none of the parties in the legislature were in a position to form the government. In fact, in a first for electoral democracy, all the three parties wanted to sit in the opposition. The BJP fulfilled its election promise of providing strong leadership by refusing to even attempt to form the government, even though it was the party with the most legislators. The AAP didn’t want to form the government because (a) it wasn’t in the mood, (b) it had a headache and (c) it probably had too much wine at dinner, was very tired and all it wanted to do was go to sleep so would you please switch off the light, honey? The tiny group of legislators that belonged to the Congress were busy wondering what they were doing in the assembly anyway.

That question was answered a fortnight later when after days of goading by its political opponents, the news media, and its supporters, the AAP finally agreed to form the government with outside support from the Congress. Our national nightmare was finally over! The city with the highest number of government officials in the country was going to get another half dozen of them!

So history was made and thousands of people watched Arvind Kejriwal take the oath of office and become the first resident of Ghaziabad to become the Chief Minister of New Delhi. Never before had so many people gathered together in a single venue without any food stalls in the vicinity. The stage Kejriwal took the oath on was made of wood, concrete, Anna Hazara’s crumbled hopes, Harsh Vardhan’s tears and faux piousness.

In a month’s time, Arvind Kejriwal had gone from flash-in-the-pan-do-gooder, to being labelled as the most omnipotent force in Indian politics. He became India’s newest boyfriend and/or saviour. His narrative was less expert politician and more vanquishing hero. It’s like something out of a wrestling storyline. An unknown man comes out of nowhere and issues a challenge to the more established candidates. They mock him and act like he is no threat to them even though they’re really worried of losing their position. They try to stop him by any means necessary. They throw every roadblock his way and make him go through every obstacle they can think of. Yet, he overcomes all of their challenges and despite the overwhelming odds, emerges victorious and wins the championship. Even Vince McMahon couldn’t come up with something better.

So, now, everyone wants to be his friend. Social activists, people pretending to be social activists, actors, billionaires, politicians not affiliated to any other political party right now, busybodies, journalists, children and grandchildren of freedom fighters, senior citizens who are also members of their local laughter club, adults who once wrote an essay in school about things that they would do if they were made the prime minister, and folks who love that Anil Kapoor movie in which he gets to be chief minister for one day. All of them are all lining up to join the AAP.

Since he’s the most popular kid in school now, the other political parties don’t know what to do with him. The BJP keeps trying to prove that whatever actions Kejriwal takes has been done by them before. We hated the Congress before it was cool. The BJP zombies on twitter who-till last month-were so goddamn sure of Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister for life and their party winning all the parliamentary seats in general election are now spending the better part of their day fruitlessly trying to prove that Kejriwal is the worst thing to happen to the country since bollywood producers discovered Telugu movies. The Congress has a love-hate relationship with the AAP. They love them for taking away the ‘change’ mantle from the BJP. But they hate them for taking away the we’re-the-only-thing-standing-between-you-and-desi Putin mantle away from the Congress. However, they still have to pretend to like the AAP because Rahul Gandhi is fascinated by them. So they support the AAP with the same enthusiasm shown by children who are forced by their parents to accompany them on visits to older relatives who insist on discussing the strange rash on their pelvis during dinner.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that’s going to be your next few months. One man’s election campaign is going to be another man’s gladiatorial soap opera.

* * *

He stood on the stage and saw all his Modimaniacs looking at him with their expectant eyes, chanting his name, treating every word out of his mouth as a pronouncement from god. He smirked. Did anyone really think that they could stop his momentum? Or steal his thunder? There is no one out there that can even come close to inspiring the sort of devotion that he does. After all, he is the excellence of execution. The best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be. He is so close to taking what is rightly his that he can almost taste it.  All he needs to do is to keep reminding people to say their prayers and take their vitamins. His critics can do and say whatever they want. Haters gonna hate, right? The real question dear critics, he thought to himself, is that whatcha gonna do, brothers, when the Modimaniacs run wild on you?

A District Attorney in New York Arrested a Diplomat for Visa Fraud. You will Never Guess What Happened Next!

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

The past few weeks have been really distressing for those of us who like to think of themselves as ‘Americaphiles.’ We have been betrayed, left saddened and made to feel unwanted by someone we used to fondly refer to as Uncle Sam. By arresting Devyani Khobragade for the crime of simply being an Indian, they have unintentionally let us know what they really think of us. And from where we’re sitting, it doesn’t look pretty.

Various interests group have turned Devyani Khobragade into a symbol of their pre-formed beliefs. To some, the furore over Devyani’s arrest seems like a representation of everything that is wrong with India’s elites. They declare that the reason the establishment is acting out is because someone dared to treat them like “a normal,” and not like the precious gift that they are. They proclaim that since most members of the elite have been allowed to get away with breaking the law in their own country, they don’t understand why another country wouldn’t accord them the same privilege. Being given special consideration is their birthright and they shall have it!

Of course, the people accusing the country’s decision making apparatus of overreacting couldn’t be more wrong. Obviously, the real symbol in the whole hullaballoo is Sangeeta Richards. She is what is wrong with the country. She did not for once think about all the things Devyani had done for her! Would anyone else have taken her to New York? I bet that Sangeeta was probably the first member of her family to even see the inside of an International airport. And Devyani provided her with everything! She didn’t even charge Sangeeta market rates for all the calls made to India. She just automatically deducted a small amount of money from Sangeeta’s salary. Not because Devyani couldn’t afford to pay for Sangeeta’s calls. Not at all! She was teaching her the value of money. How else would have Sangeeta learned how important money is since she probably spent her whole life without having much of it? Devyani also gave Sangeeta all her clothes that she wasn’t using anymore. Some of them were almost brand new, or worn only a couple of times. Do you think Sangeeta could afford a Dior? Ha! Not with what Devyani paid her, for sure! It is clear that Sangeeta did this for a green card. She saw all those buildings visible from Devyani’s New York residence and got greedy. If only Devyani hadn’t relaxed the ‘no going outside at all’ rule she had for Sangeeta out of the goodness of her heart, none of this would have happened.

The Americans made a huge mistake by arresting Devyani. They can deny us access to the mastermind behind one of the major terrorist attacks in our country. They can even invade the privacy of millions of our citizens and access all their private information. But, arresting one of our own for violating the rule of law in their country? That is taking things too far! I blame Preet Bharara, the District Attorney handling her case, for detonating this diplomatic time bomb. What sort of name is “Preet Bharara” anyway? What is he, an appetizer in an Indian restaurant in New York’s Meatpacking District? Although, one day, I’d really like to meet his twin brother, Preet Changezi. Is this how he treats a citizen from the country of his birth? After all we’ve done for Bharara! Sure, if his parents had stayed in India, he’d not have gotten most (or any) of the opportunities that he has had, but that is not the point! We gave him a name that is not only familiar but also sounds exotic at the same time. That must be come in handy during election time. We gave him a lifelong love of the law by ensuring that his actual place of birth was a lawless wasteland. We even gave him a huge vote bank of Americans of Indian origin by making certain that the only way they could be successful was to go to foreign shores. And this is how he repays us?

Mr. Bharara put Devyani in jail. With common criminals! Is this how they treat important people in the so-called ‘oldest democracy in the world?’ Maybe Mr. Bharara and his cohorts should come to India to learn how to treat people of stature who might be suspected of committing or have been convicted of committing a crime. We give them the respect they deserve and the resources they are used to. Make them feel like they’re not in jail, but at home. And we don’t let them mix with the riffraff in any circumstances. Regular jail is for people without any connection to someone important. Only an unpatriotic person would disagree with this arrangement.

So we did what we had to do to put the Americans in their place. We hit them where it really hurts! First we unfriended them on Facebook. Then, we cancelled their licences for importing liquor and afterwards, we got rid of all the barricades outside their embassy. That’ll teach them! Now, they will think twice before messing with us. Although, if it were up to me, I would have taken more stringent measures. Like putting up a huge statue of Edward Snowden giving the finger right opposite the US Embassy in New Delhi. We could force them to use only the Vodafone 3G network to try to access the internet. Or give them free tickets to an exclusive screening of the new hobbit movie, block all the exits once all of them are inside the theatre, and then play Dhoom 3 instead.

However, the most important and inspiring lesson of the series of events was lost in all the noise. And it is that as long as you know someone who matters, you can do anything you want. The world is literally your oyster.

And don’t you ever forget that.

Now please excuse me as I explain to my indentured servants why rising prices mean that their salaries would have to be cut in half.

Blame it on the Boogie

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

A few weeks ago, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was gripped by anticipation. All the illegal gambling dens selling illicit liquor had their radios tuned into a single station. Somewhere deep inside the bowels of the hinterland, dacoit groups sent whichever member of their group owned a nokia asha to the abandoned safehouse which got the best reception. Teevee channels all over the state interrupted their regular programming for this special broadcast. Laptops given to college students by the UP government automatically connected to the internet and opened their browser window to the homepage of the Samajwadi party. After all, the party’s anthem for the next election was about to be released! Then, as the clock struck twelve, the airways all over the state were filled by words extolling the virtues of one Mulayam Singh Yadav set to the tune of Billy Joel’s We didn’t start the fire.

Yes, that’s right. The Samajwadi Party thought using a song with the lyrics We didn’t start the fire was totally appropriate. What happened, was Bob Marley’s I Shot the Sheriff taken? The day they chose this song, irony died in a fire started by a riot in Muzaffarnagar while the police stood on the side, watching the proceedings, doing nothing.  Maybe they confused ‘theme song’ with ‘legal defence?’

Although, to be fair, I think this is a capital idea. Every political party in India should have an official anthem based on a song from the 80’s. Think of the possibilities! The Congress could use Europe’s The Final Countdown as the people of this country count the days until the UPA is sent to the dustbin of history. Nothing describes the BJP’s campaign better than the Aretha Franklin & George Michael duet I Knew You Were Waiting For Me. U2’s I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For seems like it was tailor-made for the AAP. The DMK can hum Whitney Houston’s I Want to Dance With Somebody while looking for somebody, anybody, who will align with them. The BSP should put a small device under Mayawati’s statues which constantly pumps out The Bangles’ hit Walk Like an Egyptian because of their dear leader’s Cleopatra-like obsession with herself. Laloo Prasad Yadav should have used all his free time in the penitentiary learning the lyrics to Michael Jackson’s I Just Can't Stop Loving You while wondering why the RJD still has feelings for the Congress despite being continuously shunned by the latter. Bow Wow Wow’s I Want Candy seems perfect for Ajit Singh’s political outfit as it is perpetually available for lease to the highest bidder. The TMC should start playing Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is a Place on Earth from the loudspeakers they put up next to Calcutta’s many traffic lights so as to remind the people of that city of their luck in being alive during Didi’s glorious reign of peace and prosperity. Nitish Kumar’s version of the Janata Dal should keep Milli Vanilli’s Baby Don't Forget My Number handy in case they change their mind after the election and suddenly find their former ally quite acceptable once again. The left parties should definitely play La Bamba by the Los Lobos at their rallies because just like the current version of the band, they’re a cheap imitation of their former selves. 

One may wonder why the Samajwadi Party is trying to reach out to anyone who isn’t into criminal activity. Well, apparently someone told them that all the young people, at least those who aren’t patrolling the neighbourhood in their party issued standard jeep looking for someone to pick on, are spending all their time on the internets. So they made a website to show people what they’re all about. Which is why the website is low on information and high on proving how the party supremo is god’s greatest gift to the people of Uttar Pradesh. Hey, just because they are against everything that the modern world stands for doesn’t mean that they don’t want to at least give the impression of living in the twenty first century.

It’s not just Mulayam Singh Yadav’s ancient tribal council that wants to keep the past alive. Most of our political parties suffer from the same ailment. They imagine that by having a website or twitter account and letting their leaders take friendly questions from internet users will make them appear like they are Y2K okay. Yet, they don’t realize that no matter what the medium, their message remains the same. Like our page on Facebook to receive updates consisting of the same regressive pabulum we always talk about!

You can’t cover up outdated policies and an incomprehensible worldview with fancy gadgets. Leaders seeped in intolerance, misogyny, homophobia and religious bigotry want us to believe that they are ready to face the challenges of the modern world because of their ability to hire someone who knows what email is. Can’t thinkfluence my vote, bro!

Political parties in India are modern like the Khap Panchayats are acceptable of young love. Political parties in India are modern like Iran is a democracy. Political parties in India are modern like “baba” ramdev is spiritual. No matter how much you try to shine a turd, at the end of the day, it’s still a turd.

If only there was some sort of communication network our political parties could use to find out what people really want.

All Hail the Supreme Court

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

On the second day of the seventh month of 2009, a few wise men of the Delhi High Court–who thought they knew better than everyone else–criminalised heterosexuality in India. Things were never the same again! The whole country became a haven for same gender attraction. Suddenly, men started wearing pink, shaved off all their chest hair, learned how to cook French cuisine, left their wives and moved in with their ‘business partner.’ Women started using motor oil as shampoo, wore only ill-fitting denims, stopped worrying about their weight and moved in with their ‘hostel roommate.’ The children who were left to fend for themselves were kidnapped and transported to gay and lesbian conversion camps. Here, they were taught gay and lesbian behaviour, like making extraordinarily beautiful paintings or fighting to preserve the environment.

In a few short days, yearning to mate with a member of the opposite sex became something taboo. It began to be discouraged! Heterosexual individuals brave enough to come out would find that people hitherto close to them suddenly treating them differently. Parents who found out that their children did not want to conform to the norm tried to talk some sense into them. A few of these children were even forced to go to reparative therapy to get rid of their natural desire for the opposite sex. No cure was ever found in spite of corporations and governments spending massive amounts of money on such research.

Coming out would cause heterosexual individuals to lose some of their friends too. Children who discovered that they only felt attracted to the opposite sex had to pretend to like someone of the same gender so as to not make anyone suspicious. If their peers found out, they would be mocked mercilessly. Even gay children who defied stereotypes and wanted to participate in typical heterosexual activities like having a messy room or wearing plaid shirts with corduroy pants were on the receiving end of ugly epithets usually reserved for those with opposite sex desires.

Heterosexual people were constantly reminded that they were different. Guys and girls could hold hands in public, but only as friends. If they looked like a couple, they could hear audible gasps and couldn't do anything but sigh at those head shakes of disapproval. Sometimes, private parties consisting only of heterosexuals were raided by the police and all the people attending were made to do the perp walk in front of a gleeful camera-wielding media to set an example and give a stern warning to other secret heterosexuals out there to keep to themselves. Work colleagues f heterosexual individuals would laugh behind their back and make terrible insinuations to their face. Heterosexual couples were routinely turned away from most hotels if the owner did not approve of their lifestyle choices. Straight characters in movies would be only used for comic relief. Most of their story arcs involved being the recipient of cruel jokes lobed to them by other characters. Those celebrities rumoured to be heterosexual were often the target of demeaning words from bigoted individuals. In fact, some heterosexual filmmakers had to make heterophobic movies because they were not brave enough to live the truth. Teevee programs routinely showed popular leading actors pretending to be attracted to the opposite sex for a few cheap laughs.

As the injustices piled up, some heterosexual people began to form organizations to fight for their so-called rights. They didn’t want to be a silent minority anymore! They decided that they did not want to be treated as second-class citizens in their own country. They even managed to hold rallies expressing their pride in who they were, shouting slogans, refusing to be in the shadows anymore. We’re here, we’re not queer, deal with it!

These organizations even filed various court cases to get back their rights. After a long battle, this case finally ended up in the Supreme Court. On the eleventh day of the twelfth month of this century’s thirteenth year, the prayers of millions of heterosexuals were finally answered. The Supreme Court quashed the senseless 2009 judgement and uncriminalised heterosexuality. Finally, all those oppressed heterosexuals could be free. It was like a huge boulder was lifted from their backs. No more could anyone tell them that they were deviant perverts who needed to be kept away from other members of society. No more could anyone blackmail them by threatening to reveal their sexual identify. No more could the law treat them any differently. No more would they be silenced. No more did they have to live a lie. This was India’s second tryst with destiny!

The Supreme Court upheld the highest principles of the constitution. If our founding fathers were alive today, they would be proud. This is the sort of court they envisioned. One which would not abandon a small minority of people to the tyranny of the majority. A court which would stand up to all those fake purveyors of morality.

Imagine a fourteen year old living in a small town, struggling with feelings he does not yet understand, but still aware enough that he is different. Thanks to society’s attitude towards his natural orientation, he constantly gets the message that his kind of people are not welcome in this world. People find out and mock him for being “a straight.” And then one day, after a very terrible bout of teasing, he contemplates suicide. But before he can do anything drastic, he hears about the Supreme Court judgement and stops himself. For a moment, he doesn’t feel alone. Someone understands him! It dawns on him that not everyone in the world will treat him like a pariah because of his natural human desire to love someone he is attracted to.

After all, what sort of fucked up society would allow such a thing? 

Slouching Towards New Delhi

(A condensed version of this article first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

You know election time is neigh when roads start getting rebuilt, potholes begin to be temporarily covered again and even some government employees begin to show up for ‘work.’ Sure, most of them still don’t do anything, but, remember, it’s the thought that counts! As always, any election in Delhi garners national attention. Not only because it is conveniently located in the same city as the main office of most of our major news organizations, it’s also supposed to provide an indication of which party and their supporters will be more smug while we head to the general election. However, this time there was even more attention paid to the election because instead of the usual two mediocre alternatives, the people of Delhi had three despicable candidates to choose from. Three cheers for democracy!  

As the votes are counted this week and Delhi’s new liaison to the central government to continuously ask for more money is selected, let us not forget the mind numbing and melodramatic campaign that got us here.

Fighting for another record term is our first candidate, the current incumbent and the only senior citizen in Delhi to actually have access to various government services, Sheila Dikshit. She spent most of the campaign being offended at anyone who had the temerity to suggest that she didn’t put her best foot forward each and every day she has been in office. For the past decade and a half, her first and last thought has been to wonder how she can make the life of the citizens of her city-state better. And she was ready to debate anyone who dared to suggest that she made any mistakes. Anyone! At an independent public forum! Of course, she couldn’t do that during the elections. She did not have any time! Why would anyone want to see leaders of different political parties debate each other during an election, anyway? What purpose does it serve? None, as far as she is concerned. She just wants to spend all her time with the people of the city. The people she thinks about every minute of her life. They’re her only concern.

That is why she spent the last two weeks of the campaign pretending to be a really humble person. Nothing to see here! Just your friendly neighbourhood grandmother fighting an election! What sort of monster doesn’t vote for their grandmother? She even admitted to making a couple of mistakes. Like the BRT corridor. She gave into popular sentiment and finally admitted her disappointment with what she once claimed to be her signature achievement. She promised to start dismantling it the minute she was elected to her fourth term. Look, if you’re only focusing on her mistakes then you must have a secret agenda of your own. Why not focus on all the positive changes? Look at all the flyovers! Also, the large number of public facilities for all those people who get stuck in traffic while traversing the road between those flyovers. No one even mentions the abundance of electricity! Also, the number of hospitals for all those who get a heart attack after looking at their electricity bills. Vote for the Congress and give us a chance to solve all the problems we created!

The story of the BJP’s campaign is the story of how one deserving candidate was cheated of his rightful place as his party’s chief ministerial nominee. This man was none other than Vijay Goel. Not only is he an obedient worker, he is also a renowned activist. He has spent the past few decades quietly building the party in the city, waiting for his turn. Sure, he is alleged to have made some money and is possibly the only person in Delhi who is less popular than Shiela Dikshit, but everyone knows elections are not popularity contests. You don’t need people to like you to get them to vote for you. Especially not in India, where people vote for candidates they despise at regular intervals. You just have to make them realize that your opponent is the worst person in the world. This was his time to shine, dammit! But they took his dream and gave it to an unknown person like Harsh Vardan. What sort of name is that, anyway? What is he, a character from a Karan Johar movie? Now, Vijay, that’s a name. It literally means victory! VICTORY!

Anyway, it didn’t matter much because the only candidate for every election the BJP runs in for the next few months is Narendra Modi. He was what traders in Delhi call the “all-in-all” of the BJP’s election campaign. The candidate, the chief campaigner and every item in the manifesto. Just don’t ask him any questions. Real patriots don’t want such a great leader to actually specify policy positions. Get your legitimate concerns off my lawn!  Vote for the BJP, because all you need is Narendra Modi!

Almost all of us have that that weird uncle who will show up at your family function and try to be ultra-helpful for no discernible reason. He will admonish the catering staff for being lazy, stand with the family to welcome the guests and will force you to let him do all the inevitable last minute errands. But, instead of helping, he ends up making the catering staff more rude, creeps out the guests who have no idea who this strange man repeatedly asking them to have dinner is and cannot finish any errand because he has no idea where anything is. Well, Arvind Kejriwal’s fledging political outfit, the AAP, is Delhi’s weird uncle. They’re here for you, no matter what you want. Just don’t leave without having dinner!

Throughout the campaign, they promised to change the world, one resident welfare association at a time. Nothing could dampen their enthusiasm! Neither empty threats from the government nor fake stings from shady news organizations. They didn’t even flinch when India’s only living leprechaun, Anna Hazare, tried to rain in on their parade. They promised to give the people whatever they wanted. Their manifesto read like a suggestion box in a high school that accepts anonymous submissions. To them, there are no bad ideas. Five day weekends? You got it! Can you pass a law that makes it so that we don’t have to pay for anything we don’t like? On it! Can you put CCTVs all over the city whose sole purpose is to monitor other CCTVs? What an idea, sirjee!  Your wish is their command. Vote for the AAP, because we don’t think you’re crazy!

Now please excuse me while I mock viewers of reality shows for having a really shitty list of contestants to vote for.

How to be the Best Goddamn Democracy in the Whole Wide World

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)  

As we head into dystopian times at warp speed, it seems refreshing to hear news about a country trying to make its government a little more democratic. Who wouldn’t like to see the human race take another small step in the right direction? But when we heard that our old friend Nepal was trying to elect a constituent assembly, we were very disappointed. If they needed something, they could’ve asked us. We’re always been eager to help our neighbours. In fact, we go out of our way and do things that inconvenience us just to take care of them. So if the good people of Nepal needed a constitution, they could’ve just borrowed ours. We aren’t using ours much these days anyway! And if some people have their way, we won’t need it at all after next year. But, okay. We get it. They needed to do this for themselves. Find out who they are. Even though they tried it on their own without our guidance a few years ago and it didn’t work. Maybe this time it will?

Although, in our humble opinion the smart thing to do would be to wait for a few months and vote in the upcoming elections in India, but, for some reason, the people of Nepal don’t want to subscribe to the Indian democracy project. Their snub is not going to ruin our buzz! We have nothing to say to them. They should know that we didn’t grow all this grey hair standing in the sun all day. It came from experience as well as a botched up dye job.

For your information, people of Nepal, our country has had at least the pretence of democracy for about sixty seven years now. We’re the leading democracy in South Asia! Sure, that’s like being the fourth musketeer or the vanilla extract in chocolate cake. Maybe some of us like vanilla! It might not have the flash of strawberry or posses the good fortune of tasting better than its individual ingredients like pistachio, but it does its job, even though it tastes like something an old, efficient Soviet-era bureaucrat might come up with. If you think so badly of our favourite flavour, then we probably did the right thing by not bringing over the generous helping we had earmarked for you. You can thank your harsh attitude for missing out on such a delicious treat. We’re going to mix your former share of our home made vanilla ice-cream with bourbon, sit by the fireplace and talk amongst ourselves about how you betrayed us. I hope you realize what you’ve lost! In fact, we had imagined that we’d even try to help you with tricks and life hacks on how to run things. Now, however, we’re just going to gloat about why we’re much better at democracy than you ever will be.

For starters, most of your political parties don’t even have a high command. You amateurs are hilarious! You see, it doesn’t matter who the people elect. The most important vote belongs to the undisputed leader of the party. We should have known how bad at this you were when you jettisoned the dynasty that has ruled you for so many decades. Who does that? Not someone who’s good at democracy! No siree, Bob!

The majority of the candidates standing in your elections don’t even have criminal cases against them. You didn’t even allow criminals to contest the elections. What sort of screwed up operation are you guys running? It’s important to elect murderers, rapists, psychopaths, conmen, busybodies, kidnappers, drug dealers, tax dodgers, smugglers of illicit materials and other valued members of society to various legislative bodies so that you know where they are all the time, in case you want to arrest and/or felicitate them.

Which is why it is also important to have a criminal investigative agency whose primary purpose is to be used as political leverage. Do any of you even know what clean chits are? This is why none of your coalition governments are stable. As you must have gathered by now, voting in an election is choosing the option that would do the least harm to the country. You should have a whole smorgasbord of bad choices! As a matter of fact, in most cases, if you’re stuck, you’re supposed to just vote for the person who belongs to the community you most identify with. So what if they’re an incompetent thief? They’re your thief! Even if they don’t do anything for you, at least they’re keeping those people away from the spoils of power.

How dare you involve your maoists in the constitution writing process? That’s not the right way to solve your insurgency problems. Let them stay in the forest so that you can keep bombing them. And what sort of maoists willingly participate in the electoral process? Have they no shame? I thought their lot in life was to overthrow the state, not play a role in strengthening fledging democratic institutions. Has palling around with China taught them nothing? Though them being bitter about losing the elections and threatening to take their ball and go home might just save your infant democracy.

The people in your country also need to get a hobby because approximately seventy percent of them showed up to vote in the elections. Just because you care enough about the future of your country to engage in one of your most important civic duties doesn’t mean you’re so special. No matter what your politicians promise you, nothing is ever going to change. Things are only going to get worse. Therefore, why even bother voting? Plus, voting day is a great time to catch up on other things. It is basically an extra day off! You can use it to finish all your pending errands, catch up with people you haven’t met in ten years, go for a picnic with your family, get your accident prone child a tetanus shot, update your status on Facebook to show your disillusionment with the electoral process, file your taxes. There is so much to do!

Look, I know all this talk about how awesome our democracy is must make all of you very jealous, so I’ll put you out of your misery and stop talking about it now.

But if you ever need any pointers, you know where to find us.

The Untold History of Hindustan

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

(For far too long, thanks to the influence of our cowardly, Nehru worshipping, pinko commie historians, our collective past has been whitewashed to fit the narrative preferred by the elitist left-liberal scum. Therefore, it is imperative upon all patriotic Indians to fight this menace. As we all know, the only person in our country today with cojones big enough to take on the liberal establishment is none other than Shri Dr. Prof. Narendra Modi TBH IDK. So, to aid him in this noble enterprise, we bring you an extract from his forthcoming non-fiction book about the real history of India, called ‘India Before Modi.’)

Preface: Friends, in this chapter, I would like to talk about India’s fight for independence. As always has been the case in our country, the whole predicament began because of bad leadership. We would’ve successfully driven the British out in 1857 itself if only we had a strong leader, preferably from Gujarat, who knew exactly how to bring the mighty British empire down to its knees. We all know that there are no problems strong leadership cannot solve!

A long, long time ago, in a city that very much resembles today’s New Delhi, there was a king called Bahadur Shah Zafar. He had a palace, a few hundred servants willing to obey all his commands and service his every whim. He was a quiet, non-imposing man, who couldn’t hurt a fly even if he tried. He was old, tired and had no knowledge of statecraft. However, none of this mattered because in essence, he was king in name only. No one really cared about his opinion, except maybe his wife, a few bureaucrats and some misguided leaders of foreign countries. In fact, the real ruler of the city and the rest of the country was a European. The king was simply a puppet, allowed to exist so as to lend a friendly face to the brutal, corrupt dictatorship of foreign rule. We would never let someone like that lead us during the present day, right?

Once the atrocities against the people of the country began to reach unprecedented levels, various Hindu leaders revolted against the foreign hand. These leaders even managed to convince their Muslim brethren to not fall for the pseudo-secularism of the occupying power and made them join in the righteous fight to take back the country. They all got together to drive out the British and even succeeded in removing them from the capital city. The one mistake those bold men (and one token woman nominated by the sleepy town of Jhansi. Can you imagine woman warriors? Ha! What was this, the 15th century? Actually it was the 19th. But I digress!) made was proclaiming Bahadur Shah Zafar as their king. You cannot enjoy the fruits of war without the resultant government having a strong leader at its helm. You need a uniter, not a divider! So, thanks to the rudderless leadership of the self-proclaimed poet king, the British won back and occupied Delhi. Now, usually I don’t agree with the British because that would involve putting myself in someone else’s shoes and strong leaders don’t do that, but even I agree with their action of sending Zafar to live in Bhutan or Nepal or wherever he ended up going. No one really knows where and we have never honestly tried to find out because we really don’t care, you know?

The independence movement didn’t have a strong leader until the emergence of ICONIC BJP STATESMAN Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Fondly referred to as ‘the Narendra Modi of the freedom movement,’ Vallabhbhai was the real reason India got independence when it did. He single handedly drove the British away from India. He was provided help in this endeavour by Mahatma Gandhi, who was another patriotic Gujarati. Gandhiji went all over the world but he came back because he once again wanted to breathe in a little bit of Gujarat. On the sidelines, a Roshan Seth lookalike gave some good speeches and wrote some popular books which helped him inflate his role in the freedom struggle. There were also a few minority leaders who contributed to the freedom movement in their unique way but I don’t want to mention any of their names so as to not appear like I’m favouring any particular community. Strong leaders don’t do that!  

However, I’d like to give a dishonourable mention to the biggest villain of the freedom struggle, retroactive ISI agent M.A. Jinnah. He was the sort of man who believed that only he was the right person to lead his people onto the light. A man who had no compunction in rewriting history to suit his purpose.  A man without empathy whose conscience wasn’t bothered that his actions tore the country apart. A man who was ready to sacrifice as many human lives as it took at the altar of his ambition.

We would never let someone like that lead us during the present day, right?

Stuff the Congress Wants the UPA Government to Ban

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

(We were going to write another long screed about how everything is just the absolute worst, but minutes before we were about to begin, an anonymous party insider sent us the following Congress Working Committee Memo which enumerates all the things the party wants the government to ban. So we immediately decided to send this in instead because this scoop is so exclusive that even most of the people it was intended for haven’t seen it yet.)

Dear cherished members of the Gandhi family, honourable prime minister, honourable prime ministerial aspirants, respected elders, treasured friends, esteemed colleagues, and Digvijay Singh,

I write this letter to you in anguish. There has been an onslaught of negativity towards the UPA government. We have been treated very unfairly. Everybody talks about all of the bad things we have done, and not the good thing everyone thought we did but found out later that it was a bad thing too. Since the assembly elections are sort of a semi-final for next year’s general election, we have to take some preventive steps to stop the misinformation campaign against us. Due to this bombardment of dubious information, people are getting the impression that we are corrupt, old, out of our depth and not prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. These untruths about us are probably being spread at the behest of a foreign hand by mischievous elements for the benefit of our political opponents. Clearly, getting bad information is the only reason the people of this country have expressed their desire to vote against us. There is no other possible explanation of why anyone would not think that we’re the greatest thing to happen to the human race since the invention of the ‘Reply All’ button.

So, in the spirit of upholding democracy and freedom, we ask that the central government ban the following:

Opinion polls: Clearly, these unscientific measures of groupthink are biased. And damaging! Look, one of the most important things in this country is other people’s opinion. A large percentage of our population base their lives on projecting the sort of image that everyone around them approves of. People are ready to spend their whole lives living in an unhappy squalor as long as they don’t become the topic of gossip among their friends, relatives and neighbours. People are even peer-pressured into killing their loved ones. Don’t you think they can easily be persuaded to vote for someone on the basis of bogus polls?

Election Symbols of other political parties: I, for one, see no need for any political party that is not led by a member of the Gandhi family. However, thanks to a glaring oversight by our founding fathers, the constitution allows for as many political parties as the people want. The only thing we can do to make people forget that other options exist is to remove or hide anything that reminds them of political parties opposed to us. As they say, absence makes the heart grow amnesic! So, for the next six months, say goodbye to aeroplanes, arrows, bells, bicycles, books, bows, brooms, bulbs, bungalows, corn, chairs, clocks, combs, drums, elephants, flowers, grass, hammers, hand pumps, ink pots, ladders, lady farmers, leaves, lions, lotuses, mangoes, pens, sickles, spades, spectacles, stars, the sun, tractors, and umbrellas.

The News: This is the ground zero of the misinformation campaign. Some so called reporters keep damaging our chances in the election by trying to inform the public. The ‘Modi media’ is quite disrespectful to some of our esteemed leaders. These propagandists show our leaders in a bad light by reporting what they said, verbatim. We will not let them get away with that anymore! So we should get rid of all political news, at least for the next six months. Also, why does the public need to hear about politics anyway? It’s such a complicated business! It probably depresses them, anyway. In my opinion, we should ‘humbly suggest’ to all the news channels they’d be better off by reporting on bollywood shenanigans than making a mountain out of a political molehill.

The Internet: We live in the information age. There is so much information for everyone to process! Something is always blaring at us, demanding our attention. A smorgasbord of things that we absolutely cannot miss! So much to must watch! and do read! that being on the internet can feel like a full time job. Therefore, it is only fair that we limit the number of websites that internet users in India can access. It is just like banning the consumption of illicit drugs or local hooch. It’s doing the people a favour they didn’t ask for! Tough love, etc. As someone suggested in our meeting the other day, printing out the whole internet so we can determine what is or isn’t allowed seems like a good idea. In the interim, we can limit people’s access just to websites that display cricket match scorecards and Sanjay Jha’s Rahul Gandhi slash fiction livejournal.

Remember, we need to convince the people of this country that all these steps have been taken because of legitimate concerns and are not the last gasp of air before the final demise of a craven government.

Jai Hind!

Regards,

[REDACTED]

Welcome to Incredible India!

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

I tried looking out the dusty window to get a look at–what I assumed–was a beautiful scenery, and not just a row of terribly made houses of various proportions. I shifted the weight of the bag to my other leg. There wasn’t any available space for me to put my luggage in the overhead compartment because by the time I reached the train all the empty slots had been occupied by bags belonging to my fellow passengers. Not one to cause any trouble or let such small incidents ruin my adventurous mood, I busied myself with trying to breathe in the atmosphere. It smelt like a communal toilet at an all-male college hostel, but, that is part of the charm of travelling by a train in India.

My mouth watered as I saw the steward distributing trays with packed goodies. The food was here! Finally, some relief for my famished stomach. As he threw the tray at my wobbly, make-shift table with the grace of an orphanage warden from a Charles Dickens novel distributing grub to his most hated wards, I shook my head at this endearing show of familiarity. I took one bite of the unrivalled delicacies placed in front of me and let out a contented sigh. It tasted like it came from home. Specifically, an old people’s home. Because it didn’t have any salt, grain, texture, flavour, or any other qualities that would let us classify it as an item fit for consumption by a living being of any species. As they say, that’s how the cookie crumbles. Or at least I thought that was a cookie?

* * *

Once upon a time, around the early aughts of the current century, the ancients used to share their thoughts with the rest of the world by what a majority of people referred to as ‘a blog.’ Short for weblog, this was quite a popular enterprise for a lot of people: parents wanting to share their experience with other parents, those with a lot of proverbial skeletons in their cupboard looking for an outlet, writers wanting to practice their craft, bar drunks looking for an audience to rant to, people willing to rally against conventional wisdom and those who felt that a certain point of view was being ignored by the mainstream media. The best way to identify a blog run by a person of Indian origin was to look at its title. If it contained either “random” or “confessions” or a Vedic reference, then there was a very high probability of that blog having at least some connection to the subcontinent. 

One of the most frequent occurrences on these blogs (and a meme that is still strangely popular on twitter) was nostalgic posts romanticizing the travel industry in the country. The beautiful sights! The amazing journey! The awkward moment when you realize that you’ve been had!

Travelling to our country is not for those who give up easily. We like to make everything much more difficult to accomplish! Trying to book a train ticket using the Indian Railways website is harder than trying to master bullfighting. The government sites that are supposed to provide information look like their developer hired a time travelling teenager visiting us from the 90’s who is colour blind and has only read the first chapter of ‘The World Wide Web for Dummies’ instruction manual to make them.

Not that privatising everything solves any problem. Most popular destinations now have more food courts than actual visitors. Private resorts think that adding a fancy Urdu word to the end of each menu item raises its value by at least a thousand percent. Try our Singaporean Fried Rice Zafarani, a bowel moment stopping exotic blend of two unique food cultures. Our Chicken Khwabgah has been marinated with flavoured yogurt and slowly roasted over a pit heated by the burning embers of the hopes and dreams that you had for your first born which disappeared the minute you realized that you spent all the money that you had been saving for their college education to pay your bill at our hotel. The mineral water being served with your meal was extracted from the bladder of a unicorn then injected with the weird liquid that turns even those sugar pills homeopathic quacks hand out bitter and then sprinkled with the bacteria living in the hands of your designated server.

Safety isn’t really an issue in our country in that most people don’t have any. Flying with our ‘national airline’ is like playing Russian roulette with five bullets instead of one. Our highways are like storage units for potholes. Most of our public facilities are so unclean that some of them probably still have strains of the smallpox virus embedded in them.

We’re also quite friendly to folks who are not like us. The majority of the people of this country are very accepting of those who are different. That is why they don’t stare and make the visitors feel uncomfortable at all. They don’t even treat them like exotic objects flown in for us to admire or treat with disdain depending on the pigmentation of their skin.

The whole tourism industry seems to be built on fleecing people. From the service providers responsible for transportation, to the officials who deliberately misguide those whom they are supposed to be providing help to, everyone is in on the take. Hey, this person is naive enough to trust us. Let’s stiff them for all they’ve got! In fact, getting fleeced is one of the most essential parts of your experience. Your vacation in India isn’t a success unless you’ve been overcharged, cheated, duped, misled, or taken for a ride at least once.

Now, please excuse me as I try to convince this American billionaire I ran into that he can legally lease the Taj Mahal.

Two Countries, a World and an Agency With an Insatiable Thirst For Your Personal Data

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

In a world, where conflict rules, borders keep on changing, friendships are based on self-interest, there have been two countries whose destinies fate has entwined together. Two countries, who will one day embark on a journey, to once again change the world.

The relationship between the largest and the oldest democracies in the world has been like a rollercoaster, seeing many ups & downs. In the beginning, there was the initial spark, when both of them met at a party where they bonded over their love for multiculturalism as well as large movie making industries and their disdain for British colonialism as well as state sanctioned religion. They went home excited, thinking they were on the brink of a new and exciting chapter in their lives. However, fate had different plans! A misunderstanding ensued and both of them took alternate paths and found themselves on different sides of a majority of issues. Neither of them wanted to act on their feelings now and they buried whatever affection and fondness they had for each other deep inside their heart. And to get back at the one who hurt them the most, they tried to form a relationship with the other’s arch-nemesis. This went on for a few decades.

However, fate intervened and various interconnected events led to both countries finding themselves on the same side once again. Trying to work towards the same goals together made them realize how well they get along with one another. So their anger thawed and they were reminded again of the things they adored about each other. They decided to try to give their relationship another chance.

The next decade was their honeymoon period. Their love for one another seemed to grow every year. And they couldn’t keep their hands off each other! You found them conducting bilateral meetings while attending international conferences. Or sneaking away with their whole entourage during boring UN assembly sessions. They forgave each other for things that they would get mad at other countries for. They supported each other’s international adventures, even when other countries were against them. They never gave the other a hard time for their international follies like invading the wrong country or paying lip-service to democracy while supporting totalitarian regimes.

Yet, they again began to drift apart. Their work took them to different continents and they found themselves on opposite sides once more. They tried to preserve their relationship by deciding not to discuss things that they didn’t agree on whenever they tried having a conversation. However, as it always does, the resentment carried over. Both countries began to build a life that wouldn’t involve the other. Making new friends, holding summits without inviting their so called ‘most important strategic partner,’ trying to re-negotiate treaties that had already been settled, they began to fall back on old patterns of passive aggressiveness. They barely had time to conduct an awkward conversation when they saw each other at breakfast. America spent most of its time in the office and India got used to having dinner alone everyday, after spending days doing nothing but waiting and then falling asleep on the couch, absentmindedly watching some crap on teevee.

However, this relationship received a jolt of life recently when it was revealed that India is one of the top targets of the American surveillance state. “They care! They still care!” as one Indian government official put it, trying to hide his tears of happiness by pretending that he has a small pebble stuck in his eye.

Now before the privacy ayatollahs try to turn this revelation into something it’s not, don’t forget that America isn’t saying that it doesn’t trust India. It does! So much! With its life, even! But it doesn’t trust the other countries. So it’s hacking into our systems and stealing all our important information to keep it safe! It’s not America’s fault that our systems are so easy to get into. America was just trying a million different combinations as a goof and ended up extracting information from every computer in the country, as a gag. We shouldn’t use a password which is so easy to figure out!

Let’s face it. The surveillance state isn’t going anywhere. No political party with a serious shot at coming to power in any country is going to oppose it. Even Canada – Canada! – is getting into the whole ‘keep track of what other people are doing’ game. Finding out that Canada is spying on other countries is like finding out that the cool hippie uncle whom every child in the family idolizes is a paedophile.

So don’t get upset that America wants to know everything we do, everyone we talk to and where we are at any given moment. Some may call it extreme possessiveness, but as hindi movies teach us, isn’t that just the purest form of love? Their actions are driven by fondness! For example, one of the NSA programs that surreptitiously collects all our information is called ‘Boundless Informant.’  You see? Just like the data that they can access, their love for us knows no bounds.

India and America totally complete each other. One of them is a country starved for attention. The other is obsessed with keeping track of everything every person in the world is doing.

That is a match made in romantic comedy heaven.

A Great Day for Indian Shamocracy

A billion people shall wait night and day,
for this child of man to have his say;
for he will be the one to whom they pray,
this child of man who just wants to play.
- A modern day ‘re-boot’ of one of Nostradamus’ predictions 

Many many moons ago, when the sky was dark and the air was suffocating, a man sat looking at the future of the human race in the majestic portal that lived in the small lake near his house. Now, some people say that that old man was just trippin’ and most of his predictions are vague enough that they can be made to fit any event in human history. However, we true believers know in our heart of hearts that he always knew what we did last summer.  

As the great seer predicted, the people of this country spend their days and nights waiting for their favourite man-child to emerge from his man-cave to vocalize his most recent epiphany. India is a computer! Poor people are like spaceships! We’re all living in virtual world while our real bodies are used by our robotic overlords for their own sustenance!

Recently, while part-time Prime Minister and full time employee of Gandhi Inc., Manmohan Singh, was in Washington to meet the self-proclaimed leader of the free world so that they could have an awkward conversation of epic proportions, our childus emeritus decided to steal away the meagre spotlight from his company’s most loyal employee. 

Some members of Team Rahul (Yup, that’s a thing now. Apparently, every moniker these days must be dumbed down to buzzwords so stupid that even teenagers whose only point of reference is a book about vampires can understand them.) had a bright idea! They thought that it would cause no harm if they let their ward appear briefly on teevee to pronounce his opposition to a recent step taken by the government that would benefit members of the political establishment who, let’s just say, were a little creative in their interpretation of what is considered ‘lawful activity.’ Why not let the second most powerful person in the party directly contradict the Prime Minister while he is on an important international tour? That wouldn’t diminish the Prime Minister’s standing in the international community or anything. 

So a choreographed hijack of a press conference was arranged for maximum dramatic effect! It was a perfect setup. From the sycophantic welcome he received from the press club representative, to his pause for gasps and pearl clutching while declaring his opinion, to the metaphorical mic drop and stage exit. Another episode of ‘Two Minute Political Wisdom,’ brought to you by the information age. As easy to make as a packet of noodles!

Now usually the Prime Minister can win a couple of newscycles whenever he returns from a meeting with President Barry America. Just last week, if he’d let one of the bureaucratic adoptees working for him mention, in confidence of course, to an agency reporter that Barry himself walked Singh towards his car, it would have gotten him about three days worth of positive press. Even Arnab Goswami would have been impressed enough to call a large panel of Pakistani generals to his show so he could spend a couple of hours gloating to their face. (Although to be fair it doesn’t take much to impress Arnab Goswami. Just yesterday, Arnab spent five hours watching a goldfish swimming in a glass container full of water. In the end, it turned out to be a piece of toast that Arnab had dropped into the water when he bent down to look inside.) However, thanks to his younger boss, the only time the PM’s name was mentioned at all last week was in conjunction with the words “resignation” and “what a miserable state of existence to be in.” 

In fact, the clamour for Manmohan Singh to resign reached ridiculous levels. Someone who is considered a very serious person with intelligent opinions by most of our news organizations said that the Prime Minister should resign while he is on a bilateral visit! Because that is how you run a country. Just take your toys and go home because the mean kid from down the street questions your ability to authentically replicate the sound a train makes while in motion. In the whole sordid episode, the only person who actually seemed most like an adult human was Manmohan Singh. The man who wouldn’t be able to sell space on a lifeboat to passengers of a sinking ship! He was the designate driver in a car full of irresponsible idiots who couldn’t hold their alcohol! People planning on having kids, do you really want to bring them up in a world in which Manmohan Singh is deemed the sanest person around?

The only silver lining in the whole ordeal was watching the sycophants who had spent the past few days trying to sell the ordinance to the public, turning around and calling it the worst thing to happen to mankind since the bubonic plague. As a connoisseur of hilarity, it was rather entertaining. As a citizen though, it was disconcerting to watch the speed at which the members of our political cults inhabited the opinion of their dear leader and made it their own. As ‘India’s nightingale’ Jayanti Natrajan put it, if the scion takes a view everyone else will obviously fall in line. Obviously! Because in a shamocracy, holding an opinion contrary to the stated position of the object of your worship even though it might be official party policy is like trying to hold two radioactive nuclei in a box made of uranium-238.

If only someone had predicted that this would happen.

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

What’s a nice beer like you doing inside my shampoo?

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

A few days ago, some crazy people in my neighbourhood were celebrating their favourite festival by ‘unintentionally’ waking up everyone else early in the morning. So, to drown out the incessant ass-kissing of an invisible wish-granter in the sky so that I could go back to arguing with people on the internet, I had to switch on the teevee. It was the least worst option and it helped me maintain my tenuous hold on sanity. Suddenly, just as I was about to satisfactorily end a particularly strained exchange of sly-tweets by calling my rhetorical opponent the H-word, a stream of grunts and other cave man noises emanating from the teevee grabbed my attention and I was able to witness the most mesmerizing piece of media that I have ever seen: a commercial for a shampoo made from beer.

Remember when paying small-time conmen a lot of money to pretend to put your name on a single grain of rice was a thing people were into? Watching this advert was like that. Someone boiled down the essence of conventional wisdom about being a man and put it in a single fifty second advert. The ad begins with the model—who is obviously a real man because he has a large moustache—‘getting his neanderthal on’ by  continuously shouting the words ‘man hair’ at the screen, as if that’s a concept which exists in real life. And while he continues to repeat those two words, he does other manly things like hitting a piece of log with an axe, scaring away a large bear by using only his booming voice and arm wrestling. The ad also contains things every ‘dude’ is supposed to love – Beer! Women! Presentations! Men with waxed chests!

Now, this may come as a shock to a lot of you, but I’m not really a ‘spiritual’ person. But the first time I laid eyes on this work of art was the closest I’ve come to believing in the existence of god. This advertisement is the Picasso of prickery. The David Lynch of douchebaggery. The Mozart of misplaced masculinity. Maybe even the Jhumpa Lahiri of jackassery. 

I have no idea why the makers of this wonderful product even need to advertise it. It sells itself. Who doesn’t want to spend all day smelling like they just woke up in their own alcohol induced vomit? And who wouldn’t want to get with that? Isn’t it very woman’s dream to end up with a guy so riddled with insecurity that he needs to add beer to his shampoo to prove something to himself? And let’s face it. Women’s hair is different from men’s hair. Why? Maybe hormones or something. I don’t know! I’m not a bearded lesbian enrolled in gender studies working on a thesis discussing the impact of exploiting a person’s lack of self-belief as a marketing strategy. Blergh!

Look, women have it so easy. As India’s #1 love guru Chetan Bhagat once said, women don’t have to do anything to attract the opposite sex. They come on their own! (Also, if you’re taking dating advice from Chetan Bhagat, then you’re probably going to spend the rest of your life coming on your own.) It’s the men that have to do all the hard work. Like a dancing peacock, a man whose hair smells like beer is telling the female members of his species that he’s ready to mate. And as most of the adverts on teevee tell us, the only reason men do things is because they want to get laid. From deciding which deodorant to mask their body odour with to offering a ride to a senior citizen in distress, the motivation behind every action is the possibility of sexual intercourse. Any other reason will force the other members of the ‘Real Mens’ Club’ to throw them out and confiscate their man card.

My favourite part of the advertisement is when the protagonist warns prospective consumers to not drink the shampoo just because it is shaped like a beer bottle. Is that such a big problem? Of course, these days’ shampoos have less chemical content than our actual food, but is there really a huge outbreak of people falling sick after drinking their shampoo? You see, drinking beer shampoo is hazardous to one’s health because it is basically a tasteless mishmash of hops, water and surly carbohydrates. It shouldn’t go anywhere near your mouth, no matter how much its manufacturing process also describes how regular beer is made.

In two thousand years, when our future generations finally recover from nuclear destruction and are able to find their way back to civilization, they will look at this ad and hold it as an example of how the ancients were really crazy, just like we look at the historical porn at Khajuraho and discover that the people that came before us were really into some kinky stuff. Who knew the human body could even bend that way? I know what you’re going to say: It’s not porn! It’s art! Look, I don’t make the rules here. As per the guardians of Indian culture, it’s not art if it involves any sort of nudity. Wait, does that mean that the people who started Indian culture were against Indian culture?

That makes my head hurt.

If only there were a beverage I could consume that would make me temporarily forget my confusion.

UPA Ministers Say The Darnest Things (Part 3)

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

(Click Here for Part 1 & Click Here for Part 2)

We have sadly come to the end of our trilogy about the esteemed leaders running our country. Granted, they might be running it into the ground, but at least we can laugh at them while we drown our sorrows in alcohol and gallows humour. In this edition we also give an honorary shoutout to two former members of the cabinet who we will always remember with a smile on our faces, disgust in our hearts and a solitary tear in our eye.

Our seventh contestant is defence minister and the inspiration behind the Mr. Magoo cartoon character, AK Antony. Possessing the personality of a tetanus injection, Antony is proof that being clueless is considered a virtue in this country. His main qualification for one of the top four jobs in the union cabinet was that he is too stupid to be corrupt. He is so out of his depth in the defence ministry, even Manmohan Singh is able to bully him. Antony also has to visit the hospital very often because he keeps getting his foot embedded in his mouth and has to get it surgically removed. He once floated a 26/11 conspiracy theory that even an anonymous internet commentator would be ashamed to propagate. He continues to deny that any incursions take place on the India-China border even though Chinese soldiers regularly cross over into our side to satisfy their insatiable thirst for Chicken Manchurian while taking pictures of each other using the smartphones assembled in a factory by their own children. Yet, Antony’s employers keep him where he is, because honesty!

Our final contestant is Minister of State for Human Resource Development and human plate of scones, Shashi Tharoor. For the first few years after his election, he appeared to be out of place among his contemporaries in Parliament. He seemed like he would have been more comfortable arguing with Bertie Wooster about the ownership status of a cow creamer rather than explain the vagaries of international law to Sharad Yadav. Back when he was Minister for External Affairs, he was often found bringing a chippy attitude to his job. I say old chap, what’s all this rummy business with that old codger they call the Dalai Lama? He spent most of his first year clarifying and apologizing for some gaffe or the other. Being made a constant target fortified his credentials as a bonafide middle class icon. He became a real life hero. One of us, as they like to say. He could speak English with an indeterminate accent! He went to all the right schools! He was the type of politician who wouldn’t get his hands dirty by committing petty crimes! He was being bullied into silence by his own jealous colleagues and their  surrogates in the media because he dared to speak the truth on twitter! He liked to pose for photographs which showed him thoughtfully staring into the future, the true mark of an intellectual.

So when it was revealed that the only thing Shashi Tharoor cared about was Shashi Tharoor and he had to resign, people were shocked. How could he betray us? If you can’t trust people who have spent their whole life believing that the world revolves around them, then whom can you trust? However, a few months later a newer, shinier, hungrier, middle class hope came along and everybody forgot about the former UN under-secretary general. So, last year, Tharoor was rehabilitated into the council of ministers, without any fanfare. He’s now become a fierce partisan warrior, even using his impressive articulation skills to tweet political arguments using a silly hashtag invented by a person with a negative IQ.

Our first honorary shoutout goes to former Home Minister and safari suit aficionado, Shivraj Patil. His greatest (and probably only) achievement was turning incompetence into high art. In fact, Shivraj Patil’s stint in government was such a catastrophe, Shivraj Patil promised that the perpetrators of this horrible incident will be caught and brought to justice. And then he wet his pants. These days, Patil is cooling his heels at the expensive senior citizen home known as the Punjab Governor’s mansion and is currently working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, 27 Dresses: The Shivraj Patil Story.

Let’s not forget about former Minister of Petroleum and Burra Sahib extraordinaire, Mani Shankar Aiyer. He left the union cabinet to spend more time being mean and distant to every guest on every NDTV show. But nothing encapsulates his personality like an article he wrote last year for Outlook magazine. In it, he whined about not being served champagne in first class while he was travelling in an American airline. He was also angry at being addressed by his name by people he thought were beneath him. His exact words were “Democracy in America apparently means the right of the lower orders to be rude to their social superiors.”

HOW DARE THEY ADDRESS HIM BY HIS FIRST NAME? HE HAS MORE MONEY THAN THEM FOR PETE’S SAKE! He gets invited to the best parties! He appears on teevee! Why didn’t they prostate in front of him? They treated him like a . . . . normal! Preposterous! It was very brave of Mr Aiyar to not have reported this incident to the American state department. As everybody knows, the state department’s only purpose of existence is to make sure all Indian VIPs visiting America are treated with the respect they deserve. Also, for future reference, the only acceptable salutations are: A) SIR DR MANI SHANKAR AIYAR SIR, B) HIS EXCELLENCY MANI SHANKAR AIYAR THE EIGHTH and C) MANI HONEY. Mani remembers a time when social superiors were not forced to mix with the rest. Everybody knew their place in the world. The rich would be treated with the importance they deserved and the rest would be . . . . well, who cares about the rest? That was a golden age! When sitting in premier class meant something. If you asked for champagne, you would get champagne. If you asked for caviar, by jove, you would get caviar. And now? First class just means that you have more leg space than those unfortunate masses forced to travel in economy.

So, who do you think is the winning contestant? Did we leave anyone out? Send your answers to wearereallyscrewed@canabillionpeopleimmigratetocanada.com.

UPA Ministers Say The Darndest Things (Part 2)

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

(Click Here for Part 1)

As we were discussing last week, the members of our federal council of ministers are a barrel of laughs. It’s not that they aim to be such a rich source of hilarity. It’s the only positive outcome of their actions! In fact, the biggest threat to the UPA isn’t any political opponent; it’s dementia and osteoporosis. So let’s go back to reminding ourselves of their greatest hits:

Our fourth contestant is none other than our Law Minister and a man who hasn’t met a sentence on the internet that he didn’t want to censor, Kapil Sibal. Mr Sibal is man of many talents. He showed us his epic skills as a magician when, as the then Telecom minister, he made the notional loss on the allotment of spectrum disappear. It was all a misunderstanding, he declared. A simple mathematical error. All you had to do was carry the one, subtract a trillion and voila, everything would make sense again. What many people don’t know about Mr Sibal is that he is also a writer of science fiction! In fact, last year, he read out an extract out of one of his fantastical stories on the floor of the Rajya Sabha. In his story, he imagined an India which is more liberal than Europe and America. An India in which the government doesn’t act like a nanny and tells its citizens what they cannot watch, read or think. An India in which the government doesn’t spend a significant amount of its resources clumsily trying to stifle dissent. If only Mr Sibal was in a position to make this possible! Anyway, let’s not forget that Mr. Sibal is also an amateur poet. In fact, his poetry is so moving, it inspired us to write a small ditty of our own about this master of many trades:

                                             There was once an old minister,
                                      Whose every intention was sinister,
                                                               His need to censor,
                                          Made his eyebrows grow denser,
And he liked to silence protestors using a tear gas canister.

Our next contestant is Home Minister and the first person ever to ask for a red pen of any colour, Sushil Kumar Shinde. Until recently, Shinde was so unknown outside his home state, even his wife thought he was Vilasrao Deshmukh. Shinde took a big dive into public consciousness last year when under his watch, the northern grid failed and cut power from half of the country for almost three days. A more self-aware person would’ve been humbled and might have voluntarily decided to lower his profile for a few months. But this is the UPA council of ministers. There is no rock bottom here! So, naturally, Shinde called a press conference to announce that he would rate his stint as power minister as ‘excellent.’ And as a reward for his belligerence in the face of reality, he was promoted to the Ministry of Home, because, what could go wrong? Turns out, a lot! But Shinde faced every obstacle with the humility of an IIM graduate who just got hired by Goldman Sachs and the grace of an arctic penguin participating in a hurdle race. Shinde’s stint in the home ministry has been so disastrous, his name is now a verb. For eg: “The look of relief on her face when I dropped her off at her house made me realize that I had totally Shinde’d our date.”

Now, there are men who are born to a life of mediocrity. Men who are born to work, eat and wither away. Men who spend their whole lives without being noticed at all. Men who fall by the wayside, never to be heard from again. Then there are those men who are born into greatness. Men who have destinies to fulfil. Men who by the sheer force of their willpower end up changing the world. Men who are the true heroes of our time. Our sixth contestant – the Minister of Rural Development and ‘cousin Itt’ from the Addams family – Jairam Ramesh, is one such hero. Whenever he has been called upon to shower the less knowledgeable with his golden stream of wisdom, he has always delivered. In fact, he has done that even when he hasn’t been called upon to offer his opinion. Hair Force One – as his friends fondly call him – is kind like that. You know what they say – If opinions are like assholes, then Jairam Ramesh has one for every occasion! No matter what the problem, Jairam Ramesh is always on it! Like when he first denied the existence of global warming and then suggested solving it by getting people to stop eating beef. That’s classic Jairam Ramesh! See, now you don’t have to do anything concrete like closing factories or cutting down on carbon emissions. Doesn’t matter that a vegetarian asking other people to not eat beef is like an Eskimo asking people living in tropical climates to not use air conditioners. Once, Jairam even dared to take on a crazy, cultish breed of human beings who believe that a certain bespectacled boy wizard would be their saviour. No, not the Congress party, silly! He took on fans of Harry Potter. He blamed them for the decreasing population of owls, despite their being no actual evidence to support his claim. Look, he doesn’t really need your “comprehensive” research to know things. If he thinks something is true, then it is. This is what separates him from the less knowledgeable. That, and the dense rainforest on his head.

(. . . To be continued)