The Anatomy of a Moment

(An abridged version of this article first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

We never heard the door open. Swati and I had been going at it for more than two hours. We were having so much fun that we did not see her Mother entering the room. Swati’s mother shrieked when she saw what we were up to. She told us to stop and we did as we were told. She slapped her daughter and threw me out of her house. As I walked home, I wondered what we had done wrong. After all, we were only doing what kids our age have done for centuries. It came so naturally to us! And if we had done something wrong, why was Swati the only person to be punished, when both of us were consensual partners to the alleged crime?  Of course, when you’re eight, you don’t realize that gender politics enables people to find something sinister in even a silly game of ‘house.’  (Hey, it was the 80’s! Time passed really slow back then. It was either this or watching bored doordarshan anchors give farming advice).

Whenever I hear bigots like NCW chairperson Mamta Sharma blame the victims in the aftermath of horrific incidents, I am filled with the same thought that I had on that lonely walk home almost three decades ago: But the victims did nothing wrong!  According to ‘Logic for Assholes 101,’ the victim of the assault must have done something to bring this upon herself. She must have dressed provocatively! Remember ladies, If you don’t cover yourself properly then you’re just tempting people to invade your space and touch you inappropriately. If you go in front of a man dressed in a skirt, do you expect him not to rape you? Ha! Men who rape are fine upstanding members of their community who are blinded by a woman in a skirt to such an extent that they lose control of their mental faculties and automatically start raping anything they can get their hands on!

Maybe it’s the pubs! These dens of depravity which dare to serve decadent western values along with each portion of chicken wings. It is because of them that girls today know more about different types of Tequila than about different ways to cook eggplant. Only a person who hasn’t ever been to a pub or nightclub would say that. They base their opinion on what they see in the media. When the leading female protagonist of a movie or a teevee show goes to a club, something bad always happens. Some guy will spot her, drug her and then poke her with his penis.  And then everyone around her will throw a hissy fit and blame her for everything. She will then proceed to get pregnant (what are the odds!) and become the shame of her family until the valiant male protagonist - who was silently brooding in the corner until now - will offer to marry her. Or she will find herself waking up naked next to a black guy whilst having no recollection of the events of the previous night. (In a Hindi movie, that’s when you know a woman has gone too far. When she intercourses a black drug dealer. This way, we’re able to simultaneously dehumanize two sets of people: women and drug dealers). The moral of story is that going to any place which has strangers and alcohol will ultimately lead to rape.

Maybe we’re just old-fashioned! We prefer our women to realize they are second class citizens and were sent to this earth to cook, clean and put out whenever their husband wants to fall asleep on top of them. It’s our culture! No! You’re not old fashioned; you’re a bigot. Old-fashioned people collect vinyl records or still subscribe to the yellow pages. Bigots use “blindly aping western values” as a code for saying “Put down that drink, throw away that cigarette, and head back home, you filthy whore!”

We rarely assign responsibility where it really lies: on the men who commit such crimes or who contribute to turning any place into a toxic environment unsafe for women. Everything is dismissed with a simple sweep of boys will be boys! You can be as inconsiderate as you want to other human beings as long as you can pee standing up! Hey, ladies, if God wanted you to have freedom and the ability to make decisions affecting your own life, then he would have given you a useful, nifty appendage - instead of whatever gross ladyparts you currently possess - which most of the time would function as your primary brain.

A couple of years ago, a best-selling author who claims to be a ‘youth icon’ was handing out dating advice to young men who were having trouble in the search for a companion. However, he did not extend this privilege to women because according to him, all a woman has to do is say make herself available for dating purposes and then men will flock to her like worker bees flock to their Queen. Because women can’t be be horny, needy, ugly, geeky, emotionally unavailable, unfit for human companionship. They’re simple creatures who must be spoken about in patronizing terms! According to this douchebag, the best way to build a permanent residence in a women’s heart is to irritate her. Pull her ponytails and she will literally marry you on the spot!  If you have feelings for her, irritate her. If you really like her, quit your job and follow her around wherever she goes. If she calls the police, she probably likes you back and wants you to follow her even more. Do not stop, continue to follow her around and this time, make obscene gestures. And if you really, really love her, just go ahead and punch her in her face. Nothing says "I love you long time" like a broken frikin' jaw!

Once, in violation of the Geneva convention against torture, I was made to witness a Hindi teevee show. During a particular harrowing scene, a woman’s face was being blackened by a group of other, larger, angry women. Apparently, her crime was “stealing” a married woman’s husband. Because that’s always the woman’s fault! The men are just like footballs who can be kicked around by various women. They don’t want to have an affair! In fact, they’re being forced to have sex against their will by the hot lady on whom they conveniently always had a crush!

Perhaps that is the greatest trick the patriarchy ever pulled. Convincing successive generations of women to be it’s enforcers.

Hundred Percent or Bust!

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Usually in July, the monsoons help colleges all over the country piss on the hopes and dreams of recent high school graduates. This year, since the monsoons are delayed thanks to a letter written by Subramanian Swamy asking the Himalayan Mountains to block any clouds of foreign origin, the colleges had to perform this task alone. And, as always, the colleges performed the task with enough cruelty to pass this test with flying colours, unlike the students whose applications they rejected.

Every year as we hear about cut-off percentages hovering between the 99 to 100 percentile zones, we try to have a trite national debate over the state of education in the country. Even though we’ve all contributed to the boiling down of the essence of a thirteen year education into a double digit percentage, we somehow seem to be surprised to see our handiwork in action. Look what people who’re not us have done! How did this happen? All we did was pressurize our children to compete with others like an element in a Darwinian equation fighting for survival. What do you mean asking them to get a hundred percent or die trying is not good parenting?  

We teach children that their life’s mission should be to lead a zombie-like existence wherein the only thing they should dedicate their energy to is to getting a perfect score in their exams. Don’t try to be creative! Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t look for things outside the syllabus. Don’t read chapters your teachers aren’t comfortable teaching you. You don’t have to understand it; you just have to learn it!

We make our children define their self-worth by their marks. People who get near perfect or perfect scores are treated like royalty by parents and teachers. If you get good marks life will be so good that even the air you breathe will not have been sullied by the inferior nostrils of someone who has never even been in any honour roll! No need to talk to your friends, they only want to distract you from your goal!

People are obsessed with getting perfect or near-perfect scores because these are important for students to get into a ‘prestigious college.’ Even though the most important lessons in college are learnt outside the classroom, which college you go to does have an impact on your future. For example, it helps determine the level of douchiness you will exhibit for the rest of your life.

While our prestigious institutions are busy churning out alumni who spend the rest of their lives producing large number of badly written campus novels, there is a whole industry built around trying to exploit the people who want to get into them. From the neighbourhood tuition centres who charge an exorbitant amount of money to ‘guarantee’ admission into one of these institutions; to touts who promise to get you in if you reward them with a cut of the ‘donation’ you plan to give to your favourite educational institution.

We need good colleges for everyone. Even for those whose don’t get ‘good’ marks in high school. We cannot leave their education to pontytail-ed conmen – whose only purpose of existence is to raise their own profile while they fleece large swaths of students who join their diploma shop – to fill the gap.  Or to fake foreign universities with prestigious sounding names which only exist on websites filled with stock photos. (I’m looking at you, Belford 'University.)

There should be more actual options for people who want to pursue things that interest them (like literature or alcohol). Like me in college, they might just scrape by the passing mark by pulling an all-nighter, but, hey, all’s well that ends well! 

Come to think of it, maybe I should open my own college and let people study whatever they want.

Will you sign up if I offer free laptops and a diploma from a fancy college in England?

If you don’t read this article, I’m going to punch you in the face

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As students submit applications to institutions in which they will spend the next few years learning about things which will leave them woefully unprepared for adult life (or as it is otherwise known as, ‘college’), our whole offense economy is gathering itself to spend most of next month frothing in the mouth about ragging. Yes, ragging. The cutesy term we give to the event in which college seniors compensate for their imagined masculinity by trying to humiliate their newly-arrived juniors.

When it started, many decades ago, it was probably really about breaking the ice and getting to know each other. A privilege the seniors assumed they had over their juniors, who in turn could assume the same privilege when they became seniors. It degenerated to such an extent that some juniors started killing themselves because of the humiliation they suffered. That is because we’re Indian, when we get a privilege, we have to overuse it. Look, free drinks, let’s drink so much that we lose all our senses and hit on the hosts’ wife. So, the sign outside the restaurant said ‘All you can eat.’  Those idiots may think of it as a marketing slogan, we think of it as a challenge.

The mêlée of people at the receiving end of the objections may also be confused because we are a culture which seems to be at home with bullying. People have objections to what other people are doing all the time and make it their life’s work to make them comply. Anybody who gets an opportunity to bully other people in this country is going to take it. We consider being able to forcibly exert control over people a virtue. We’re okay with someone being a bully as long as they can explain it with warped logic. I just spotted a woman in a pub. Why is she here and not at home learning 18 different ways to make brinjals from her mother? I don’t see her father or brother around her! Let us sexually harass her and put some shame into her. Along with our penises, of course!

We always ‘feel free’ to tell other people how to live their life. Fat people should be thin! Divorced people should be married! Poor people should be rich! Children should never be tired! Gay people should just be straight! Brown people should be white! And white people, ZOMG! CAN I KISS THE GROUND YOU”RE CURRENTLY WALKING ON? And we accept this like its holy gospel! We even teach our children from the day that they are born. Being yourself is never good enough. You need to be better. Even if you are terribly unhappy, you are not supposed to do anything. Just stay there and pray! Show the other cheek! When that turns red from pain too, take off your pants and show your other two cheeks. No, don’t try to fight back. Gandhi would not have approved.

Old people can impose their own agenda on the young because it is our culture. Listen to your elders, even if they are assholes! Police officers who want to be the big-man-on-campus will raid a party full of teenagers and call it a rave. Look how successfully I am protecting your city by arresting a bunch of harmless kids drinking beer! Members of one community will bully members of another community just because they can. Making other people bend to your wishes is a value we hold very dear in this country. It doesn’t matter whether the person is different from us because of his religion, caste or the pastry shop he frequents. As long as he is not ‘one of our own,’ he or she is fair game. In fact, instead of the ‘Ashok Chakra,’ our national emblem should be a portrait of a guy going into a restaurant while the text in the thought bubble above him says “I’ll have what he is having. No, really. Take it away from him and give it to me. Thanks in advance.”

We don’t mind cutting off other people while on the road. Or skipping queues. The right to skip huge queues is probably enshrined in the constitution, though only for those who can afford it. Doctors can bully patients because, they studied for ten years to get here, and they don’t have time to be nice to you. Companies can bully their customers, because what are you going to do? Fire us? Ha! They are so many of you it doesn’t matter if we lose a few. Event organizers make things as difficult as they can for all the fans who managed to buy those overpriced tickets. Just because we promise something, doesn’t mean we have to fulfil it. If you want a good concert experience, go to a different country where even though they will look at you like you’re going to blow them up, they will still treat you better than your own countrymen. And we assuage ourselves, that it is okay to do this! If we don’t be ruthless with other people, they will be ruthless with us.

Even a lot of our sources of entertainment subliminally enforce this message. Most of our popular television reality shows are about people submitting themselves to being harassed and mentally tortured just for a chance at their fifteen minutes of fame. Even though fame is not kind to the people who are unfortunate enough to marinate in it, but everybody wants to be famous. So that they can too be celebrated for being mean to other people.

Now please excuse me while I go and fire the household help for daring to establish eye contact.

People like us are people too

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Parents all over the country sighed in relief this week when famous never-nudes at the I&B ministry issued a fatwa against broadcasting a national award winning movie because it was too ‘bold & mature’ (bureaucratic euphemism for ‘portrays sexual intercourse in terms other than the abhorrent sin it is’) for mainstream audiences. This was strange because the main message of the yanked movie was that if you sex too many people, everyone will shun you and you will end up killing yourself. This is also the kind of message most adults want to send to their children. Because if there is one thing most people in this country loathe, it’s talking about things with their children like a normal person. What should be a short, breezy conversation about the facts of life turns into an awkward conversation of epic proportions. Why talk and smooth things out to make life better for everyone involved when you can emotionally blackmail your children into suppressing what comes naturally to them?

The thing is, we need to protect our children from real life because we don’t want them to get strange ideas. This is a slippery slope. If you let them make decisions based on their own judgement, they will want to try things for themselves. Its better to pretend that things don’t exist rather than risk them doing stuff you don’t approve of. That is why nobody on those foreign shows on television eats beef and Brokeback Mountain was a documentary about drilling for minerals. Our national motto should be “Nothing to see here, move along.” Don’t you know that reality is against Indian culture?

Speaking of being alien to reality, rejected ‘Bengal Idol’ contestant and ongoing train-wreck Mamta Banerjee was busy trying to impress her fraternity members at the ‘South Asian Dictators Club’ while her government continued its slow troddle towards La La Land. This week, Bengal’s ‘eternal Chief Minister’ issued a diktat warning people against fraternizing with the CPM. Members of her party and their supporters & family members are not supposed to be friends with, be married to or even be seen in the vicinity of any known communists. The last time someone issued a warning like this, Germany was still two separate countries. Of course, since she lives in a padded room where no contrary thoughts are allowed to enter, a lot of the criticism online was directed towards her Man Friday, Derek O’Brien.

Everyone was surprised how this holy quizmaster could let them down by not speaking out against his paranoid boss. Maybe it’s an effect of putting my brain through various experiments which involved ‘medical marijuana’ (What? It was a sacrifice! For science!), I don’t remember O’Brien ever being an outspoken proponent of free speech. Do you think he hosted that quiz show because he cared about children knowing silly trivia?  

Did we assume that he would be a free speech ayatollah because he is one of the presumed future saviours of Indian democracy, the saintly ‘people like us.’ Its accepted gospel that unlike those poor, deprived souls from villages and other have-not communities who plunder the government’s treasury like a regular Mahmud Ghazni, people like us will stand up for what’s right! They would rather quit their posts than be a party to something utterly despicable. Wouldn’t we do that too, if we were in the same position? Even though in our own lives we do everything we don’t think other people should do. We lie because that’s a necessity of modern life. We bribe because that’s the cost of living in India. We break laws which don’t suit us because, let’s face it, most of them are ridiculous. We laugh at the horrible (and borderline racist) jokes our bosses make because we want to get ahead and playing the game is one way to do that. In this country, you give someone even the tiniest bit of power and they’ll show you who is boss. Everyone is the king of their castle, even if their castle is a broken down shack right next to garbage dump. And yet! We are shocked and appalled when our politicians exhibit the same behaviour.

Yes, like us, they are a shitty excuse for a human too. 

Just don’t tell my future children I said that. 

The secretly horny shall inherit the earth

(This post first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As I write this, the whole country has been gripped by fear and confusion. That is because on a day which shall live on in infamy, a few legislators from the Karnataka Assembly were caught watching pornographic videos while attending an assembly session. The nation watched in horror as the moral fabric of its society crumpled. There was chaos and pandemonium everywhere. People took to the streets and started making out with random strangers. It was like 950 A.D. all over again as everyone seemed to be participating in activities depicted in certain popular monuments in Khujrao. Even severely religious people were spotted wearing t-shirts which urged other people to make love not war. Television channels were holding panel discussion on the various alternatives to the missionary position. Parents were looking at their young children nervously, expecting to be deluged by a torrent of awkward questions at any moment. Grandparents were alternating between taking digestive tablets and pining for the good old days when something like this would not have happened. And the children. Oh, the children. Nobody thought of the children! We made them lose their innocence at such a young age, as if they were the offspring of a character portrayed by Nirupa Roy in a 1980s hindi movie.

Alright, none of this actually happened, but if you had turned on television or logged on to twitter, this is what appeared to be going on. People seemed to have overdosed on puritanism. It was as if all of us were back on a school playground and somebody said a word they are not allowed to say. There was insidious giggling followed by a constant feeling of guilt. Scorn was being heaped on the erroneous politicians from all corners of the spectrum. They're indecent! They’re perverts! They’ve ruined the sanctity of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly!

Let this be a lesson for all our politicians. You can lie. You can cheat. You can sell your vote to the highest bidder. You can tell women that dressing in anything less than a burkha is an invitation to be raped. But watching porn? You crossed a line there, buddy! The people of this country will forgive anything as long as you don’t force them to confront their twisted feelings about sex.

Also, it’s shocking that someone from a party whose main platform is largely dedicated to preventing people from having sex is a pervert. How can this happen? When that fool Newton said that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, he was still feeling the effects of that apple falling on his head. Sex is only good when you’re having it to produce a male heir. Otherwise, how dare you indulge yourself? If god really wanted you to have sex, he would have made it so simple that even a moron would know what goes where.

Not that the BJP is alone in espousing such sentiment. In this country, if there is one thing we love more than vegetarian food, its repressing our feelings. Our motto is, if you have an itch, wait for a few years, get a job with a six figure salary, take your parents’ permission, invite a thousand people to dinner to celebrate the occasion, and then scratch it. We brainwash our children into thinking that sex is such a dirty and disgusting act that you only do it with someone you truly love.

It’s been scientifically established that sexual repression retards human growth. If you turn it into a forbidden fruit, people will want to take a bite. That is why the subtext of almost every advertisement targeted at men is buying our product will help you get laid! That is why the juvenile euphemisms of a Rohit Shetty movie are so popular. That is why a number of people think Charlie Sheen–a misogynist, drug addicted shell of a human being, who has had more near-death experiences than a Russian politician opposed to Vladimir Putin–is worth emulating. So what if he has a miserable existence? He must get laid almost every day! Clearly this strategy of lets-avoid-talking-about-sex-like-its-the-bubonic-plague is not working. We need a Plan B, maybe?

Now please excuse me while I go take a dip in the Ganges to cleanse myself of all these obscene thoughts.

An open letter to the Indian government to stop hating on Indian Culture

[Warning: Some links are probably NSFW. Also, if you really believe in the whole 'Indian culture' thing really seriously, some things, ummmmm, might not sit well with you. So I suggest you go to the nearest place of worship instead. Or haggle some random news anchor on twitter.]

Dear Indian Government,

Before you read any further, let me first ask you to hand this letter to an adult. No, not just anyone whose age is more than 18, but someone who can actually think like an adult. Possibly someone who doesn't giggle when they see human reproductive parts or cover their mouth with both hands when they say a 'bad word' like peepee.

I'm waiting.

Okay, fine. Since there is no one in your 'august organisation' who actually fits that description, I'd have to make do with whoever is actually reading this letter.

So, hey, what is up? (That is how we begin letters in 2010. None of the 'Dear ____' crap they taught you in school in the 1880s.)

I heard recently that you banned FTV. Again.

What is your beef exactly?

That they showed boobs?

Now, let me ask you for a minute, WHY ARE YOU AGAINST INDIAN CULTURE?

You see, before all the prudes invaded us and plundered us like they do to Paris Hilton, we were a country of non-prudes. In fact, all the best art-movie sex was being had in India, while those boring Europeans had only the 'missionary position' to work with. Although, to be fair, if you need to take off thousands of layers of clothes before you have sex, you're probably too tired to try anything but the missionary position anyway.

Look, we invented good sex in India. We're the land of the Kama Sutra (not the lame movie you also kind of banned. But the actual ancient text, which is much more famous than the Maharamamayana or whatever).

Did you know that when they accidentally invented the zero, they were actually trying to explain to people how a circle jerk works? I bet you didn't. That's what happens when you get celibate right-wing idiots to re-write your history.

Also, did you know that we have ancient caves in India which show actual ancient people having sex? Don't look now or you'll get a heart attack, but some of the ancient people even did it doggie style!

I know! It's a hard thing to digest.

You can stop crying now.

In ancient times, being a nymph was considered a good thing. They were worshipped, even! Now, people like you consider a girl who even talks to a boy a whore, and beat her/get her married to the nearest rich-old man!

And stuff they did in public back then would actually get you arrested nowdays! Or worse, get some dipshit jackass prudes who have nothing better to do except trying to stop people from having sex to file a PIL against you!

They didn't even need to have 'wardrobe malfunctions' during kama-sutric times. They believed that, if you have, not just flaunt it, but carve it on a fucking stone!

Also, most scientific and empirical evidence points to the fact that if kids take out their "pubertal frustration" (I'm using euphemisms, so as to speak your language, since you're scared shitless of saying the words 'sexual intercourse' or 'masturbate'.) during puberty, they don't turn into Shiny Ahuja. Do you really want to be responsible for a nation of Shiny Ahujas?

So, dear government, let the nice FTV ladyee show her wombachumbas.

Because, dude, she is doing more for public welfare than you ever will.

Therefore, on behalf of all the remaining adults in the country, and in the interest of public welfare and maid safety, I implore you to stop hating on Indian culture.

KThanksBai

Welcome to the offense economy

Are you one of them lazy fucks who wants to get famous but don't want to do the hard work like suck up to judges in a reality show? Do you want to be the self-appointed & self-righteous spokesperson for millions of other people who don't want you to speak on their behalf? Are you mentally unstable and have family and/or intimacy issues? Have you never spoken to someone outside your immediate family? Do you like Jackie Shroff movies?

Then do we have an offer for you!

Welcome to the offense economy, where everything is made up and the issues don't matter!

Just like everything else, to succeed in the offense economy, you need (a) A determination to succeed despite all the odds (b) Psychopathic tendencies (c) An ability to say the most vile things, without any remorse whatsoever.

If you got that, then we have the tools to help you achieve your goal!

Now, let's start with the basics. Here is an outline of how the offense economy works:

You do something stupid --> You get a large amount of time on teevee --> The people who own the teevee channels make money --> They keep talking about you --> You get undue influence    --> You keep doing more stupid things --> They keep talking about you --> They make more money --> You get more undue influence --> *∞

Confused? Need more explanation?

Let us break it down for you.

Now, understand and memorize (where applicable) all the steps involved in achieving our goal:

1. Choose something to be angry about. It could be anything. A book, a TV show, a movie, a group on Orkut, a few dozen people having fun in a bar, anything that gets your goat (or doesn't. You don't have to be actually offended, you just have to pretend that you are. Everyone else will play along).

2. Make sure it's a slow news day (which is almost everyday, except the days India has a cricket match or Shah Rukh Khan has a movie out. Don't even try to go against Shah Rukh Khan, because no one can ever beat him at famewhoring!).

3. After you've selected your target, gather a few dozen out of work people like you, and start protesting by breaking/burning stuff up. For eg: If it's a bookshop, attack the shop and tear some books. If it's a movie you don't like, attack the theatre. If it's a television show you are fake-outraged by, go attack their local office etc.

4. Before you attack your target, make sure that you alert a few news channels about the
"unorganised" expression of "outrage". This is the most important step. Don't worry about the news channels ignoring you. That will never happen, no matter how silly your protest.

5. After the footage of you and your fellow "protestors", has been canned, give out your phone number and go home and prepare the rant that you will be giving to the tv "news" shows later.

6. Make sure your rant is as vile and as threatening as possible. Pepper your speech with liberal (ha!) doses of "We will not let _____ hurt the sentiments of our _______ community" and "This _____ is against our _____ culture". That is very important, because once you say that, no government will touch you because any government in India literally shits bricks at the thought of protecting free speech. Yes, they are pussies in that department. They only pick on easy, elitist targets!

7. Millions of outraged Indians will protest your actions through twitter & facebook status messages. Hey, you might even trend on twitter (due to which many thousands of proud Indians will point out how instead of Justin Beiber, an Indian topic is trending ZOMG!). Someone might even write a blog post which while masquerading as satire, will basically be a rant having a huge undercurrent of cynicism! But you probably don't even know what these things are, so why bother learning about them?

Now, remember that each event you stage will get you about a week or two of coverage. Three if you're lucky.

The following is a timeline of the events:

Week 1

This week will consist of various one-on-one interviews. You can pick and choose your appearances. Make sure that you choose more hindi/local language channels because they would be more sympathetic to your cause. English channels should only be used when you want to scare people further. The hosts of these programs will help you immensely because they have perfected the art of feeding lines to their interview subject while simultaneously acting outraged. It's modern art, really. Remember, do not, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, try to sound reasonable. That will destroy your buzz before you can say Halla Bol!

Week 2

After week 1, your role is over. Week 2 will revolve around how free speech in India is dead, thanks to people like you. Do not appear on ANY panel discussion during this time. Instead, the news channels will schedule other people with extreme points of view to argue against/on your behalf. Sit back on your sofa, grab a box of popcorn and enjoy the ride. Throughout the week, prime time news will being focusing on you and your actions. Barkha Dutt will call a few guests and ask them the same question in different words, Arnab Goswami and Suhel Seth will spend the whole time interrupting each other, Rajdeep & Sagarika will continue to shout at the camera and whatishisname at Headlines Today will continue to look like someone permanently attached his eyebrows to the top of his forehead so that he could continue to have an always-on exasperated expression.

Week 3

If you've managed to keep yourself in the news for this long based on a single incident, then well done! You must have done something really, really vile! If you didn't, well, next time try harder? Now, since most of the mileage that they could gather from your story has been gathered, the coverage during week 3 will be in the form of we-the-people type weekend shows. Here, a panel discussion will take place along with an audience. Most of the same points that have been repeated for the past two weeks, will get a final airing. However, before the end of the show, an audience member will say something emotional & patriotic (like "Be an Indian first" etc.) which will be useless and bullshit-y, but will make everyone in the audience applaud like crazy. The anchor of the show will then close the show on a somber but surprisingly happy note. And then everyone will go back home, until they are called on to do the same thing again.

There. CONGRATULATIONS! You're now a bonafide famewhore. A celebrity.

Your name will live on in infamy.

At least until the next guy who does the same thing!

Rajya Sabha MPs don't want the kids to learn how to use their unmentionables

Sometime this week, there was a huge uproar in the Rajya Sabha over the contents of a reality show. A lot of MPs got up and spoke out against how due to some godforsaken show on teevee, all the kids will run out of their classrooms straight into some seedy motels and start having unprotected sex after which they would have a pill to ensure that they don't get pregnant. After they have satisfied their carnal needs, they will overdose on combiflam and kill themselves. What's worse, they would be doing this while still wearing their school uniforms. And somehow, we would lose our 5,00,00,000,000 year old culture.

Right. I don't see the connection either. But that's what some Rajya Sabha MPs will have you believe.

The news of the "outrage" expressed by the MPs made people sit up, take serious note and ask each other, What in the blue hell is the Rajya Sabha?

Then everybody used the interwebs, checked their children's civics books and asked the old civil servant who they say "hi" to everytime when they go for a walk every morning and found out that the there is another house of parliament, which although is known as the upper house, has almost as much power as the an "actor" in an Ekta Kapoor serial. And whose members are hilariously referred to as the "elders". 

Afterwards, as usual, the government, which is such a wuss, caved in.

Hours after the furore in Rajya Sabha over the reality show 'Sach Ka Samana' broadcast by Star Plus, government on Wednesday issued a show cause notice to the TV channel. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which issued the notice, has sought a reply from the channel by July 27.

Dude, who takes the Rajya Sabha seriously? Not even the Rajya Sabha MPs give a rat's ass about what they say. Why do you bother? Just do what you do in every other case. Pretend that nothing happened and show some new shiny object to distract the media. It's all about keeping it simple and talking to the people as if they are in fifth grade.

BJP and SP MPs demanded the government to ban the show on Wednesday. The parliamentarians claimed that the reality game show is broadcasting vulgar values and it is a threat to Indian values and morality.

Yes. BAN Everything. That's the best solution.

Uneducated people more than educated ones? BAN education. Starving villages? BAN food.

Global warming? BAN the fucking globe.

There are farmers killing themselves because even after 62 years, our national irrigation policy consists of hiring a few contestants from Indian Idol and making them go to the drought affected areas and sing that oh-rain-god-can-ya-bless-us-with-some-damn-rain song from Lagaan. There are naxalites threatening our national "leaders". Oh, and there might be a global pandemic which might kill everyone but you because a swine can't really be infected by swine flu. But that's okay. However, some dipshit on teevee telling everyone that she has been ridden on more than the Delhi Metro, that outrages you.

Just like the constitution intended.

However, these are not the only people with too much time on their hands.

The Delhi High Court will decide whether 'Sach Ka Samna', a game show where contestants are asked a series of prying questions, is "obscene and against Indian culture and ethos" as contended by a Delhi-resident. One D***** M**** has approached the court alleging that the show telecast on entertainment channel Star Plus is against the values of Indian society.

Dear Outraged Phonies who seek publicity,

Your TV remote has a magic button, which when pressed will make all the slutty men & women go away. 

So please USE it.

Then, do the intelligent thing and Shut the fuck up! ALSO!

KThxBai.

 

 

TV channel gets notice over 'Sach Ka Samna' [TOI]
'Sach Ka Samna' TV show challenged in HC [PTI]

This ain't your grandma's culture

The term "Indian Culture" keeps getting thrown around a lot these days. Just like if you tell a few clients to shove their ideas you-know-where you are suddenly branded as "difficult to work with". Pfft.

What is Indian Culture? What actually defines Indian culture?

Well, the truth is, no one really knows. And if anyone tell you they do, well, they are either crazy or they work for Ekta Kapoor. Wait, that's like an oxymoron.

I'm not saying we don't have a culture. Of course. Our civilization is possibly thousands of years old. And in certain parts of South Asia, you can still see people living it up like it's 8 B.C. .

In my not so humble opinion (hey, everyone knows I'm a blowhard; so that is mostly a moot point anyway), culture is not a strict set of rules written in a book and to be followed strictly even five or six thousand years later. Culture changes according to time. And culture means adapting.

Long before Columbus discovered America and they stole our gig of being a "melting pot" of cultures, ancient India (pre-AK Hangal) was supposed to be cultural center of the whole world. (Much like modern day New York. Except the women had less silicon implants and more armpit hair.) Even most of the religons were invented in India, except the three abrahamic religions. And of course Scientology. That was invented when Tom Cruise fell from his motocycle while shooting Top Gun and damaged the last remaining working cells in his brain. Another side effect of Scientology is that it causes people to act like a nutjob whenever they are in the presence of a higher power.

I'm not one of those LSD trips in which I say that we have the richest culture in the world and talk like someone who lives in the alternate universe created by Suraj Bharjatiya's Rajshri productions where everyone respects their elders and the death of Alok Nath's character brings world peace.

Our culture has been a mishmash of various cultures around the world. Our country has been invaded and plundered more times than Maddona. I am not that big a student of history (mainly because I can't even remember what happened last night. Hey, at least I made it home. Give a brother some credit.) but we all know that there were Aryans, Greeks, Mughals, Turks, Persians, Frenchmen, Portugese, Chinese, Britons and a few hundred aliens from the planet blingon who looked like Bappi Lahri.

So our culture is pretty much like a plate of "mix vegetable" available in the choicest of really bad vegetarian restaurants, a mixture of everything that's leftover from the previous day. Hey, don't look at me like that. I would rather die than go to a place which serves vegetarian food. But when you're young, broke and in college, it's a great place to take college professors you want to bribe. By college professors I mean guy who marked the attendance.

So when people say that doing certain things "is against our culture", I find it to be as thin an argument as Kareena Kapoor was in Tashan.

Another thing that pisses me off (and fortunately I am not the only one) is when people style themselves as self-serving protectors of Indian culture. The most ironic thing about such people is that even they have no idea about what they are trying to defend. So these people go about defining Indian culture as not wearing jeans and beat up innocent people for living their lives, they are no different from the dittoheads the world over who have a certain kind of misplaced dedication to false causes like religous fundametalism and Star Trek.

Then there is another large consistency which has taken it upon itself to preserve Indian culture (or their version of it) from attacks from other less moralistic and cruel cultures so that they can stop their children from turning into Zombies who listen to hip-hop and have sex with each other and disappear the next morning. And then don't even call back.

Yes, you guessed it. This peculiar creature is commonly known as the NRI. The unfortunate one who has to leave his poor, frail home which has fifty people sharing a two bedroom apartment with just a single washroom where people have to sing when occupying it because locks are a western concept and go to greener pastures which have luxuries like indoor plumbing and twenty four hour convenience stores. (Okay. Not everybody shares Bobby Jindal's story. But you get the idea.)

A few weeks ago there were some NRI family friends visiting. We were having a discussion and I told her that I know lots of people who prefer to live-in together before getting married. Or choose not to get married at all. She looked at me like I had just shot a litter of kitten and proceeded to roast them over the burning body of their mother.

And then, she said without even blinking, with an air of sincere misplaced superiority, "But that's against our culture".

It was my turn to stare.

Best news article EVER!!

This is the reason I can never be a journalist. I thought that the cheerleaders issue had died down. But, boy, I couldn't have been more wrong. Apparently, it's big enough to be picked up by Reuters. And even though they put it in their oddly enough section, the tone of the article is more serious than an eulogy at a state funeral. If I could have been able to write like this, I would be a rich, rich man.


The article begins with some great quotes by eminent Indian politicians, for example:

"The manner in which semi-clad girls keep shaking their limbs is in bad taste," Uddhav Thackeray, head of the hardline Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party was quoted as saying in the Times of India.

Shaking your limbs!! Don't you just hate it when people do that? It's disgraceful, I tell you. An outrage. The nerve. God is going to damn them to hell for revealing their limbs like that.


The article also reveals some really important facts:

The sight of many foreign women and Indians dancing in high boots and skimpy shorts sparked anger from both Hindu nationalists, who opposed their open sexuality, and some leftist parties who said it crudely copied Western culture.

I am sure the hearts of Hindu "nationalists" and "leftist" parties would be warmed to know that they are on the same side. How dare the cheerleaders open their sexuality in the land of the Kamasutra? They should be arrested and sent back to the Western world full of immoral people having sex for fun. In India, people can only have sex to bear a male child. Otherwise it is a sin against Indian culture.

However, my favorite line from this article has to be:

The cheerleaders appeared at the match in less revealing outfits -- where there was once exposed cleavages, midriffs and thighs, there was now only skintight lycra.

Lets read that again. ...Where there was once exposed cleavages, midriffs and thighs ...This is real HARD hitting news. The amount of detail the reporter has provided us with is astonishing. Each and every exposed body part has been documented and mentioned separately. I'm sorry, not body parts, each and every limb has been mentioned separately.
......There was now only skintight lycra. Skintight Lycra. One last time. Skintight Lycra. I can never even in my wildest dreams be so articulate. This is just too good for words. The author of this article has to be a demi-God of journalism.


The article ends with the following paragraph:

But well-known cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins are still performing for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, and there have been no reports that they have toned down their performances.

Err..ummmm...ahem...... I hate to be a party pooper, but if this is true then WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT OF THE ARTICLE?

I am telling if this article does not win the Pulitzer prize, I am crying foul. Nothing can come close to it. Nothing. Thanks to google and it's targeted display of news items I was able to view this article and enrich my life forever. I shall now be able to die a happy man.

Blogging, Indian Culture and that damn Julia Roberts

So I was watching an NDTV program called "We the people" where the topic of discussion was well, strangely blogs. Now, most of the non-bloggers there appeared to have no knowledge about blogging. The quotes from such people were horrendous. However, one thing that really hit me was this constant use of the words "Indian Culture". Nothing gets me more riled up than the use of these words, I agree. But tell me why does this have to pop up in everything that we do? Does a simple thing like blogging have to pass through the litmus test of Indian culture? I was reading a few comments that were sent by some people through SMS to the TV station and a lot of them were based around the same theme of blogging on being based on Indian culture. It's just so preposterous that everything is seen as a threat to Indian culture. It's not only blogging. All kinds of media, music, movies even the internet is seen as against Indian culture.

OOHHHH ... Rock Music ... against Indian culture, English/Spanish/Belgian movies, against Indian culture, the Oscars, against Indian culture. What's this obsession we have about Indian culture? Do we even know what Indian culture is? Do these self-imposed guardians of Indian culture even realize how our culture came about and what our culture is?
By just following some hypocritical Victorian values do we confirm ourselves to be the true followers of Indian culture?

I mean look at what the religious right does on valentines day? No, No, No, alien culture. Corrupts the minds of our Indian children. Not that I like valentines day, but how can the expression of love be against Indian culture? Two people who love each other, just want to share a few cards, flowers and some chocolate. Are they percolating through some imaginary door that they are not supposed to?

According to such intelligent guardians of Indian culture, children are not supposed to choose who they marry or love because well they don't know but a group of middle aged, pot bellied people (called parents), who are out of touch with the realities of the real world, who don't give a rat's ass about what the children are looking for in a mate, can decide who they spend the rest of their life with. It doesn't matter that they two people spend the rest of their lives bickering and unhappy, but NO, NO, choosing a mate is against Indian culture.

What makes one think that parents know what is best for the child? Indian children are taught from the day they are born that they are the exclusive property of their parents/grandparents/uncles/chachas/mamas etc. etc. They have to respect them because they are elder, they have to obey them because they are older to them in their age, they even have to touch older people's feet. Why? Because it is our culture? Indian children are supposed to study what their parents think is appropriate, work where their parents think is best for them, get married to a person whom their parents think is perfect for them and have children when thier parents start yearning for grandchildren. Any deviation from this plan is considered a violation of our sacred Indian culture. Ohhhhh ... You married outside your caste ....... you bought shame to our family ... Ohhhhh .. you have a boyfriend ...... nice girls don't think about love, nice girls think about chappatis and kids and knitting woolen clothes. Speaking up against injustice is considered a violation of Indian culture.

Our culture reeks of oppression, submission and unhappiness. It is no wonder that most of our nation is unhappy. The parents are unhappy because their parents did not let them do what they wanted to and their children not listen to them.

The reason given for this unhappiness by our priests and politicians is the influence of the west. It's that damn Julia Roberts. Putting such bad bad thoughts into our children's sacred head. Bad Bad thoughts about love, bad bad thoughts about happiness, of seeking your aim in life. Teaching our children that there is a world beyond marriages, relatives, society, neighbors, relatives, in-laws. Damn you Julia Roberts and our whole democratic party voting Hollywood. Damn you. You teach our little girls about freedom. You will rot in hell.

You self righteous westerners telling us about human rights and toilet paper. You think you scare us with your nuclear weapons. Look at us. You hit us we will destroy Bangladesh and Pakistan. look at our might. We can now hit a moving chilli-chicken thela in Shenzen. Keep your breast baring Halle Barry. In India, women are not supposed to have breasts. Even if they do, they should be well hidden from leering eyes. They should not be even shown to a woman's husbands. They are evil. The twin towers of evil, if you must. Indian women do not have any breasts. Period. And they also do not have any periods. Indian women are devoid of periods. All this educative talk of "cloth is for curtains" is against our Indian culture. Damn you Hollywood. You with your rap musicans. Those bloody rappers. Against our culture. Puting bad bad thoughts about bitches and ho-es in the heads of our children. We do not have ho-es in our country. And is that what you do to bitches you perverts. You Americans. Stop spreading your poison.

So can we not talk about Indian culture at the drop of a hat. If our Indian culture is so weak, then how come that damn Julia Roberts can break it so easily?