You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Article Is About You

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As he switched off the teevee, he could see the sun rising from his window. However, today this view wouldn’t cheer him up. He had just watched the foreign policy debate between Obama and Romney and he was disappointed that India wasn’t even mentioned once. How many more times will he have to face such humiliation? He feels his country is just a dirty little secret for the President. He took billions of dollars of our hard-earned money and then totally forgot about us. Each time he ignores us, it’s a slap in the face of the awesome future we had planned together. How can you do that to us, Barry? How can you slap?

As a country full of people who need constant validation, it was no surprise that the main point of discussion after the Presidential debate broadcast was that no one mentioned India during the debate. We’re like that character in sitcom who only pays attention to what other people are saying only when they’re talking about him. Even though the debate revolved around which candidate would be more awesome at bombing more brown people, people were upset that no one gave us a shout-out. After all, we invented the zero, bhangra music and Anil Kapoor. Isn’t that reason enough for everyone to keep talking about us, all the time?

Our politicians, diplomats and journalists have a schizophrenic love/hate relationship with America and its President.

Our politicians love to blame the ‘ubiquitous’ foreign hand for everything they are unable to explain. A foreign hand is behind the grassroots protest against nuclear power. The foreign hand teaches people that Internet censorship is bad. The foreign hand is in your telephone, tapping all your calls. And yet, the very same people trample over each other to shake the foreign hand when he comes over for a visit.

Our diplomats carry around a secret boner for the Republicans. Especially for their knight in faux cowboy boots, George W.  Bush. Because he does things they have always wanted to do. He didn't worry about "global warming" or the "Geneva convention" or "International treaties"  and would bomb, whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted. So what if a lot of civilians died as collateral damage? Who has time to find out if they’re bombing the right target or invading the right country when they’re busy choking on a pretzel? Christopher Columbus took a wrong turn - because he was using Apple Maps for navigation - and look how well it turned out for him. Republicans are always good for India! Who even remembers the time a Republican Administration sent a battleship to the Bay of Bengal to try to intimidate India during the ‘71 war or the time when another Republican administration funded the start of Osama Bin Laden and his ‘Jihad Jamboree.’ And don’t forget that while the last Republican administration might have given billions of dollars to the architect of the Kargil invasion to go shopping for weapons, they probably never intended to start another arms-race.  

Our news anchors act like entitled fangirls. They’re quite brave when they’re shouting at the teevee screen but turn to an embarrassing pile of mush once they’re actually faced with a member of the American government. One news anchor even asked Hillary Clinton on her first visit to India as Secretary of State to affirm America’s ‘love’ for India? What are we, a geopolitical entity or a girl in a rom-com who is about to lose her virginity to the wrong guy? Our journalists’ creepy obsession with America isn’t just limited to having a love-hate relationship with their political system. Our domestic news is also framed in American terms. Every terrorist attack in the country is India’s ‘9/11.’ Every government scandal is India’s ‘watergate.’ Every award ceremony in the country is India’s version of the Oscars. Aamir Khan’s teevee show talks about social issues, so naturally, he is India’s Oprah. And India has had more versions of Obama than the population of Kenya.

Our politicians, South Block mandarins and news anchors forget that only British Prime Ministers are constitutionally obligated to have unrequited feelings for the American President.

And that they’re supposed to get over him once he leaves office.

He knows that one day, Barry will be his friend. Until then he will sing Barry Can You Hear Me/Barry Can You See Me to the moon every night. He can take solace in the fact that some time in the near future, we will take our rightful place, right next to America, and both of us together will heal the world and make it a better place for you and for me and the entire human race. One day Barry will come home. Until then he will do what he does best. After all, the nation deserves to know.

How Twitter changed my life!

On a fateful night two years ago I have absolutely no recollection of, I joined the “microblogging” site popularly referred to as Twitter. Little did I know that when I filled in that form with my details and clicked on “Create my Account”, my life would be changed forever.

Before I joined twitter, I was just like you. I foolishly thought that I had my life all figured out, thanks to the secret of life revealed to me in the book, The Secret. If all I had to do to make things happen was to WISH for them, I could do that all day long. So I quit my job and spent my days wishing for things. When after a few months nothing happened, I began to question my worldview. One particularly tough night, after spending hours wishing for a measly glass of Rum & Coke, I realized that the Universe wasn’t really listening to me. It was probably spending it’s time paying attention to some malnutritioned African kid and serving him MY rum & Coke. It dawned on me that the universe was a socialist with a bleeding heart and an NPR tote bag!

So it was up to me to look after myself. I bought a bootleg copy of The Fountainhead (free markets FTW!), and spent the next month reading it (have you seen the size of that damn book?).One day, the ghost of Ayn Rand appeared in my dreams and asked me to sign up for twitter. The ghost also asked me to lend it some money, because apparently, the shops in hell are a little expensive, being monopolistic enterprises and all. I realized that Ayn was testing me and refused to lend her ghost any money. In fact, I told Ayn’s ghost the same thing Ayn would tell a bearded 90 year old man who just lost his life savings in the stock market, “Get a job, whiskers!”.

Now, unbeknownst to me, Twitter was a treasure trove of wordly knowledge. It had the wisdom of Socrates, the catchiness of Confucius, the gimmickry of Yoda and the cultural relevance of Lady Gaga. So when my life changed for the better, I thought I had to share the secret with the rest of the world, as all enlightened beings are supposed to.

Here’s a gist of all the knowledge I was able to amass:

1. The art of listening: The first thing that surprised me about twitter was that in order for people to pretend to care about what I have to say, I had to accord them the same courtesy. Being a blowhard IRL (i.e. In Real Life for all you n00bs out there!), this was hard for me to understand at first. Did other people expect me to listen to them? Why would I listen to anyone when I already know what they want to say, based on how they look? Is this what being social was all about? I know that now, because of twitter. Another thing I learnt was that all I have to do to make people feel “special” is to feign interest in what they’re saying! Who’da thunk it?

2. The art of letting go: On twitter, once you write a tweet, you need to let it go.Though, be warned, It’s not that easy. In the beginning, when you see the vowels from your tweets being plucked out as harshly as a catholic priest plucks the virginity of a choir boy, all you would want to do is physically punch the culprit. You tire of the constant need to bang your head against the wall when you see someone appending a word to your tweet and totally changing it’s context. You also learn to not care about the dozens of people who will simply copy your tweets and tweet them as their own. Once you put something out there, it isn’t yours anymore. So let it go. Set it in the wild. And, if it loves you as much as you love it, it will come back to you in the form of a text message.

3. The art of sounding exotic: Thanks to twitter, I was able to learn how I can get people from other countries to pay attention to mundane events in my life like waking up or raindrops. All you have to do is romanticize everything, sprinkle a bit of melancholy, and voila before you can say “Jai Ho”, you have thousands of followers! For example, my room isn’t filthy, it’s “proof that I live a full life because each millimetre of dust contains millions of memories!” (Sadly, that doesn’t work on my Mom!). Similarly, politicians aren’t just corrupt, they “feed off the carcasses of hungry children, remaining oblivious to their plight, all the while trying to fill their insatiable greed and rotund bellies”. 

4. What women want: Earlier, all my knowledge about woman was gathered from the Mel Gibson movie, What Women Want. However, since recent events have revealed that Mel Gibson clearly has no idea about women (at least not the type of women I would like to attract), I had to turn to a new source of wisdom. And I found him on twitter. My new personal love guru, Chetan Bhagat, has made me see the light with his constant tips & tricks on how to impress women. It has not worked until now, and I have ten restraining orders against me. However, I’m pretty sure I’ll find the one one of these days. If the woman on twitter are any indication, I am almost certain that woman in general think more about sex than men. That’s because statistically,  if you’re a woman and you’re on twitter, you probably spend most of your time spewing more innuendo than an 80s British sitcom. Although, my guru tells me that the women on twitter aren’t the ones you take home to your parents. I wonder what he means by that?

5. How to support a cause: Before twitter, I was always in a flux whenever I wanted to do something for the world at large. You know, give back to the world and all that jazz. Now, whenever I hear about a cause that I think I can support, I always add a ribbon to my twitter profile picture (or as the cool kids call them, a twibbon!). Joining a facebook group is so 2007! In fact, thanks to twitter, I got Barack Obama elected as President, brought real democracy to Iran and helped cure breast cancer. That pretty much concludes my quota of “good deeds” for the rest of the decade. Santa better bring me loads of stuff this christmas!

6. Feeding your insanity: Whatever mental illness you suffer from, twitter can act as an enabler. If you are a masochist, you can follow “celebrities” on twitter and their banality will help mangle all your senses. This is even more painful than lying on a bed of nails. If you suffer from low self esteem, you can follow people who have poor language skills and a really delusional sense of self, which helps you feel a little bit saner about yourself. However, don’t feel that sane, you’re on twitter after all. I mean that as a good thing. In this Jersey Shore-ified world, being insane is a one-way ticket to popularity. Remember, all the insane people have the most followers.

7. Creating lazy content – Not only do the people on twitter like reading whatever’s on twitter. they are also really eager to read other people’s analysis about twitter. Even though almost every post/article on twitter says the same thing, people still like to read them and then retweet them, because this way they can pretend to laugh at themselves. Another reason why twitter posts are popular is because a post on twitter is the easiest thing to write. Start the post by making fun of a public figure you revile, throw in a few references to people tweeting about the food they eat, add some banal celebrities and rephrase what everyone else has said before along with some jokes. End the whole thing by adding a few meta references (because it’s important for the world to know that you can laugh at yourself too!) and your twitter post is ready.

Dear Indian media and south block diplomats, Barack Obama is not your boyfriend

So Manmohan Singh is back in Washington, because "The Barack Obama" invited him, to steal all of India's nukes and then distribute them equally between Pakistan and China, because he hates outsourcing?!

Anyways, it's that time of the year again, whenever there is some official level interaction between the Indian and American governments, everyone in the Indian media, print or teevee, has just has one question and one question only: WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE HYPHENATION? IS IT BACK? HAS IT GONE AWAY? IT'S BACK ISN'T IT? OR HAS IT GONE AWAY? WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME? WAIT, WHAT IS THIS NEW SHINY OBJECT YOU'RE HOLDING? TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE NEW, SHINY OBJECT. . . .

Everyone (the media and their "anonymous sources" in South Block) keeps talking about how the previous Bush administration was such a "good friend" to India. Don't you remember how we could call ol' Dubya anytime of the night, to complain about how after gym class whenever we were in the locker room changing back into our casuals, Pakistan used to pick a fight with us to distract us so that China could sneak behind our back and empty a whole tube of ben-gay into our fresh, clean underwear. And Dubya used to huff and puff and threaten to blow someone's house down!

And this Obama, he doesn't even poke us back on facebook! What a big 'ol meanie!

Despite the fact that by Dubya did more to upset the Indo-Pak defence "equilibrium", then any other American President before him, he's still missed by everyone, and is seen as a "good friend" to India. The reason that is set in stone is because of the Indo-US nuclear power deal. Even though that was signed not because our buddy had a soft-spot for India, but because it was good for American business interests. Which is why countries usually do business with other countries, because it benefits them in some way or the other!

Shocking! I know!

The truth is that, Bush gave all those little girls in the media and South block a lady boner because just like them he didn't worry about "global warming" or the "Geneva convention" or "International treaties" etc. He would bomb, whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted! He was their brave, white knight in faux cowboy boots, out there killing the bad guys! Even though most of the times the bad guys turn out to be innocent civilians!

And this new guy, Chocolate Gandhi, wants to talk about all those gay things like "nuclear disarmament" and "cutting carbon emissions" and wants to withdraw his army from Afghanistan and Iraq. Gee, what a homo! Whoever has ever even heard of "nuclear disarmament" in our country?

Of course, right now, India and the US have different goals, internationally.  Obama is not here to make friends. He's looking out for his own country's interest, and we should look out for ours. Which doesn't mean that both countries can't be "friendly" with each other and go out for a beer once in six months or  spoon each other every few years (NO HOMO). It's really hard for our media to comprehend the fact that two adults can be friends without actually agreeing on everything. What else do you expect? These are the same people who morphed Amitabh Bachchan's gig of becoming Gujarat's brand ambassador into WHY DID AMITABH BACHCHAN PERSONALLY KILL EVERYONE IN GUJARAT, IN 2002?

The fact of the matter is that even if Barack Obama forcefully lands in Pakistan, bitch slaps Zardari and then pees on Jinnah's grave, our news anchors will find some way to complain about how his actions prove his negativity towards India (I can already imagine Arnab Goswami asking G Parthasarthy "Does his peeing over Jinnah's grave mean that Obama is trying to melt the frozen dialogue with the Taliban?"). All these insinuations are usually for the viewers/readers benefit. Whenever someone from the Obama administration comes a-knockin, they gush over them like a creepy overage Justin Beiber fangirl!

Someone needs to remind them that this is international politics. It requires a little more nuance than what is required during the weekly meeting of the Lajpat Nagar Traders Association (Regd).

Welcome to the offense economy

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

Then do we have an offer for you!

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

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

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

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

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

Confused? Need more explanation?

Let us break it down for you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following is a timeline of the events:

Week 1

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

Week 2

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

Week 3

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

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

Your name will live on in infamy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Even Rocket Singh cannot save the newspaper industry

India's favourite bussinessy "newspaper", The Economic Times, which a lot of retired old men read so that they can impress their wives and each other's wives by using words like "derivatives" and  "quant fund", brings you the most important breaking business news story of the day:

Bollywood's latest offering "Rocket Singh - Salesman Of The Year" is going great guns in the US with its review currently the number one most read movie story on the New York Times site.

The NUMBER ONE article on the NY Times website? YOU DON'T SAY!! OMFG, this must mean that Ranbir Kapoor will win an Oscar this year, for looking like a bearded version of his Mom!!!

Great! So do we have any numbers to back up those claims? Any box office receipts, revenue collections, anything?

In an equally flattering review, Film Journal International says: "David-and-Goliath workplace drama from India goes unexpected places, and hits satisfying chords."

OMFG, AGAIN!! They compared the movie to a biblical story! This is even BETTER than the Oscars! We'll ignore the fact that the sentence is full of so many grammatical errors.

Rocket Singh, FTW!!

But seriously, where are the numbers? Aren't you the friggin' Economic Times? Shouldn't your assumption be based on the, errrr, ummmm,*ahem*, economics? Just sayin'.

Okay. Fine. Let's just find proof of your obviously accurate assumption using teh googlez.

When a Bollywood movie grosses less than a Harman Baweja film in the opening weekend at the box office, there are only two words in the English language to describe its miserable fate: EPIC DISASTER.

Yes, folks.

Ranbir Kapoor’s Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year has fared miserably at the U.S. box office.

So bad that even Harman Baweja’s What’s Your Rashee had a higher opening gross ($169,005).

Epic disaster? Even sad little Harman Baweja's movie fared better?

You must be kidding me!!

This can't be right. EVERYONE IS READING THE REVIEW ON THE NEW YORK TIMES WEBSITE. HOW CAN THIS NOT TRANSLATE TO SUCCESS AT THE BOX OFFICE??

Hmpfh.

You must be lying.

Let's ask someone who knows what they are talking about.

What do you say, self-important movie critic, Taran Adarsh?

The keenly anticipated Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year has emerged a gigantic disappointment in the key international markets. The film is one of the lowest openers of Yash Raj in U.K. and America, which has come as a rude shock for the entire industry. The opening weekend of Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year should've been huge in these territories because Yash Raj movies, generally, open very well in the international markets and also because there's a sizable Punjabi population in U.K. and Canada-America.

Gigantic disappointment? Even in Canada-America, which is not a REAL COUNTRY! WTF?

But how can The Economic Times not give us an accurate picture?

First Tiger Woods.

Now The Economic Times.

Is there anybody left in this world who I can trust?

 

Oh, wait.

Maybe there is. [click here]

 

Rocket Singh going great guns in US [ET]
Rocket Singh - Epic Disaster at Box Office [Search India Blog]
Rocket Singh is a colossal disaster overseas [One India]
Movie Review - Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year [NYT]