Wanted: A CEO for the Central Board of Film Certification

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

Situation Wanted

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interested candidates may send their application to:

CBFC@nosexpleaseweareindian.com

Thank you for your interest!

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

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And don’t you ever forget that.

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

All Hail the Supreme Court

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Whom the Fans Troll

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

There was a feeling of sadness permeating through the air. The streets were empty. Families gathered together to lean on each other for support. Those without anyone reached out to others like them so that they wouldn’t be alone. A dark cloud had descended over the country. The sun had been eclipsed by an even bigger star. No one was ready to say goodbye yet. But they still had to. First there was the silence. Followed by the tears. And then, there was the chanting. A billion-plus people shouting his name. A nation whose citizens spend every day of the year fighting with each other was united for one short, solitary moment. In five, ten, fifty years, those who survive the nuclear winter will recall this day and let their radiated descendants know how time itself stopped to say goodbye to Sachin Tendulkar.

Okay, none of that actually happened. But if you were a fan of Sachin Tendulkar, then this is probably how you will remember the last day of the last match of his cricketing career. And if you were one of the unfortunate people who didn’t subscribe to the school of thought that proclaimed that he was the greatest thing to happen to this world since the oven that was used to bake the first batch of sliced bread, then you probably will remember that day for the elaborate system of passwords and secret handshakes you needed to use to find any remote safehouse that kept you away from the brainwashed masses.  

That must have been a difficult task because those people were everywhere. In your house, ruining what is supposed to be your haven away from the world. Or at your local cafe, disturbing your “me time” with their incessant need to discuss strange things like “batting average” while making snide insinuations about some chap called Bradman. They didn’t even spare your favourite bar, desecrating the holiest of holy places by boldly asking the shocked manager to switch off the ‘bacardi blast’ cd playing on repeat and putting on the match commentary instead. They took over all the newspapers too! Instead of reporting important salacious details about whom Ranbir Kapoor was dating, our broadsheets were printing interviews with all the important people in Tendulkar’s life, like that guy who once stood next to him at a school bus stop. All the news channels stopped focusing on silly political non-events for a while and instead held panel discussions involving various cricketing legends like Shobha De and Suhel Seth.

Members of the Sachin sect took over twitter too. Between tweeting links to youtube clips of Sachin’s best innings and blogposts that were supposed to make your eyes water while you swallowed that temporary lump in your throat, they spent the day of the final goodbye accusing those who did not agree with them of being dead on the inside. (When did being dead on the inside stop being a thing that should be encouraged? I, for one, highly recommend it!) They declared that anyone who didn’t feel an overwhelming sense of loss on Tendulkar’s retirement must be less emotionally equipped than the Frankenstein monster. They were shocked – shocked! – that not everyone talked about their lord and saviour with the same reverence that they did. They even wondered out loud why everyone else in world couldn’t see that he was the chosen one.

Recently, a court in UP banned the screening of a movie because some stupid people were faux-offended by the use of the words ‘Ram-leela’ in the title. A few months ago, a court in Malaysia banned non-Muslims from saying or writing ‘Allah’ in any form. Earlier this year, when the lead actor for the movie version of the Fifty Shades of Grey series was announced, he got death threats from some of the most obsessive readers of the ‘books’ because according to them, he didn’t resemble the version of the eponymous character that they had in their head.

We’ve let those who believe in the magical powers of ancient storybooks, fairytales, man-made symbols, octogenarian actors, politicians, sportsmen with a cinematic narrative for a life story and other fictional characters determine how we talk about their object of reverence. That is a slippery slope. One minute you’re agreeing to not make silly jokes about a way-past-his-prime cricket player to avoid a confrontation or to please his fans, the next minute you’re going to find yourself prostrating in front of his life-sized statue, as your life flashes in front of your eyes and you wonder how you got here.

I’m all for worshipping whomever you like!  We pretend it’s a free country, after all. We’re all entitled to our delusions. But the insistence that other people follow suit? We’re not entitled to that.

Now please excuse me as I make a change dot org petition asking Obama to sign an executive order banning Ben Affleck from ever wearing a Batman costume.

Welcome to Incredible India!

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to be a Real Tourist

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Do you like to travel? If you do, then have you ever made a whole bunch of your fellow travellers uncomfortable with your cringe inducing presence? Have you ever improved the quality of a tourist spot just by leaving it? Do you have that application on Facebook which shows the various cities and countries that you have travelled to? If your answer to any or all of the above questions is a loud no, then ladies and gentlemen, consider this an intervention. Clearly, you’ve been missing out. And as a concerned citizen, I consider it my patriotic duty to help you correct that.

First things first. If you’re using public transportation to get to your destination, remember that you paid good money for your ticket. So you better avail every service that they provide. For starters, you should charge all your electronic items on the train. That’s what they’re there for! You should monopolize all the electronic sockets near your seat for as long as your journey lasts. Other people should’ve planned ahead. Why didn’t those moochers charge their cheap tablet at home anyway? Also, grab every food or beverage they serve you. Even if you’re not either hungry or thirsty. Even if it looks like it carries a thousand diseases. Don’t be one of those hippies who don’t take things that they’re legally entitled to because they don’t feel like it. The service providers probably expect you to take those sachets of sugar or those cheap headphones with you anyway. Why add extra work for the staff by leaving things behind?

Then, as soon as you are a few minutes away from the end of your journey, stand in the aisle with all your luggage so that you're ready to get down the second the blurry visuals passing by vaguely resemble your destination. Remember, it’s a race! Whoever leaves first wins! Even if it’s only the satisfaction of leaving a claustrophobic confines of a public transportation vessel a few minutes before the rest of your fellow passengers. Don’t wait for your mode of transport to slow down before you start taking down your luggage from the overhead compartment. It’s always safer to do it while trying to stand still in an object moving at a high speed! You’re not liable to fall down or cause injury to other people at all. The laws of motion, like other laws you don’t care about, were meant to be broken.

Further, always haggle with the porter for cheaper rates. They expect you do it. Even if it is in a foreign country where they don’t include the possibility of bargaining in their pricing strategies. Hey, if those who survive on minimum wage want to scam you for your money, why don’t they open a fancy resort like normal people? This is why you also never tip at restaurants. You’re not going to show up at this place again anyway, so why reward good service?

Don’t forget to take pictures of everything, so that many years later you can remember the time when you were present to see this awesome sight befolding in front of you and you were taking a picture so that you could enjoy the experience later. Even if you’re never going to look at any of these photos again! A grainy cellphone picture is always better than actually being there. You should even take pictures of museum items like old paintings. Sure, the light from the flash in your camera might damage them, and you can buy a replica at the souvenir store, but why should you be forced to buy something which the shitty camera in your phone can record for free?

Your experience is not going to be complete without sharing your pictures with a few thousand of your closest friends on social media. It’s the modern version of the classic ‘wish you were here!’ postcard. Except more passive-aggressive and self-aggrandising. You could be a little subtle and let the location tags in your pictures and tweets reveal where you really are. Or you could go all guns blazing like a real townie and let everybody know where you really are by talking about your existential experience at a famous landmark.

When you’re looking for food to eat, always look for something familiar. You didn’t come all this way to try something new! Who does that? Look for a restaurant serving your native cuisine or a local franchise of a fast food chain. Most of the time time the food will taste very different from what you’re used to. This will give you a great opportunity to feel superior and talk about your travels when you’re back home. Oh, I couldn’t find a decent portion of butter chicken anywhere in Florence! Even a rodent could whip up a more edible casserole of Ratatouille than what they serve in Kanpur!

Now that you’re armed with these tips, go forth and see the world. Don’t let silly things like “common courtesy” or “the opinion of other people” bother you. 

After all, they still don’t allow Yelp reviews of individual tourists.

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

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is a match made in romantic comedy heaven.

Time to Give You Up, Technology

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

In every person’s life, there comes a time when you realize that the world around you is changing too fast. So you have to ask the world to stop the car so that you can get down and start your slow walk towards obscurity. Of course, this is not the easy path. Many before me have dared to traverse it but haven’t been able to make it safely to the other side. I pledge to never forget the sacrifices made by those that came before me.  Whether it was brave grandmothers who spent all their golden years trying to load a YouTube video of their grandson performing at his college talent competition along with his acapella group on their ancient computer with 256MB RAM and a 4GB hard drive, or those brave connoisseurs of culture who spent all their money collecting vinyl records for which they didn’t even have a compatible turntable. I know that it won’t be easy. But when has blazing a trail and leaving others to follow in your stead been easy? If you don’t believe me, ask Buddha. (Disclaimer: The buddha doesn’t provide actual solutions to your questions because of the whole ‘look inside your own self for all the answers’ thing he had going on. Warning: Don’t try this at home. That one time I tried looking inside myself and was disgusted by what I found.)

This day come for me recently when I found that my favourite texting application would be introducing something called ‘voice messaging.’ Using your own voice to communicate through a phone – what a unique idea! Why didn’t anyone think of this before? I was outraged at this development because the whole point of modern technology is to help people avoid all human interaction. For example, if I ‘interact’ with another person using just my voice how will I let them know I laughed at their joke without the use of LOL? How will someone I send a voice message to determine that I am angry with them unless I also include a red smiley of a serious face?

What’s next? Keeping your phone down when you’re in a restaurant and talking to the person you’re meeting for dinner? Making eye contact with strangers in a waiting room? Not looking at the small teevee on the dashboard while driving down a highway? Walking up to the colleague at work who sits in the next cubicle to resolve an issue instead of sending him passive aggressive emails that complicate everything? Not letting everyone in the movie theatre know that I’m a douchebag by not putting my phone on ‘silent’ because I might receive an important call? I, for one, refuse to walk down this slippery slope.

My disillusionment with modern technology probably started when I discovered  video games that require actual physical exertion. Is nothing sacred anymore? The primary purpose of video games is to enable you to avoid all sorts of physical exertion. Back in my day, all you needed to do while playing a video game was sit back on the sofa, use one hand to move the joystick that controlled your player while indiscriminately stuffing various snack foods into your mouth with the other. Nowadays, people play video games which require them to simulate the action they want their player to mimic in the game. If you want to play tennis on these newfangled video game consoles, you probably need to have the expertise and experience of a grand slam titleholder to win a match.  It’s just like being there! If I wanted to be there, I would, you know, go there. I don’t buy your crappy video games so that they can remind me of my lack of physical ability. What part of “inside good, outside bad” is hard to understand? Sheesh! Even being lazy requires so much hard work these days.

So that’s it, folks. I refuse to comply with technological advancements anymore. I don’t want to wake up one day and find out that not only have my eyelids become a google glass clone, but whenever I think about asking for directions, an angry British ladyee automatically shouts them into my ears.

Now please excuse me while I spend the next year and a half trying to reboot my old 486 desktop.

The Revolving Doors of Indian Politics

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

It was late in the night. The year was 1998. The setting was a teevee studio in a remote corner of New Delhi. The participants in the discussion were then ‘senior Congress leader’ Sharad Pawar, bearded trampoline Prannoy Roy and a whole litany of non-Prannoy Roys, none of whom had fled the nest yet. As the votes came in, initial projections told us that – as expected – no party or coalition had a clear majority. As per its senior leader in the studio, the Congress was still intent on keeping the BJP out of power. When asked by one of the non-Prannoys how they would manage that, Pawar said that they would try to kiss and make up with the United Front. This shocked the non-Prannoy, who spent the next hour expressing his shock that the Congress was ready to prop up the same government that it had withdrawn support from twice in the last one year. It was ready to return to the status quo after foistering an expensive mid-term poll on the taxpayers. A political party playing politics! When did that start happening, the non-Prannoy wondered out loud.

This same naiveté was on display recently when we were informed that voter disenfranchisement enthusiast, Subramanian Swamy, was merging his one man party with the BJP. Because if there is one thing that the BJP needs, it’s another megalomaniac bigot who desperately wants to be Prime Minister. While scary music played over a montage of Swamy meeting and posing with various BJP leaders, questions were raised about how this came about. Wasn’t this the same guy who until a few years ago was the mortal enemy of one of the BJP’s tallest leaders? Didn’t he engineer the downfall of the first NDA government? All the Prannoys and non-Prannoys were shocked! Even though anyone who wasn’t in a coma would have seen this coming, the people whose job is to know things were dumbfounded.

Mortal enemies becoming best friends or best friends becoming mortal enemies is something that happens very often in Indian politics. As one irritating non-Prannoy never fails to remind us, a week is a long time in Indian politics. That is why our politicians’ favourite parlour game is ‘Six Degrees of Ajit Singh.’ The current civil aviation and the human embodiment of everything that is wrong with Indian politics has been in more parties than Suhel Seth at New Year’s eve. Almost every party or politician has been in an alliance with him at some stage in the past few decades. It’s sort of a rite of passage in Indian politics! Everybody has a mind-numbing, terrible, Ajit Singh anecdote. 

Political parties usually discover how horrible their former ally is as soon as they end their alliance. Like when the Trinamool Congress found out that the UPA is corrupt the day after they withdrew support. Or the current exchange of rhetoric between the BJP and the JD(U). Suddenly, the JD(U) finds the BJP communal and the BJP finds the JD(U) incompetent! You know what they say, keep your friends close for seventeen years and have no compunction in taking support from your enemies. Mulayam Singh Yadav never fails to remind people that the Congress party is a parasite on the Indian polity whose only purpose is its own sustenance. Yet, the Samajwadi Party is always the one to pull the UPA out of its self-made rubble. After the last general election, a humbled Mayawati declared her party’s support for the UPA, a year after trying to topple it to make herself the Prime Minister. Since our political parties don’t really have an ideology, they have no qualms in aligning with whoever gives them the best deal. 

Most of our politicians would like you to forget about the past. Smriti Irani once threatened to go on a ‘fast unto death’ if Modi didn’t resign but now she is one of his trusted lieutenants. Najma Heputulla found the BJP ‘politically acceptable’ and ‘totally secular’ when she figured the Congress wouldn’t be nominating her for another term in the Rajya Sabha. Buta Singh has been a minister in both Congress-led and BJP-led governments, but would like you to most remember him for being “Rajiv Gandhi’s #2,” according to whichever lowly intern was paid to edit his wikipedia page.

However, since August is now ‘Anna Hazare awareness month,’ it’s fitting that this week’s award for the most hilarious incident of hypocrisy goes to the un-caped anti-corruption crusader. Hazare, known hater of western ideas is now heading on an American junket. He is scheduled to ring the bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange. Apparently, the best way to fight corruption is letting yourself be used as a prop at the ground zero of crony capitalism. Looks like all that fasting made Ralegan Siddhi’s worst nightmare quite irony deficient.

As he felt the wheels of the plane touching the ground, Anna Hazare took off his ‘gandhi topi’ and put it in his bag. He wouldn’t need it for the next few days. Finally, he was going to be able to fulfil his childhood dream. He never imagined that he could ever travel to America. So he pretended to hate it. Now that he was here, he could live his life. Be himself, without being judged for it. All he wants to do is get a drink, find a nice lady to dance with and then take her to his hotel room. For how long has he denied himself these simple pleasures just because he was expected to? All that ends today! He could do anything here! And he wouldn’t need to explain his actions to anyone. “Whatever happens in America, stays in America,” he happily mumbled to himself. He felt his heart would burst with joy. Which was new to him, because since 1942, the only emotion he’d allowed himself to feel was acute misery. Seems like Christmas was going to be a little early this year.

Will the last person in India to get the death penalty remember to switch off the lights?

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

If you were to describe the love-hate relationship between India and China to a teenager with a short attention span (are there any other kind?) (No, I have nothing against teenagers! In fact, some of my best friends still act like one), you’d probably use the phrase ‘it’s complicated.’ We hate them for their belligerence, their efficiency and the amount of control the government has over the people. And we love them for their belligerence, their efficiency and the amount of control the government has over the people.

That’s right. We subconsciously admire them for the things we’re supposed to hate them for.

We might not like it whenever some of their troops defy the ‘sanctity’ of the border and cross over to our side making us resort to sly tactics like feeding them Chicken Manchurian or getting Aamir Khan and a bunch of rag-tag farmers to challenge them to a cricket match to get them to leave; but that is exactly what we’d like to do to our less powerful neighbours. If Pakistan didn’t have crazy leaders salivating to explode a nuclear weapon or Nepal didn’t have so many people watching the border or Bangladesh didn’t promise to send a million undocumented immigrants for every soldier that crosses over or Bhutan wasn’t so darn cute with its pointy roofs and that silly ‘happiness index,’ we’d be ‘peacefully invading’ them every now & then to ‘protect our interests.’

We get irritated when the Chinese flood our markets with their cheap products, but we really want to import their work ethic. Not that working conditions in this country are anything to boast about. Even in the worker’s paradise of Paschim Banga – where each child is legally obligated to be baptized in a cauldron full of communist dogma – the plight of the little guy is not something that many people lose sleep over. Hey, in China, even toddlers have a sixty hour work week. Do you really want us to be left behind?

And of course, there is the monitoring of all communication platforms and thought control which they do really well. Our ruling elite would like to order more portions of that, please. All they’re asking is that you give them a chance by not saying anything too critical about them in a public forum, no matter how truthful it is. Just stopping people from being a tattle tale, nothing else to see here! No one likes a snitch!

Recently, a ‘court’ in China sentenced their former railway minister to death. This was greeted with a lot of cheer in India. Most people must have been watching this episode of ‘Extreme Justice’ on a non-Onida device because they had a sudden relapse of neighbour’s envy. Why can’t we have laws like that? All we have to do is hold a session of a kangaroo court, find a scapegoat and give them a harsh sentence. Even if everyone else who was involved will be automatically exonerated, at least there will be some semblance of justice!

There seems to be a new found fondness for death penalty in this country. It has become a very popular solution for literally every problem. People are still wearing jeans made of corduroy? Kill them with the same cruelty that is usually reserved for a character in a George RR Martin novel.

This is a slippery slope. If we’re killing people who are corrupt, what about people who encourage them by acceding to their demands? If we start handing out the death penalty for every crime, then we’re all going to be dead soon. Will the last remaining person in India to be put on death row remember to switch off the lights? Look, there are other, much harsher forms of punishment that can be used to deter crime. For example: one way to punish the corrupt is to get them to spend as much time as it takes to get some sort of productive output from a government department without either threatening or bribing an employee.

We’ve even become okay with extra judicial killings by the police. Hey, that’s the world we live in! Those criminals don’t follow any laws, so why should we? The laws giving every accused their day in court are to make sure that the innocent are not punished for crimes they did not commit. Even though a lot of our serious criminals are able to manipulate the system and get away, we cannot solve our law and order problems by giving people the right to kill their fellow citizens as they deem fit. Shoot first and talk later is not how a country which values its laws is supposed to behave. We don’t live in a Bruce Willis movie. The laws that give even terrorists a set of rights are not there to protect them. They’re there to protect us, so that we don’t turn into them.

Remember that whole constitution ‘thingy’ that was made after a whole bunch of people spent over a hundred years fighting for our freedom so that things like arbitrarily killing people for perceived crimes against the state wouldn’t happen?

Yeah, we got rid of that. It was too tiresome!

Instead, we replaced it with a cheap imitation that was made in China.

Some Things Never Change

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

A long, long time ago, back in 2007, things were very different. The BJP was promising to provide strong, decisive leadership as the alternate to a UPA government riddled with coalition blues and governance problems. The American President was being criticized for illegally wiretapping American citizens while Hillary Clinton was expected to win the next Presidential election. Kevin Rudd wrested the office of the Prime Minister from an unpopular incumbent. Britain was being led by a slimy, unpopular Murdoch crony. And the world of cricket was hit with a betting scandal and administrators swore that something like that would never happen again.

Let’s not forget that it was also the year when wall street brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse. The resulting economic backlash was so bad that most countries are still feeling the after-effects of that tsunami. One would imagine that people who screwed up so royally that we were on the verge of re-establishing the barter system as the standard for exchange of goods and services would have stopped to consider the suffering their actions wrought upon the world and would try not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Seems like the perfect opportunity for people’s elected representatives and enforcement officials to make themselves useful and constitute and enforce laws that would make it impossible for the viability of every currency note in the world to depend upon the ability of recovering addict and extraordinary air guitarist Jimmy Ray Jones from Bumf**k, Idaho to fulfil his financial obligations.

“LOL.” If you believe that there is even a remote possibility of something like that happening, then you must still believe in the existence of Santa Claus, millionaire sons of deposed Nigerian princes and Clint Eastwood. Not only have the people responsible for the worst stock market crash since the great depression escaped punishment with a strongly worded gesture, but they continue to do business the same way as before.

In this fortnight’s Rolling Stone, journalist Matt Taibbi revealed how the ratings agencies who played a major part in ushering the crash by providing whatever ratings the offending banks wanted for their financial instruments – most of which they filled with junk investments - in lieu of money. Proving, yet again, that the global finance industry is one huge circle-jerk between the bankers, the people who’re supposed to regulate them, the ‘industry experts’ and the rating agencies.

In the report, many current and former employees of the rating agencies have gone on record - in depositions and/or emails obtained by the magazine - to admit that they were basically making up the numbers so as to be able to provide their clients with whatever rating they preferred for their financial instruments. That’s because they make most of their money from the companies who sell these instruments. That’s like asking students to mark their own exam sheet. Yet, these very agencies like to dictate the economic policies of governments around the world. Comply with what we say or your sovereign rating gets it. Talk about the emperor having no clothes!

These are the charlatans that the people elected to make economic decisions on our behalf seek validation from. I’m just spit-balling here, but maybe it isn’t a good idea to subjugate your country’s economic policies to the whims and fancies of an agency which gave its highest honour (an AAA rating) to a bank whose collapse one month later wiped out about five trillion dollars from the global economy?

In fact, the people running our economy keep harping about achieving eight percent growth, a claim that is as fraudulent as a report by an analyst working for a ratings agency. But they keep pretending that it’s the only solution to all our problems. A little blue pill that will stir our impotent economy back into action. Although, to be fair, if your economic growth lasts for more than four hours, you don’t need to call a doctor.

Economic theory suggests that the ‘invisible hand of the market’ always brings about a happy ending by balancing things out. That hand is now a hundred percent subsidiary of wall street.

And if you look carefully, it’s giving you the finger.

Your Call Is Important To Us

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

It was one of those weeks when the bad news just wouldn’t stop. However, one major event weighed heavily on everyone’s mind and ended up overshadowing everything else. An event which-years from now-will be considered the final nail in the coffin of life as we currently know it. An event which will be remembered as the starting point of the sordid state our future lives will be in. We are now marching towards the sort of nightmarish existence that all of our favourite ‘dystopian lit’ authors warned us about. The die has been cast, all the ducks are in a row and tyranny is knocking on our doorsteps. But enough about the elevation of Narendra Modi as his party’s campaign chief.

Earlier this week, whistleblower Edward Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald-confirming a lot of people’s vague suspicions and breathing life into a thousand conspiracy theories-released documents which revealed how deep the tentacles of the secret intelligence agencies of the US government are embedded inside the global communication system. They ‘allegedly’ monitor every text, every email, every chat, every phone call, every tweet, every ‘like’ on Facebook, every to-do list, every post-it note, every game of scrabble and every entry in your journal. (Even the ones that come with a lock. All the government wants to know is why you would not want to share your most personal, darkest, and most revolting thoughts with the rest of the world. What are you, an enemy of the state?)

The only groups of people rejoicing this news are (a) lonely people who finally have someone who is listening to them all the time and (b) the sycophants of the surveillance state. The people belonging to the second group are always excusing the government’s violation of citizens’ privacy with “if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t be worried.” But then these people never practice what they preach and don’t make all their personal information available publicly. WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?

Monitoring every activity of every citizen does not make us safer; it makes us more vulnerable. You may think you’re doing nothing wrong right now, but what happens when the state decides that something you do every day is now illegal or equivalent to treason. For example, what if they made googling “UPA Government + Achievements” a punishable offence? (Though the joke would be on them because they don’t have any, unless you consider ‘giving Manmohan Singh an ulcer’ an achievement). Binayek Sen was jailed by the Chhattisgarh government for possessing reading materials that were considered ‘sympathetic’ to the naxalite cause. In Iran in 2009, the government arrested, jailed and tortured thousands of protestors belonging to the Green Movement on the basis of their internet activity and GPS data placing them at the scene of the protests.

No politician or bureaucrat goes around wearing a “lose your freedom now, ask me how” button. Allowing a government to put their citizens under surveillance without any oversight will never end well. All the information they possess can and will be used against you. Being able to keep tabs on every movement of their citizens is the wet dream of most governments. Once you start giving up your freedom, there is no limit to what can be taken away in the name of ‘national security.’

Even the Indian government is working on a central control system which will be able to monitor its citizen’s activities across all communication networks. People who can’t get their shit together to make a website strong enough to let more than one person book a train ticket at a time are going to keep track of all our personal information. It’s totally not going to be misused because if there is one thing government departments in India are known for, it’s their ability to keep important information secure! Somewhere outside the big government office in the sky, standing in a line waiting for lunch break to be over, a dozen RTI activists are nodding in agreement.

As the leaked documents show, the NSA doesn’t even have to go through the formality of seeking a court order to access anyone’s personal information. They don’t even have to ask or inform the service provider because they have direct access to their systems. And they can do that for people who they don’t even suspect of any wrongdoing.

This march, the NSA collected ninety seven billion pieces of evidence from computer networks worldwide, six billion of those gathered from India.

We’re all now citizens of the surveillance state. Being a terrorist until proven innocent is the new normal

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

How to Win Fake Friends and Pretend to Influence People

Welcome to Mindfest ThinkPalooza 2013! Today’s sessions include ‘Did we Really Pay a Hundred Thousand Dollars for This’ with Sarah Palin; followed by ‘If We Say Eight Percent Growth Enough Times it Will Magically Come True’ with Economic Einstein Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Tomorrow morning, we discuss ‘Banal Delusions of Grandeur’ with Shah Rukh Khan. We end our exciting weekend with a speech by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi titled ‘Is That a Riot in Your Pants or Are You Just Development to See Me?’

Recently, Kapil Sibal, our Union Minister of making-Chidambram-look-less-douchey-in-comparison gave a speech at a public forum. In his address, he said that the government shouldn’t be blamed for all the problems that plague the government. He then referred to himself as a poet. Even though Kapil Sibal is a poet like Uday Chopra is an actor, no one in the audience objected to this assertion because it’s cruel to contradict the self-deception of the elderly. After the speech, Sibal turned into a bat and flew back to his lair on a remote island in the Arabian Sea.

Our patron saint of cultivating eyebrows using pubic hair was speaking at something called ‘adda.’ It was one of those conferences organized by news organizations to create a ‘buzz’ about their ‘brand.’ They could commit actual journalism to achieve the same result without spending so much money, however, that would mean losing this huge opportunity to get together with their peers to get drunk and gossip ‘ideate’ and ‘strategize.’  

Thinkfluence this! Hosted by people who like to think that they’re influential and attended by people who take themselves way too seriously, these conferences are full of Very Solemn People who have Come Together to Deliberate on and Solve All The Issues Plaguing the World Today. You can determine each forum’s degree of uselessness by the amount of fancy corporate jargon contained in their title. Whether it’s a ‘conclave’ or a ‘thinkfest’ or an ‘ideas festival’, these conferences have become an unintentional parody of each other.

As seen on teevee! These conferences are what would happen if all the usual busybodies populating our news shows go on tour. It’s the same trite panel discussions, except with tepid applause. Even their structure is the same! You get one session with whoever is the fascination of that week’s newscycle. One session with a bollywood ‘star’ not  currently shooting a movie, one session with whichever Indian politician is not involved in a scam that week, and one session with war criminal Pervez Musharraf, whose knack of showing up at places where he isn’t wanted never seems to fail him. There also has to be an appearance by at least one American guest, so as to lend the conference the ‘respectability’ it so desperately seeks.

Some of my best friends are rich and famous! Now, the purpose of the sessions is not to ask any hard questions, because then the guests will stop showing up. The real purpose is to make the proprietors of the news organization or their editors feel important. So most of the sessions end up being nothing more than an exercise in stroking egos. Real questions are for people who don’t accept invitations to your dinner party.

My question is more of a statement. However, the most hilarious/awkward moments of these conferences happen when, after a session, the moderator invites questions from the audience. We’re one of the few countries where audience members asking questions have to be told that they shouldn’t use their time with the microphone to go off on a large rant. Most of the time the moderator has to interrupt the audience member trying to hijack his Q&A session and then try his best to translate whatever froth the person spewed into a coherent question. And when they’re lucky enough to get an actual question, it’s usually something the moderator and his guest have already answered. That’s because members of the audience have spent the weeks leading up to the event figuring out – what they think – is a clever question to ask, and they’re not going to let all their hard work go to waste by trying to come up with something more relevant.

If only there was some sort of event or venue where all of us could get together to discuss this and find a solution.

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

In God We Trust

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

There was once a young man called Sree,
Who wanted a lot of money for free,
He thought it was novel,
To fix a match using a towel,
But he was caught by the police before he could flee.

Last week, as the outrage cycle around the latest IPL scandal gathered steam, the match broadcast was eerily calm about the most popular breaking news of the day. For the commentators it was business as usual. There was no acknowledgment of the fact that someone they considered ‘one of their own’ had betrayed the very principles they purport to stand for. There was so much denial in that stadium that one expected the commentators to pay tribute to the glorious principles of the Juche republic. The only indication that something was amiss came when the camera spotted a young Aditya Pancholi flying over the pitch in a helicopter.

However, outside the stadium, almost everyone with a soapbox was having a staggering meltdown of epic proportions. While news channels called upon a veritable who’s who of who cares to bloviate, print magazines and websites were commissioning pieces in which the writer gave voice to the anguish they felt at such horrendous treachery. And some people on social media were shocked – shocked! – that an activity in India involving billions of dollars was embroiled in corruption.

This is sort of scandal everybody loves! The politicians got to rail against corruption and crony capitalism, the very systems that they derive their power from. The Delhi Police looks good because instead of holding a press conference to provide justification for trampling on someone’s fundamental rights, they’re holding one to announce something they’ve managed to accomplish. Hell, even the Mumbai Police got a piece of the action when they took a break from crashing private parties to actually arresting someone remotely related to criminal activity. And news organizations got someone new to throw under the bus. Someone who not only seems guilty enough but is also powerless to actually make them pay for their supposed ‘transgression.’ Welcome to the national orgy of ecstatic sanctimony. Angry people get in for free.

So now that we know that our police can follow the trail of illicit money and actually catch people, we should get them to use their superpowers for good - like arresting some of the big ‘kingpins’ who’re responsible for serious violations of the law. Maybe even a couple of people in positions of power who use our social resources for their own personal benefit, to begin with. They don’t have to try very hard to find these criminals. According to an unconfirmed survey by the Ministry of Statistics, every two seconds, a new scam is born in India. 

Let’s also stop pretending that participating in a sport is a noble pursuit that remains untouched by the corruption, deceit, double-dealing, dishonesty and trickery that exists in the world?  If you believe that, you probably also believe that all those businessmen who spent so much money to get elected President of the BCCI did so because they love the game. They don’t expect to profit from that position at all. “Surely.” I mean, they’re highly successful people who have amassed large amounts of wealth. What do they know about making money, anyway?

There are more cricket channels in India than the number of times Vijay Mallaya has hit on his team’s cheerleaders. If you get the five asshole kids from your neighbourhood to play a match on teevee, some fans will even watch that. However, most sports fans are addicted to the narrative. To them, a match means more than just a match; it’s an allegory for the human condition. It’s where mortals turn into gods, villains get their comeuppance, and the underdog comes out on top. It’s where miracles happen. If you remove the narrative around the sport, then it’s just a bunch of people standing around, throwing a ball to each other, following some arbitrary rules someone made up hundreds of years ago.

So when something punctures this romantic bubble that sports fans live in, they tend to take the betrayal personally. We want our sports competitions to have a picture perfect ending. And yet, we don’t realize that without these ‘outside influences,’ we’re not going to get one. There is no cancer-surviving seven time Tour De France champion without the steroids. There is no Tiger Woods without the sex addiction. And there is no ‘poetic finish to a great day of cricket’ without the betting.

The IPL is sports distilled down to its basic purpose: to make money. It’s a huge payday for everyone involved! People don’t play well because of idealistic notions like “team spirit” or “for the love of the game.” They play well because that gives them more money.  They play well because they want to be able to sell you fizzy drinks, washing machines, luxury sedans, potato chips, underwear and energy bars.

After this scandal broke, there were a few fans protesting outside stadiums hosting IPL matches, asking for a ban on the tournament. One of the banners they were holding said that cricket was their religion. 

Perhaps it’s time for these devotees to learn that even gods aren’t infallible.

Hallelujah!

How to Survive Result Season

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

In a few days, as we finally say goodbye to angsty April and waddle into marshy May, we will be reminded why May is one of the most important months in the children’s calendar. While for most of them it is the beginning of the summer vacation - a lovely time which they make forced memories of happy times with their families by heading out to overcrowded vacation spots full of other families wanting to make forced memories - for some it is the month of nervousness and anticipation.

That’s because in May the board exam results are announced. For some students it’s a culmination of years of hard work. A moment in time, which if goes their way, would vindicate all the sacrifices they’ve had to make since they were nothing but a mere twinkle in their parent’s eyes. For others, it’s an indication that getting a decent result by pulling an all-nighter is a metaphor for the rest of your life. A life which you will spend ignoring that pesky voice in your head which fruitlessly keeps asking you to stop procrastinating. Now, since we once skimmed through a book in which a minor character was a child psychologist, we feel that we are qualified enough to offer our counsel to all our young friends out there to help them cope with the aftermath of such a game-changing life event. (We call them ‘friends’ because that makes it easier to speak to them in a condescending tone. You see, that’s how we old people talk. We also answer every question about our age by saying I am __ years young in a faux-inspirational voice.  We even use the plural ‘we’ to refer to ourselves. Why do we do that, you ask? Simple! Because we’re a terrible person! As you kids say, Like duh.) Also, since we don’t know how to communicate with teenagers because the present lot of them seem to suffer from some sort of a mystery ailment that makes them talk and write without using any vowels, we’re hoping that one of our kind readers would translate this article into teenager-friendly things like a “facebook status update” or a “sext.”

Now, kids, the most important thing to remember is that your board exams do not define you. They do not decide the trajectory of your life. One of the objective of a well rounded education is to make you try a lot of things to find out what you really want to do in life. “LOL j/k.” Kidding! Your board exams results are the most important thing that will happen in your life. They are the only thing that will determine how successful you will be in the future. They are so important, that years from now when you’re old and haggard, and your half human/half-Pandorian grandchild asks you why you and the rest of your family are not allowed to enter the ‘gangnam galaxy,’ you will have to tell him that it happened because you weren’t successful enough and that this downward spiral started when you only scored a measly 95% in your board exams. His innocence shattered, he will look at you with disgust as you hang your head in shame and drown yourself in a puddle of sadness and humiliation.

The best course of action is to just follow the path your parents want you to walk on. This way, you don’t have to take any personal responsibility for your own actions and can spend the rest of your life being resentful towards them. Also, by pretending to be the sort of person who “obeys” his parents, you’re automatically set for the road to sainthood. In this country, the sort of children who cannot think for themselves and blindly do everything their elders tell them to are every parent’s dream accessory. Other parents will cite you as an example for their children to emulate. People will assume that you’re an honest and trustworthy person, for some reason. And once your parents decide that you’re old enough to make a lifelong commitment to a random stranger of their choice, your stock in the ‘arranged marriage’ market will be higher than Microsoft in the 1990’s. 

If you get good grades then you’re in for a lifetime of success! All you have to do is continue the same routine you had before. Just spend all your time working. You can sleep when you’re dead! And keep fooling yourself into believing that this is only temporary and that you will finally be able to really start living once you reach your goal because you will keep shifting the goalposts. And then, in a blink of an eye, ten years will have passed and one lonely Saturday night when you’ve finished work early and have had too much to drink, you’ll let your mind travel to that dark place where you finally ask yourself whether it was worth it. But nothing will come out of it because even though you know the answer to that question, you’re too much of a coward to actually do something about it and on Monday morning everything will go back to normal.

Hope that helps!

It’s Not Twitter Wot Won It

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

While ‘the nation’ sweltered in the blistering summer, its political establishment used this opportunity to remind its citizens that mother nature’s wrath pales in comparison to the mind-numbing torture that is going to be the slow trundle towards the General Election from Hell by having its two top dogs give duelling speeches. The nation lay divided, forced to pick a side. Would they choose the frog who might one day turn into a handsome prince? Or would they choose the hare who assumes that he has won the race even before it has begun?

Nobody really knows what is going to happen but that hasn’t stopped those brave men and women who weather the blowing winds of common sense everyday to bring you fake narratives that have no basis in reality from making predictions about the outcome. Those heroes who have never been right about anything, ever. There are no words that can describe their contribution to the public welfare. To a country plagued by unending problems, they continue to be an unintentional source of hilarity. You find these legends everywhere! They’re the ones shouting at each other on teevee. They’re the ones writing columns in language so archaic that Macaulay would be proud. They’re the ones voluntarily submitting themselves to receiving a hundred metaphorical lashes from the internet by writing a post explaining their hypothesis.

On each of the days the frog and the hare were giving a speech, the fans and paid sycophants belonging to the opposition managed to get a hashtag mocking them to trend on twitter. (I use the word ‘mocking’ very loosely here. The kind of people that were posting tweets using either of the hashtags are an embarrassment to humanity.) So, naturally, it somehow became conventional wisdom that whoever wins the hashtag war (yes, that’s what they’re calling it) on twitter is going to win the General Election from Hell. There were actual human adults who are paid for providing information to the public taking this argument seriously.

I am old enough to remember when a twitter outrage cycle used to take a week before it reached the mainstream media. Now, it’s all over the news cycle in a couple of hours. That’s because twitter helps news organizations to find a great substitute for an actual issue without leaving their desk. Take that, people going to remote locations to gather information. .

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love twitter! It’s one of the good things about the internet. Some of my best friends are twitter users! It’s really great for having funny conversations, getting to know like minded people and finding out the best place to have brunch in Zanzibar. It also enables a person to cocoon themselves from contrary opinion. When you only follow people who are like you or agree with you most of the time, it becomes easy to believe that everybody is concerned about the same things you are. However, at any given moment, there are more people on twitter not giving a rat’s ass about issues closest to your heart. If you think that twitter has any impact on the real world, then you need to go out and speak to an actual human. (Though I wouldn’t recommend it. Did you know you cannot even re-tweet or favourite things that you say in real life? How crude! Human interaction is the worst.)

If anybody with a large number of followers thinks that it actually matters, then please note that Nirupama Rao, India’s Ambassador to the US, has more than a hundred thousand followers and her twitter feed is basically links to articles everybody else on the internet read two weeks ago and sepia toned photos of her travels (no, she doesn’t actually need to use any filters. She’s so boring that all her photographs look like they were taken with a box camera and took a month to develop). Our minister of re-tweeting compliments, Shashi Tharoor, has more than a million. And the worst thing to happen to the memory of Anne Frank, Justin Beiber, has more twitter followers than the population of Canada.

Maybe the backlash to such useless discussions will finally reach the ears of the people that run news organizations in this country. Maybe they’ll realize the error of their ways. Maybe it will dawn on them that they don’t have to be stuck in this circle of banality forever. Maybe they’ll figure out that they do not have to spend the rest of their lives being party to the extended foreplay between Swapan Dasgupta and Mani Shankar Aiyar. Maybe this time, when they ask the question, Did we pay too much undeserved attention to social media?, they will actually mean it. Maybe for one brief moment, they will look the viewer in the eye and do something unheard of: report the news.

Or maybe, they could just have another panel discussion.

Whatever.

Hatch Your Own Chickens: How to be a Management Guru

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

A lot of the problems in our country are rooted in the fact that there is a distinct lack of people who consider it their duty to give other people any advice. Specifically, there is a dearth of self-proclaimed experts spouting vague principles of management. Since exam season is upon us and soon many students will be embarking upon a career their parents chose for them the day they were born, we thought we’d do some ‘career counselling’ and educate our young readers on some lucrative opportunities.  

Now, before we begin, ask yourself the following questions: Do you enjoy talking about nothing in particular for long periods of time? Do you pretend to hear what someone else is saying but don’t listen? Do you generally conflate ‘being an asshole’ with ‘being an excellent leader’? Do you think you’re always right about everything?  Do you think that someone should pay you just for existing as a life form? 

If your answer to all of the above questions is a resounding “YES!”, then congratulations, you’re ready to be a management guru!

You must be wondering why the use of the word ‘guru.’ Well, that’s because both religion and management have the same goal: Fooling the maximum amount of people into believing in the existence of a benevolent higher power by making them follow an arbitrary set of rules so as to use their subservience for your own benefit.

The first thing you need to do before you even begin to look for clients, is to fix your appearance. You must appear to be successful, even if you haven’t achieved any success yet. ‘Corporate honchos’ will only take you seriously if they feel like you don’t need the job. The first rule of management is that anybody who actually needs a job is probably not good at it. You must also appear to have no time to take on new projects. For example, hire an assistant who will keep calling you to connect you to a ‘client’ in Tokyo. It’s important to have fake clients in Tokyo because people imagine that if someone in Japan would hire you, then you must be really good. And it should only be Tokyo because people will be suspicious if your fake client exists in a city they haven’t heard of.

The second step is to get a shtick. You don’t want to just talk about the principles of management. That’s boring and quite commonplace.  You’re a guru. You need something more memorable. The best way to do that is to connect management principles to something from the past. It can be a holy book, a political treatise, a novel or even a person. It doesn’t matter! Though you must ensure that whatever you’re going to “re-interpret” should be old enough so that neither is its original author around to counter any of your claims nor do many people living in the present know anything about it. It should require more than a cursory google search to counter whatever you’re saying. Most people will accept your version of the truth anyway because they would consider you to be an expert in such subjects. People will treat you like a genius if you tell them the real reason behind a historical event. Do you remember when Gandhi led the salt march because the regulatory policies of the British were stifling the margins of the Indian salt industry, turning their EBITDA negative and sinking the value of their stock? Hey, if it sounds real, it’s probably true, right?

It’s also quite advantageous to usurp something from the past and use it as your ‘theme’ because people love to - in any way possible - be part of what they imagine must have been a glorious time to exist in. And, anything really, can be re-interpreted in any way you want. What the Mahabharatha teaches us about management: (1) Always keep your eye on the battle (2) Half-truths don’t hurt anyone as long as they help you achieve the organizational goals and (3) Different departments can share a single resource. Having a theme for your work will also help you transition to becoming someone who is ‘internationally renowned.’ It should be weird enough for you to get an invitation to speak at a TED conference and marketable enough for your eventual book deal.

Another important step is to make sure the management techniques you plan to evangelize subvert previously established jargon. With great responsibility, comes great power. Don’t just think outside the box, invert it! However, each management guru must be careful not to repudiate any theories that other management gurus have proposed. We’re all in this together. Even if you hate someone, find at least one good thing to say about them. For example, every few months, some foreign newspaper or magazine does an article on how Mein Kampf is a permanent fixture on India’s best-seller lists. If they call you for a response, don’t say that this is outrageous and is the equivalent of Winston Churchill's Honey I Shrunk the Population of Bengal being a bestseller in Germany. Instead, mention that the book is a great manual of management techniques and except for the horrible genocide, Adolf Hitler doesn’t sound that bad.

Remember, it’s a Rich Dad eat Poor Dad world.

We just live in it.

Goodbye Privacy; We Hardly Knew Ye

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Recently, internet overlord google announced that its going to allow a lucky few the privilege of paying fifteen hundred dollars to be able to get their hands on a pair of google glasses, as long as they write a fifty word essay - encapsulating their desperation for owning something no one else has - in fancy jargon. That’s because a new device isn’t “in demand” or “cutting edge” enough unless it’s creators treat potential customers like an abusive spouse treats their victim. You’ll never be good enough, y’hear? I don’t know what’s worse: that there are people willing to debase themselves to receive the momentary validation of owning the next big thing or that a fifty word paragraph is now considered an essay? Somewhere in hell, my third grade English teacher is shaking her head in horrid disapproval. (I assume that she’s in hell because she never returned any pen she ‘borrowed’ and dead because she’s not on Facebook). 

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about because you get all your tech news from that studious cousin who helped create your email account, google glasses are like normal glasses except they can do everything your smartphone can do. Like make calls, reply to instant messages and tweet sepia-toned pictures of your food. In a few years, all those douchebags who have loud conversations in public because they insist on wearing a bluetooth headset everywhere they go will be replaced by assholes shouting things at their glasses because the damn thing won’t understand their fake accent 

I bet everyone is looking forward to using another device which you can buy but not own because for you to be able to use it to its full potential you need to provide its manufacturer with your personal information. What other choice do we have, really? Not use a device? Pffft! Send an ‘inland letter’ instead of an email? Too slow! Learn to write on paper? Whatever, grandpa. If you can’t trust a huge corporation bent upon monetizing every moment of your existence then who can you trust?

Not wanting to be left behind, our governments are also coming up with new ways to keep tabs on the public. For example,  one of the world’s largest defence contractor in conjunction with the US government has developed a new software that can gather and analyze all the information about a target from every social networking website in a matter of minutes. The software is sophisticated enough to help its user(s) gather detailed information about the person they’re spying on. They can know who their target’s friends are, the places they frequent, photographic evidence which places them at a particular spot at a specific point of time and the amount of sugar they like in their coffee. But that’s okay, because they’re only going to make us safer, aren’t they? It’s not like they will misuse their access! When has anyone in government ever used their position for their personal benefit? You worry too much!

If we were living in an 80’s dystopian movie, this would be the point at which Arnold Schwarzenegger would finally discover what was really going on and would have to kill a large number of people and destroy a couple of big warehouses to save the world from the Orwellian hell it had wrought upon itself.

We teach our young not to talk to strangers on the street but don’t even think twice about giving up our personal information to someone on the internet. Networks get hacked; storage devices get lost and every embarrassing photograph is ‘two degrees’ away from being turned into a meme.

And google glasses make it easier to invade another person’s privacy. Now you don’t even need to tell anyone that your glasses are instantly broadcasting everything to the internet. Who needs permission when you can share pictures of that weird couple by the bar with ten thousand of your closest friends?

In the future, everyone will have their fifteen minutes of being mocked by the internet. One day you crash a party full off college kids and someone takes a picture of you trying to recapture the glory of your younger days by butt chugging a keg of beer and instantly uploads it to Facebook where a large number of websites pick it up and every low-life on the internet tries to make themselves famous at your expense.  By the next morning, you lose your job because you told your boss that you had to leave work early to visit your sick grandmother, your girlfriend breaks up with you because no one wants to associate with a global laughing stock and the police arrest you for lewd public behaviour while every sanctimonious anchor on teevee tut-tuts at your plight.

Now please excuse me as a large man with a pronounced Austrian accent who broke down my door just told me to get to the chopper.

Three Cups of Shut the Fuck Up

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Every morning, when I am woken up by the sweet chirping of birds outside my window, I look at them and shake my head in faux anger while trying to suppress a smile. Then I go outside and feed them and refill the trough of clean water I put outside for them to drink from. This wonderful morning routine really puts me in a good mood and I wave to all the morning walkers passing by my house. Some stop to have a fun chat while those in a hurry wave back and make a promise to catch up later. I even smile at a stranger, because, maybe a smile makes their day, causing them to forget whatever is stressing them out for a minute and they go home happy. They say nice things to their spouse and give their kids a hug. Their kids go to school in a good mood feeling loved and wanted and don’t feel the need to bully their weaker peers. This fosters an environment of tolerance and acceptance and all those children grow up with a sense of self respect and a healthy attitude towards life. And two hundred years later we’ll be able to achieve world peace because one fine morning, on a whim, I smiled at a stranger. Is there anything more empowering than that?

No, don’t worry. I didn’t fall into a cauldron of self-help books when I was a child. Recently, many people with ‘inspirational’ stories have been exposed as frauds. So I thought I’d capitalize on the void left by these charlatans by making up and selling some ‘inspirational stories’ of my own. If you can keep a secret, let me tell you what really happens every morning: When the chirping from those birds wake me up, I drag  myself out of bed, pick up the gun lying on the side table and start shooting at those winged messengers of terror. Then I go outside to add more rat poison in the water I put out for the birds to drink in the vain hope of killing enough of them so that someday in the future I would be able to sleep through my hangover. Then I shout my favourite cuss words at all those idiots passing my house while on their morning walk. What sort of sociopath gets up early in the morning, voluntarily? It’s disgusting and unnatural! The worst people are those who smile at you for no reason whatsoever. Is there anything creepier than smiling at a stranger? When someone I don’t know smiles at me I curse them because I spend the rest of the day wondering what I did wrong to cause them such amusement. Do I still have shampoo on my hair? Do my socks not match? Is that spot on my shirt where I dropped gravy last week still visible to the human eye? Why couldn’t that hateful stranger just let us pass each other without trying to connect with another human? What part of ‘keep looking at your smartphone so that you don’t have to acknowledge other life forms in your vicinity’ is difficult to understand?

Don’t tell any of the rubes I’m trying to sell my untrue inspirational story to what I just said because they get really upset when the object of their inspiration does something they don’t agree with. In fact, they feel betrayed and outraged. How dare someone succumb to the human condition? Why wouldn’t people conform to the standards I set for them? If my heroes do drugs and/or kill their girlfriends, then what is the  hope for any of us?

The reason people buy into these stories is because they imagine that one day their life will take a similar turn. They’re going to make it big, too! However, it’s not just their own hubris that makes them think this way. We get them started on this slippery slope of magical thinking by  brainwashing them with lies from the time they are very young. We tell them that they can be anybody they want to. Just do your best and when you grow up you can achieve anything! Nobody tells those kids that by anything we mean that when they grow up, most of them will be doing a shitty job in a mediocre company with a salary that will always keep them in need of employment, making their daily commute seem worse than a one-way ride to a concentration camp. And this will be fate of the people who are lucky!

People like their inspiration to come in pre-packaged too-good-to-be-true stories. It’s not believable until it’s implausible. They don’t even realize that for every person who supposedly makes it, there are a thousand who don’t. The thousand that have to live with the harsh reality of having their dreams crushed and their reason of getting up every morning taken away from them, forever. The thousand who will spend the rest of their life in a zombie like stupor, feeling numb and broken, biding their time until they receive the sweet release of death.

What sort of monster finds that inspiring?

Not Until You Say Yes

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Usually, we like to be quite tolerant on these pages. Accepting everyone for who they are and all that jazz. However, we also feel that it’s also important to speak up against those people who cause harm to society, no matter what the repercussions. The people I’m referring to are everywhere. They're your friends. Or your co-workers. You could even be related to them, thanks to the unfortunate accident of birth. These people are very smart and shrewd. They don’t care about you; they only care about spreading their agenda and increasing their numbers. They want to make the rest of the world believe that theirs is the righteous path. These people start brainwashing you from the day you are born. And they don't leave you alone until you become one of them.

You see them everywhere. You read about them in books & magazines. Or see them on teevee. They even have their own genre of movies. They shamefully continue to wave their decadent lifestyle in your face, without any care in the world.

You know who I am talking about.

Married people.

People in this country are obsessed with weddings. If you’re not having one of your own, then you’re asking someone else to have one. If you’re a single person, the most frequent question you get asked is ‘When are you getting married?’ even though what they should actually be asking you is ‘Why does your breath smell of cheetos and sadness?’ or ‘Is that cat hair on your jacket?’. Why would presuming that you are entitled to weigh in on someone else’s important, life-changing decisions be out of place in a country where letting relationships progress naturally by passing through different levels of commitment before taking the big plunge is frowned upon whereas deciding to spend your whole life with someone you met only twice is considered an idea worth emulating?

Even fictional characters are constantly encouraged to get hitched. The best way to get a ratings bump on Indian teevee is to stage a wedding. A large number of our movies are centred around weddings using familiar tropes like two star-crossed lovers who are so right for each other but don’t realize that they should get married or feuding families who are brought together by their youngest members falling in love with each other and getting married or a couple pretending to be married for some other reason besides love slowly falling for each other and then finally getting married before the credits roll in.

There is no news more important than a celebrity. They sent one lonely reporter to cover the demonstrations in Egypt but each channel had about a dozen reporters covering the Abhi-Ash wedding. Not many kids can recall the name of the President but they can recite the guest list for Vidya Balan’s ‘sangeet’ from memory. And celebrities encourage this behaviour because their weddings are now supposed to be a profitable business venture. When Raj Kundra married Shilpa Shetty’s name recognition while she decided to go into ‘holy matrimony’ with his money, they sold each sordid detail of the event to the highest bidder. There is so much pre and post wedding analysis that even the third cousin of the wedding photographer gets his fifteen minutes.

Of course, nothing is worse than the actual wedding ceremony. Let’s call everyone we know and have them congratulate us on the fact that we're going to spend the rest of our forlorn miserable existence together in faux monogamy. It doesn’t matter that most of our guests don’t even like us because we really enjoy standing around for five hours thanking strangers for their insincere wishes and crappy gifts. I’m old enough to remember a time when the most exciting thing you could do at a wedding was have a server put a scoop of vanilla into your cola-like beverage. Then there was a time when paying actual actors to perform at your wedding was a thing. Nowadays, people have cut out the middlemen and the “happy” couple and their families perform awkward dance routines while the audiences look on in horror and schadenfreude. The performances are choreographed to classic bollywood songs most of which express such wonderful sentiment like the groom taking the bride home forcefully because loving someone means treating them like your property or letting the groom know that he’s going to spend the rest of his life being miserable under the hitler-esque rule of his bride.

If that’s not an auspicious way to start your new life, I don’t know what is.