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.

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]

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)

Sophie’s Democracy

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

A cheer erupted among the faithful as one of his minions gave the speech nominating him. He didn’t know which minion it was, though. He had so many of them that all their faces were just a blur to him. The cheers became deafening as he took to the podium. No one would fault you for thinking that he had moves like Jagger. He looked around at the hundreds of subservient eyes watching him with hope and mild trepidation. He scanned the podium. His mother smiled at him and nodded. The Prime Minister gave him the look of gratefulness that he usually reserves only for American Presidents. The country’s favourite man-child smirked on the inside. You might as well call him Buddha from now on because at that precise moment he finally understood why he was ‘The One.’

No one could stop him now.  .

* * *

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or haven’t recently run into that irritating person in your life who cannot stop talking about politics, you’d know that armageddon the general elections are nigh. They’re officially scheduled to take place next year but the news media would like them to happen right now so that they can regurgitate all their clichés (People only vote their cast and not cast their vote! A week is a long time in Indian politics! The voters are quite smart even though they keep voting for assholes!)  and make some money (Would you like the positive coverage package or the no news is good news package?). The UPA doesn’t even want to think about the election because it’s tired of running one of the most corrupt, undemocratic and clueless government in the country’s history and all it wants to do is lie down and close its eyes for a minute. The BJP believes that it has already won the election and the vote is just a formality and despite plenty of evidence to the contrary its going to do a better job than the UPA, ‘god promise.’ And the people can’t wait to invest their hopes and dreams in yet another government that will be worse than its predecessors so that they can vote them out too.

Even though most political parties have been preparing since last year (‘To govern’ refers to distributing freebies to your base, doesn’t it?), the campaign began in earnest this year when the Congress officially crowned its reigning prince as the Next Big Saviour and set him up for spectacular failure and/or mild success, while the various factions of the BJP were busy negotiating with each other to decide upon the most impotent and least harmful person who wouldn’t ruffle any feathers or do anything that his job entails so that they could make him President of their party.

The elections are going to give us such a stark choice. One of the parties consists of a bunch of unelectable regional satraps whose lust for power is only matched by their subservience to their favourite family and who would willingly elect a monkey if they were directed to do so by their dear leader. The other is a cauldron of Prime Ministerial ambitions bursting at the seams and barely held together by its members’ increasingly fleeting loyalty to a bunch of religious octogenarians who still wear shorts to work. Here’s a pro tip: If none of the political parties in your country hold elections to fill their leadership positions, then their commitment to 'democracy’ might not be as strong as they want you believe.

Let’s face it. The next election is going to be a contest between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi. The Gandhi political machine meets the Modi juggernaut. The public image both of them have constructed for themselves over the past few years are going to battle each other in an election campaign that will make you want to curl up in a fetal position and cry softly into a pillow.

Rahul Gandhi is neither this salt-of-the-earth politician who pretends to be obsessed with uplifting the downtrodden nor is he a ‘youth icon’ who wants to change the very system from which he draws his power. He will never be the ‘man of the people,’ no matter how many choreographed visits to homes in rural villages or ‘spontaneous’ train rides he goes on.  The speech he gave at his coronation didn’t seem to come from a man whose family has been pretty much running the country since independence (except for a few commercial breaks in between). It was more like a speech given by a naive, sanctimonious character in a movie who ascends to power and then proceeds to lecture the villainous establishment on the advantages of virtue.

Narendra Modi likes to present himself as a larger-than-life leader with the ability to appear everywhere via hologram allowing himself to solve every problem in the country simultaneously. The false back-story he pretends is part of his non-existent folksy charm is that he’s a simple man who reluctantly took on the task of leading the state government - because he was a good soldier of his party - and then proceeded to make the state the economic powerhouse it is today. Who even cares that he is a vindictive megalomaniac possessing disdain for democratic norms who won’t let anyone stand in the way of his ultimate goal because development, development and development?

So that’s your choice, India. It’s either going to be a nincompoop scion who will get played more times than an air guitar at a Brayan Adams concert or a polished propagandist who has successfully papered over his machiavellian rise to glory. And even though both of them want to be Prime Minister real bad, they’ll act as if they’re only taking up the position in the ‘service for the country’ because the first rule of a Prime Ministerial campaign is that you don’t talk about your Prime Ministerial campaign. In fact, they’re going to act like they’re doing us a favour! How noble! We are indeed quite lucky to have such leaders who would scuttle their personal ambition for the welfare of others and become the second most powerful person in the country.

The most powerful being, of course, the host of Times Newshour.

* * *

Meanwhile, somewhere in Gandhinagar, a smug, bearded man sat alone in his house watching teevee. He saw this pip of a boy giving a speech. They think this young whippersnapper can take him? This is going to be easier than he thought. Normally, the bearded man didn’t allow himself to feel any emotion, but today, he let half a smile appear on his face. This was a special moment in his life and he would always cherish it, even though he was sharing it with no one else but the cold wind coming in from the open window. Today was the first day of the rest of his glorious life.

No one could stop him now.

The Great Indian Presidential Bash

(A shorter version of this appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Breakout the bubbly, toss the confetti and release some white doves. The Republic of India is about to elect a new President!

Not that most of the country gives a crap about the office of the President. Nobody besides news junkies and ‘general knowledge enthusiasts’ is paying any attention to this contest. The thing is, the President doesn’t really have any real power. He or she is not even the premier freeloader in our long list of freeloaders system of governance. We don’t really want to learn the names of people who we can’t blame for the malaise that has taken over our lives. The Prime Minister, yes. The buck stops with him! He is supposed to be the real leader of the government. The first among equals. So we can easily blame him. But the President? One of the main reasons that position exists is because our founders wanted to show a big, democracy-shaped middle finger to the British Empire. Look at you England, with your fake monarch wearing stolen jewellery. Real democracies have semi-elected titular heads-of-state! Suck on that, subservient realms of the commonwealth.

Most Presidents in our country have occupied that august office after a hard fought victory on ‘India’s Got Sycophants.’ The rules of this contest are simple: if you’re a good sycophant with at least a couple of independent opinions, you get to be a Rajya Sabha MP. If you’re a really good sycophant – with no independent thought process whatsoever and a disturbingly eager need to please – you get to become Governor of a state. And the most sycophantic of them all – a person who not only is incapable of having a pre-approved brain fart but doesn’t even go to the bathroom without prior permission – advances to the final round and gets to be President.

This year they must have raided an old people’s home for contenders to the Presidency. People were coming out of the woodwork to declare their candidacy. Though tragic Satyajit Ray movie character Pranab Mukherjee was the favourite, for a minute there it looked like his ambition would be thwarted again. Even though he had been campaigning for months, the sphinx of 10 Janpath remained unmoved. She only belatedly agreed to his candidacy when Mamta Banerjee showed once again that she is three colours short of a full palette. While PA Sangma continued to lose even the last shreds of his dignity, Abdul Kalam allowed himself to be used as a political football again.  Now that we’re done with the five-yearly fake national wankfest over him, the next time he will be all over the news is when someone frisks him at an airport. Hell, even the angriest man on Indian television, Ram Jethmalani, threatened to nimbly sprint for President. Jethmalani, of course, is the standard bearer for lost causes. He has fought and lost more contests than an IPL team led by Sourav Ganguly. In fact, he even lost the online contest for ‘the drunkest Indian’ thanks to some last minute strategic voting by confused Narendra Modi fans.

Since our press corps are always gunning for a crisis – these are the same people who literally spend days arguing over hypothetical events which most of the time never even happen – so if they get a whiff of even a remote possibility of a real political dogfight, they’re going to suck that puppy dry. They turned this boring contest into a staged WWE spectacle. Pranab Mukherjee was transformed into Hulk Hogan: all hype and no substance. A man respected and lauded for his achievements, even though he has spent his whole career sucking up to his boss and trying to stop others from getting ahead. Abdul Kalam was Ric Flair: a man who has achieved a lot in his life but refuses to retire gracefully and keeps showing up to the arena even though no one wants him anymore. PA Sangma was the Brooklyn Brawler: a man who only exists to lose the match and make the other guy look stronger than he actually is.

Even the left parties made a cameo appearance in this extravaganza. The left parties are the Ultimate Warrior of Indian politics: they could have almost been in the main event, but thanks to their own warped sense of reality, they are so far away from the mainstream that no one even remembers who they are.  

The winner of this Presidential summer slam was Pranab Mukherjee. Let this be a lesson to all the children – if you’re a sycophant to enough members of the Gandhi clan, if you spend your whole life thwarting your ambition and then use all your surrogates in the media to spend months promoting your candidacy – then you too can ascend to the highest office in the land!

In all this hullaballoo, we might miss giving the current occupant a proper send-off. Although in a gallery full of individuals even history will not bother to remember, Pratibha Patil stands out as ordinary, I, for one will miss President God Whisperer. The hilarious thing about making an alleged conwoman President is the blatantly hilarious highway robbery she continues to (allegedly!) commit. I’d be more outraged at the stadium sized house she planned to build, or her outrageously inappropriate foreign jaunts in which she took along everyone who even shared a small atomic fraction of her DNA, but living in this country if there is one thing I have learned, it’s that if you can’t arrest them and put them in jail, at least make terribly unfunny jokes about them.

Every time the Presidential elections roll around, one is reminded of what a strange fellow once said, never have so many fought for something of so little value. Why does anyone want to be President anyway? You have no real duties. People come to you with complaints you have no powers of addressing. The government will saddle you with clemency applications which are a political time bomb. However, you can pretty much do whatever you want while somebody else pays for it. You get to tour the world like a person of actual importance. You get to live in one of the largest palaces in the world. You get to host people who actually are capable of re-making the world. You can get every useless member of your family a job for life. And you get a salary while you do all this.

Wait; is it too late to throw my hat in for consideration?

If you don't stop eating that plate of scrumptious beef THIS INSTANT, Varun Gandhi will do unspeakable things to you

India's #1 idea person, Varun Gandhi, evil spawn of Sanjay "Imma cut your nads off" Gandhi and Maneka "Makes PETA look like pussies" Gandhi (gee, I wonder where Varun got his mean streak from?), is taking India into the 21st century by talking about issues relevant to people in this day and age:

Cow slaughter — topped Varun's agenda during his hour-and-half long address.
Urging Hindus to rise against the "heinous act which is a punishable offence and not only a social crime" the MP questioned the prevailing silence surrounding 'gau hatya'.
"Why hasn't a single case been registered so far for violation of anti-cow slaughter law," he asked.

Yes. Now that UP enjoys peace & prosperity due to there being a lack of actual real criminals (as they are busy trying to run the government!), why isn't the police pursuing more cow slaughterers? Besides stopping people from having sex, shouldn't this also be their other #1 priority? Which doesn't mean that they should forget their most important #1 priority, which is protecting Madam Maya's 'freedom' statues.

Varun also has another brilliant idea:

The Pilibhit MP asked his Hindu brethren to stand up for their "samman" (honour) and "swabhiman" (self-respect), and hoped to raise "an army of one lakh Varun Gandhi clones to fulfil his wish-list".

GREAT NEWS, EVERYONE! There are going to be Varun Gandhi's running around everywhere! Varun knows that he is one of the most awesomest human beings alive! So why not spread his awesomeness around? I'm pretty sure there is enough awesomenss to spare, for anyone who is interested! Isn't that simply awesome?

This is known as an 'Hands free' approach to governance! Since his cousin Rahul gets all the attention (due to the fact that he INVENTED politics and everybody anywhere is always 'pulling a Rahul Gandhi'), everything Varun does reeks of desperation. The poor guy is out in the wilderness and is continuously trying to draw attention to himself, as if trying to say "I'm a Gandhi, get me out of here!".

Tut, tut Varun. All you have to do to get noticed by the media is to get a twitter account, because if you don't have a twatter account or are not on "the bookface", you don't even exist anymore! Also, since the people on teevee have even lesser substantive things to talk about, they will put your twats on teevee everyday, because they are basically assholes.

In fact, through the magical powers of the hot tub time machine, one of our "reporters" from the "future" have sent in this "poem" which based on a very famous literary work, which speculates what life would be after a couple of decades under Prime Minister Varun Gandhi. It's never going to actually happen (because of education, which is a fundamental right now! Teehee, FUNDAMENTAL!), but let's just suppose it does, for shits & giggles:

When they came for the people who eat beef,
I said nothing because I prefer fried chicken.

When they came for the people who get their hair cut on a Tuesday,
I said nothing because I always have a standing appointment with my barber for every Friday evening.

When they came for people who drank alcohol on dry days,
I said nothing because those drunken bastards deserved it anyway!

When they came for the people who had sex outside of wedlock,
I said nothing because I was married and wasn't getting any sex so I didn't want anyone else to have it either!

When they came for all the gay people,
I said nothing because just like Chetan Bhagat, I am not "a gay".

When they came for all those women who wanted to be something other than a housewife,
I said nothing because they're women, what else are they going to do? 

When they came to give me a vasectomy so that I couldn't reproduce,
They left me alone because they realized I lost my testicles when I didn't say anything the first time they tried to curtail my freedom!

The 'Rahul Gandhi' is everyone's new favourite dance step!

So the new Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari went to have lunch at a colleague's house, and it made the national news.

There are so many things wrong with that. Let's do a point by point thingie (or as purists call it  'bullet point analysis'. I call it 'thingie' cause it's amateurish & childish. Just like me!) to explain.

1. Unless Rahul Gandhi INVENTED politics, or 'pulling a Rahul Gandhi' is a new dance move which involves doing the hustle in your Kurta, no one can pull a 'Rahul Gandhi'. Every politician who requires points for his 'imma-son-of-the-soil' marksheet does this. In fact, in the book "Beginners guide in how to be a son-of-the-soil politician", this is probably Chapter 1 (Go eat in a poor person's house). Or maybe I'm wrong and even MK Gandhi was 'doing a Rahul' when he did this more than sixty years ago. Or maybe even those stuffy politicians in Europe, who were doing this in the 1800s were pulling a "Rahul Gandhi'. Who knows, really?

2. Eating a meal at a poor person's house is nothing but theatric symbolism. It sounds so good, "Oh Mah Gawd, he went and literally ATE at a poor person's house!! Literally!! The Horror! Must vote for him next time!" Don't they see the unintentional bigotry involved in this? Just by eating a small meal in their house, does it make you understand the years of their struggle? Does a white light emerge from the back of your head and you suddenly become aware of years of oppression your 'hosts' had to face? This is even worse than when Mayawati builds a statue of herself and tells all her poor, suffering voters "This pigeon-bait is going to solve all your problems! Thee should now rejoice, and haveth some cake!". Hey, at least she doesn't make them pay for lunch!

3. Don't the reporters have anything better to do than sit around watching a fat guy eat? Do the reporters who 'report' on such 'symbolic luncheons' actually believe what they are saying? If they do, would you actually want someone like that 'reporting' on the 'news'? If they don't and still go on about it, would you actually want someone like that 'reporting' on the 'news'? If I ask so many questions, does it make me sound like a certain anchor of a 9PM news-show? If it does, then will someone volunteer to kill me?

 

Gadkari does a Rahul, has lunch in Dalit's house [Rediff News]
Nitin Gadkari does a Rahul, has lunch in Dalit's house [DNA India]

This bird has nine lives!

It's that time of the month again, when our minister of talking to scary foreign people, Tweety Tharoor, says something with some amount of truth (or as journalists call it, a "gaffe") and everyone catches fire. Usually he uses his satanic smart phone to cause a national uproar, this time he gave a speech at the Pravasi Bharat Divas (aka the annual meeting of the Narendra Modi fan club). So while everybody rehashes the Shashi Tharoor-flashes-someone-on-twitter meme into the Shashi Tharoor-disrespects-the-olds meme, and ends up blowing blows hot air up each other's asses, here's what they really mean to say:

The Media: ZOMG! We can't really do any real reporting because all the people who fuck with the country's resources have got us by the balls, but hey look Shashi Tharoor said something. Haha, this guy is like a gift who keeps on giving. STOP THE PRESSES!!! WE GOT A FRONT PAGE HEADLINE FOR TOMMOROW!! LOOK, OUR EDITOR JUST CAME IN HIS PANTS!! OR DON'T BECAUSE THAT IS JUST GROSS!!

The INC(I): How dare someone have an opinion on anything? Doesn't he realize that the Congress is like an army of pods? We are only allowed to think those thoughts which have been downloaded into our brains by either Soniajee Madam or Rahuljee "baba". Everything else is blasphemy. Wait, what do you mean Shashi Tharoor wrote a book spoofing both Nehru and Gandhi? When did that happen? DID SOMEONE TELL MADAM? Don't worry, I think we know who our next Ambassador to Yemen is going to be!

The Shashi Tharoor: Me . . . Me . . . Look at me . . . Imma reach out to y'all. Love me, follow me, read my son's articles, BUY MY BOOKS!!1!! MEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee . . . . . Gimme a T, gimme a H, gimme an A . . . ~ . . . 

The people in Fake India: OMFG! SRK IS ON TWITTER! Now we can see how seriously he
takes himself behind the facade of self-depreciation!

The people in Real India: I can haz blanket?

 

[Pic via Goofy Duck]
NRI voting: PM holds out hope, Tharoor picks holes in bill [HT]

Tharoor criticises Nehru's 'moralistic' foreign policy [DNA]
I was misquoted on Nehruvian policy: Tharoor [Zee News]

The future is finally here: Scientifically accurate predictions for the next awful ten years of your life

Even though the jury is still out on whether this is technically the start of the new decade or not, we are simply going to ignore all that and just like the mainstream media do whatever the hell we want to. Since everyone and their mother have summed up the last decade in hundreds of nauseating ways, we thought that we would channel the dead spirit of nostradamus (and the people who were pretty darn sure that Iraq had WMD's) and just like them, based on absolutely nothing, come with predictions which might or might not be true. Who really knows or cares because isn't everything printed on the internets the gospel truth?

The decade will start by forcing everyone who wants to travel in an airplane to basically travel nude because some dipshit who got tired of scamming people by pretending to be the son of a deposed prince and then wanted to blow up his crotch to prove a point which no one really knows (or as Joe Liberman put it, 'preemptive War on any Muslim sounding country'). Since no luggage will be provided, airlines will try to recoup their losses by charging people with large body parts more money under 'extra baggage'. Emo kids and reality teevee stars will also be asked to pay double, due to their large amount of emotional baggage.

If no celebrities will die then Larry king will get Nancy Regan to séance with Michael Jackson's ghost in which he will finally confess to being a white catholic Republican lady in disguise. This will ensure that Jebus forgives all his 'alleged' child-porn sins.

The oracle of hope, President Obama, will win the 2012 election by default because Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin will end up inadvertently shooting each other in their Last Hunter Standing match at Wrestlemania, which would be held to decide the nomination for the Republican candidate.

The green movement in Iran will finally win their fight for electoral reform. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will escape to America where he will be hired as a contributor to Fox News wherein his only task would be to appear on the screen for five minutes during the Glenn Beck show and make scary faces while continuously shouting "Death to Diet Bagels".

Sometime during the decade, Arnab Goswami will get tired of shouting at the camera and decide to take matters into his own hand and will invade Pakistan along with Farook Dhondy and Suhel Seth.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will gay-marry Hussain Sharrif so that their love-child, Benazir Bilawal Asif Nawaz Hussain Zardari Bhutto Sharif, will become the youngest President of Pakistan.

Manmohan Singh will cite 'health grounds' and Jayanti Natrajan's body odour in his resignation letter to future astronaut and current President, Prathibha Patil, which will pave the way for Rahul Gandhi to become Prime Minister of both the India's, the 'real one' (which only exists in Madhur Bhandarkar movies) and the 'fake one' (which only exists in Karan Johar movies).

96 year old ND Tiwari will become the Governor of India's 137th state, which will solely consist of all the children he has 'allegedly' illegally sired over these years. He will continue to have orgies in the Governor's mansion.

However, all the screwing will stop when Narendra Modi and his merry band of non-voting NRI's, who will make it compulsory for everyone to vote for them, take over and no one will ever have sex in India ever again.

Have a great decade, people! If this doesn't make you look forward to it, I don't know what will.

Hold the phone shylock because Rahul Gandhi just made an important discovery

Our next king and emperor, the scion of our country's "first family", the personification of all that is pure in this world, the apple of every mother's eye, Lord Rahul Gandhi has just made a discovery by reading the December 2000 issue of DUH magazine which has eluded millions and millions of people before him. 

India has two sides, the urban and developed and the rural and underdeveloped, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said here today.

"There exists two Indias -- one in towns and cities with highrise buildings, computers, cars and modern gadgets, and the other in rural areas, still underdeveloped for lack of facilities and opportunities," Gandhi told a rally to thank the people for voting back the Congress to power in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Oh My God! Why has no one else thought of this before?

Dammit! As they say, when you lose something, it's always at the LAST PLACE YOU LOOK. If only someone had thought of checking inside Rahul Gandhi's head.

However, now that we know, EVERYTHING's going to be okay. Because Rahul Gandhi is ON THE CASE. And as you know, when Rahul Gandhi is on a case, he ALWAYS SOLVES IT. He's like that guy from those uppity Arthur Conan Doyle novels.

"I took a British minister to the villages some time back to show him the strength of the people of rural India, as they were making use of the opportunities offered to them by the NREGA and the waiving of loans," he said.

"But I was criticised by the BJP, which alleged that I was showing the poverty of the country to a minister from a foreign country," he said.

Yes, because the BJP in it's infinite wisdom thinks that if you IGNORE something completely, it will go away. That is the reason no one in the BJP is talking to Rajnath Singh anymore. Someone should memo them and let them know that this doesn't work. Have they even seen Bigg Boss?

Anyways, I'm sure the "minister from a foreign country" knows that there are a few dozen poor people in India, because he must have seen Slumdog Millionaire.

It is heartening to know that his highness will be our next "Dear Leader". I feel optimistic about the country's future already.

Jai Ho!

India has two sides, developed and underdeveloped, says Rahul Gandhi [DNA]

[Hat Tip: Iyer Deepak]

ZOMG, we're living in an Anurag Mathur novel!

So I go to sleep for almost a month to try and see what Rip Van Winkle was raving about and it seems that instead of waking up in the real world, I seem to have woken up in one of Anurag Mathur's satirical novels.

Let's look at the evidence:

Karan Johar had to apologize to Raj Thackray for essentially doing something which is guaranteed by the constitution. A little something called Right to Free Speech. So obviously in real life this would not have happened. In real life, the police would have stopped the rent-a-goons which disrupted the movie screenings. In real life, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra would not have gone on every news channel and said that Karan should have gone to the police. Because in real life, one doesn't need to ask the police to essentially do their duty. Because hasn't the Maharashtra government protected the North Indian taxi drivers and railway exam candidates from the MNS goons? And didn't they do a stellar job during 26/11? So this could never have happened in the real world.

Our minister of permanently getting his foot inside his mouth, Shashi Tharoor, got jealous because he had to give a speech on Gandhi Jayanti instead of sitting home and twatting on twitter. So he suggested that everyone should stop taking a day off on Gandhiji's birthday and instead should work like it's going out of fashion. Again, this would never happen in the real world because politicians should be the last people to give tips on "working hard". Because my grandmother does more work than these politicians and she's been dead for ten years. So this won't happen in the real world. Ever. And if it did, I would be giving Mr Tharoor the same advise I give my Aunt Nina when she wants to drunk-dial one of her ex-husbands. PUT DOWN THE BOTTLE AND STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE.

Then our fearless government appointed liaison of corporate affairs, a bobble-head named Salman Khursheed, decided to appoint himself the UPA government's "pay-czar" and 'warned' the companies against 'vulgar' salaries & perks. That could never happen in the real world. Because if anyone knows about vulgar salaries & perks, it's the politicians. In the real world, people who get taxpayer's to pay for their house, their cars, their household help, their phones, their travelling expenses, their toilet paper, their food, their viagra, their hernia operation, their re-election expenses, the upkeep of their mistresses's and her family, would not shoot their mouth and accuse others of unnecessary expenses. This would never happen in the real world because didn't we learn during one of those 'moral science' classes that we must practice what we preach?

Of course when one is writing a satirical novel about India, how can the symbol of our national apathy and ability to procrastinate endlessly, Air India, be left behind? Because in real life, if there was a scuffle between the airline staff in mid-air, there would have been hell to pay and heads would roll. But during this chapter in the book, nothing happened except a few really creepy news reports. Also, in real life, the government would never invest billions of rupees in a company which has already lost billions of rupees. In real life, any company with such a bad business model would have been shut down. Unless of course, if it was a Wall Street bank. Because Wall Street banks are too big to fail. Even in a fictional novel. In real life, we need to do to Air India what we do to poor, useless old people. Euthanize it.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that pseudo-sanctimony is very funny. A movie, titled Indian Summer, based on the book of the same name, uses the backdrop of our Independence struggle while also depicting the personal lives of some of our 'esteemed' leaders, has faced a lot of artificial roadblocks while it is still in the pre-production phase. Somehow our 'fictional' government feels that this is against our 'culture' and deeply censors the movie to the point that it completely deviates from reality. That's because the fictional government doesn't want to let out the secret that even the leaders of our freedom movement had sexual intercourse, because that would make them lesser human beings and prove that immaculate conception is really a myth. In real life, this would be really, really ridiculous and people would actually not stand for such nonsense.

One of the funniest things about our political culture is the large amounts of sycophancy that is in the DNA of our politicians. So therefore in a satirical novel, no one would raise an eyebrow when the incompetent head of the Commonwealth games organising committee would suggest that the commonwealth games can be salvaged only by Rahul Gandhi. It would never happen in real life because anyone with even half a brain would realize that it would be suicidal to add nepotism to a project which has already been clusterfucked beyond any recognition.

Lastly, have you ever thought how hilariously funny it would be if the CBI suddenly decided to close the bofors case-file just because it has been too long? How can this even happen in real life? Because doesn't conventional wisdom tell us that the long hands of the law catch up to us one time or another? Where are The Hardy Boys when you actually need them! It's also really funny that the character who plays 'Minister of Law' in the book says that they stopped pursuing a case because it would be really sad to 'celebrate' the case's golden jubilee? Ha, ha. That is simply too funny to be true. I think Roman Polanski would agree with me on this one.

 

Therefore, I think it would be best if I back to sleep and hopefully wake up in the real, saner world.

 

 

Karan Johar’s apology a publicity stunt: Ashok Chavan [Indian Express]
Why is Gandhi Jayanti a holiday? [Times Now]
Salman Khursheed warns firms on "vulgar" top pay [Reuters India]
Air India speaks on cabin scuffle [BBC News]
Air India Estimates 50 Billion Rupees Loss This Year [WSJ India]
From saint to statesman [Mint]
Rahul Gandhi can be leader of Commonwealth Games: Kalmadi [TOI]
We did not want to celebrate golden jubilee of Bofors case [TOI]

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

The End

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

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

Curiosity did not kill the cat; getting stressed out over the wrong thing did

So welcome to another episode of "Let's get outraged together, because some lady on teevee said so".

Tonight, we take a look at how an arrogant American immigration officer treated the Badshaah of Bollywood like a mere commoner.

Okay. So SRK was stopped an interrogated by an American CBP officer for a couple of hours. I'd like to say that they officer was doing his job, but he seemed to have crossed the line and gotten a little Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay-overboard.

But you know what's really outrageous? The fact that there are people who have to go through this everytime they go to America because they don't have Congress MP Rajiv Shukla on speed dial. Why doesn't the Indian embassy do this for EVERY INDIAN who is racially profiled at an American airport? Why are the rules different for movie stars?

You know another thing that is outrageous? Robert Vadra, son-in-law of the nation, does not have to go through security check, whereas the former chief of the army has to.

The Indian government lodged an official complaint with the American embassy in Delhi. Why does the government have to lodge an OFFICIAL complaint? Why do we have to act like little children whose fragile little ego's are hurt everytime someone wants to follow the law? The American embassy in India spends most of it's time trying to stroke the humongous egos in South Block.

The whole SRK incident in short: If you want to get people outraged for being mistreated, go do a couple of movies first. Otherwise, just grin and bear it.

As far as coverage of the incident is concerned, there are a few things:

• If anyone else points out the irony of Shah Rukh Khan being stopped at the airport and his upcoming movie, they need to be waterboarded by Dick Cheney. Because, um, even little children figured this out. So you don't have to mention it EVERYTIME you report on this.
• You know what's not ironical? This happening on Independence day. Besides us and a few NRI's trying to compensate for their "guilt" at abandoning the desh, no one else gives a fudge about OUR Independence day. At least not until we have an actor use it in a memorable speech given at a very poignant moment in a blockbuster movie in which the human race is fighting aliens together for the survival of the whole planet.
• SRK is not a "world celebrity". There are millions of people in India who haven't heard of him because they don't have TV or electricity or BSNL phone lines.
• Ambika Soni's brilliant suggestion of racially profiling American tourists is our childish desire for an eye for an eye. Some dude named MK Gandhi once said that An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. I wonder if that dude is on twitter because I'd like totally follow him.
• For once I'd like a leader who stands up and asks the country to act like a frikin grown up. However, I don't think that's happening anytime soon. Which proves once again that growing old does not necessarily make you wiser.
• One immigration officer does not make the whole country racist. Also, electing Barack Hussien Obama does not make the whole country post-racist.

If the Newark CBP officer was in India, he would have been transferred to some naxal-infested area before you could say Dilwalaye Dulhaniya Le Jayengay. In fact, our security slogan should be "Come to India, if terrorists don't kill you, the swine flu will".

Jai Ho?

Obama sends message to Indian Prime Minister by writing it on Papyrus with a really big Quill

Six weeks ago, a group of brave men and women dressed like men set sail from the New York Harbour. The purpose of this important, difficult and treacherous voyage was to find and reach the East Indies and deliver a letter to the leader of the people of the East Indies. Not just any letter. A letter from the President of the United States of America. The letter contained a message of peace and was written with the purpose of establishing a treaty of cooperation and friendship between the two countries.

The brave crew of the ship, three of whom were thrown overboard by a white supremacist from the continent of Australia who then himself died of gonorrhoea, dodged thunderstorms, hunger, even fought off pirates who were led by a clever man called Jack Sparrow and finally arrived at their destination a week ago. From the coast they were flown into the capital city by a genie and his magic carpet. They sought an audience with Queen Sonia. They were granted an audience with the Queen's Prime Minister, who met the emissaries of the American President at high noon and they handed over the handwritten letter to him. In return, the Prime Minister gave them an aphrodisiac made from the blood of seven dragons and an instruction guide on yoga written by one a member of the Rajasthan Royal family, Shilpam Shetty, to be presented to the President upon their return. As local officials explained to them, that is how the people of the East Indies start a friendship.

The merry band of visitors even crossed the bridge of dangerous serpents and went to meet scary old Uncle Grumpus.

___________

Okay, I might have exaggerated a little, but c'mon. Really, Mr President? A letter?

How very Nehru of you!

Are you telling us that the recession has hit the United States so bad that you can't even afford an international fax anymore? Are you telling us that instead of Harrison Ford's plane from Air Force One, you now use Harrison Ford's plane from Six Days Seven Nights?

What's wrong with you, Barry?

I would have gone on, but government officials in my country send each other telegrams. What can a brother do?

(Okay, that's the last time I link to that post.)

(On second thoughts, maybe not. It just never gets old.)

___________

By the way, Obama may keep on saying that India is a "crucial" ally and everything, but I'm sensing that he's sort of bluffing.

I think I know why.

He might have called customer support for his computer one time and  he must have faced this:

Thank you for calling ***** *****. All of our operators are currently serving other customers. Please stay on the line for the next available customer service representative.
[Really Crappy Company Jingle]
We apologize for the delay. Please continue to hold and a representative will be with you shortly. We appreciate your patience.
[Really Crappy Company Jingle]
Thank you for holding. Please continue to hold.
[Really Crappy Company Jingle]
Thank you for holding. Your call is important to us. Your call is the next call in the queue.
[Irritating midi tone of "Summer of '69"]
We apologize for the delay. Please continue to hold and a representative will be with you shortly. We appreciate your patience.
[Really Crappy Company Jingle]
This call maybe recorded for quality control purposes.

 

And then when he finally reached a customer service representative, the guy took his details, put poor Barry on hold for another half hour and then told him that he needs to buy a new computer.

I'll tell you the same thing I told a kid whose bike I ran over: Shit happens, get over it.

Just be glad that this didn't happen to you.

___________

Maybe Obama might have been pissed at a few members of the Indian establishment who were pulling for John McCain.

Hey, Mr President. We can't help it. We're Indians. We like old people. In fact, we hate young people so much that we don't even listen to anything they say until they grow old and shrivelled.

Also, we only liked George W Bush because he spoke his own version of English, just like us. Pinkie swear.

And some people were pulling for McCain because they thought that if McCain won, then both he and Manmohan Singh can go for a prostate exam together. Those things are really hard and it's comforting to have a friend take it along with you.

Also, the Palins with their hundred kids and knocked up daughter kind of reminds us of the families portrayed on our television. Tee Hee.

 

However, please remember that there were some of us who were on your side.

 

Does that help?

Open letters

To,

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

When you actually have to say something multiple times, it implies that it isn't true. By repeating to every person you meet that "you're not weak", it ends up having the completely opposite effect. It further adds to their belief that you are weak. To keep on repeating something which is not a fact isn't going to make it come true. (Ref. Bush administration Iraq-WMD evidence)

If you want to prove to the world that you aren't the most weak person ever in a list which includes VP Singh and IK Gujral, then I would suggest that you either fire one or your ministers or release "secret" footage of you crushing a Heineken beer can with your bare hands.

To,

Prakash Karat,

If you are hell bent on renegotiating every treaty we ever signed, can you first please renegotiate your head out of your ass? Thanks.

To,

LK Advani,

You're not Barack Obama. Just because you put online adds, and thanks to google's user-surly targeted adds system, they appear on every goddamn site we visit,  we're not going to think that you're Barack Obama. You're more than eighty years old. Everything from the talkies to colour television was invented AFTER you were born. So, just because you start a blog doesn't mean we're going to be able to connect with you.

Although, please consider a request. For the love of everything good in the world, please, never open a twitter account. Thanks.

To,

Conspiracy theorists,

If you want to prove that Rahul Gandhi is "Raoul" and Priyanka is "Bianca" then please produce some actual evidence. Not everything that is printed on the internet is true. You do know that you can use google to search for things other than porn & detailed instructions on building a nuclear weapon in your secret science lab in the basement, don't you?

To,

MK Karunanidhi,

A bandh never makes sense. It makes even less sense when YOU are in the frikin government. Only in India do politicians hold demonstrations against themselves. Oh, and by the by, what happened? Did you suddenly run out of telegrams? You could have sent one to yourself instead of pretending to close a whole city.

To,

J Jayalalitha,

When you say that you have the country's best interest in your mind, how do you keep a straight face and not be all "LMAO, y'all".

Also, do you think we really believe you when you say that?

You do?

LMAO.

To,

Susan Boyle,

Oh Susan! What have you done to yourself? We want you to look frumpy. We want your bad eyebrows back. We want you to look like something a drunk Scottish cat dragged in. That is because then we can feel wonderful about the fact that, for once, we appreciated someone for their "inner beauty". Whatever that is.

p.s. Your semi-makeover makes you look like Hyacinth Bucket.