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

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

You Know Who Else Was A Superpower?

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

One of the most popular narratives of the late 90s/early aughts was the emergence of India as a candidate for this century’s “superpower.”
We were supposed to finally break the shackles of the past, realize our full potential, and take our natural place among the world’s most powerful countries. But then reality intervened and everyone realized that we weren't really ready for prime-time. However, despite being faced with a large amount of evidence to the contrary, the narrative still strangely persists.

We’re the ‘Ajit Agarkar’ of superpowers. The only reason we’re on the team is because someone with actual power pulled some strings to get us in. A real superpower shouldn’t have millions of malnutritioned children going to bed hungry every night. A real superpower shouldn’t have a complete electricity grid failure for more than half the country because some idiot overloaded the system by switching on his toaster. And the primary objective of a real superpower’s foreign policy shouldn’t be to get every country in the world to like them.

When someone says that they want their country to be a ‘superpower,’ what they’re trying to say is that they now want their country to be the world’s ‘decider.’ The sort of asshole country which tells other countries what to do and where they can stick their ‘sovereignty.’ What they mean is that they want to be the guy in the room who has the remote to the teevee and will continue to watch a documentary on the drainage system of the Aztec civilization even though everyone else wants to watch that show which has ‘everyday people’ eating bugs for money. 

What jingoistic patriots don’t realize is that being a superpower is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Superpowers have to keep fighting wars; even those which they have won. Did you know that there are still more than fifty thousand American soldiers stationed in Germany. Why? Probably just in case Germany gets that funny feeling in its stomach and wants to try to take over the world again. In India, we don't like wars. No, not because of the millions of lives that would be fruitlessly lost. No one cares about hippie things like “human lives” in our country. The reason we don't like wars is because they clash with the cricket season.

The various spy agencies of a superpower need to be powerful enough to engineer a coup in unstable countries. Our spy agencies can’t even organize a dinner party successfully.

Superpowers have huge empires. Do we really want to be like the people Tom Alter portrays everytime he is forced to speak Hindi with a bad accent? We’ve always maintained that our country doesn’t want someone else’s territory. We’re happy with what our Mama gave us. Plus, we satisfy all our colonial urges by acting like an occupying force in Kashmir and the North East.

Superpowers need a constant supply of straw enemies to keep a large portion of the country’s populace so terrified that the government could do anything in the name of national security. Okay, I’ll let you have that one.

The demise of empires like Ancient Greece, the Romans, Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, and the USSR are proof that no superpower stays on top forever. Being a superpower means spending a few years at the top and then eventually fizzling out. Being a superpower means penalising future generations by making them live in a country whose best days have passed but whose people still have delusions of grandeur. If superpowers were people, they’d be the 1983 Indian cricket world cup team - a bunch of has-beens hanging on to every last shred of glory for something which happened decades ago. Maybe it's because I never stayed in a hostel or participated in an NCC camp, but I don't see the point of playing the geographical version of "mine is bigger."

I’m not saying that we should burn all our weapons in a bonfire and invite all our neighbouring countries to hold our hands while we dance around the pyre singing ‘kumbaya.’ However, we could tread a saner yellow brick road. Maybe we could try being the superpower of space exploration (Think of all the “ring view” apartments in gated communities they can build on Jupiter!). We could try to be the superpower of not letting foodgrain rot in government warehouses. If we’re not expending all our energies enriching Israeli defence equipment companies, we could try to be the superpower that provides its citizens with quality healthcare (Most of our current healthcare plans involve asking people who cannot afford treatment to ‘walk it off’). We could even try to be the superpower of not trying to ruin the environment at such a rapid speed that mother earth finally loses her cool and cancels ‘the human race show’ forever.

Or we could just spend all day dreaming about punching China in the face.

Baby, it’s Cold Outside

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

The saviour of people caught in awkward situations who have nothing else to talk about, the weather, has been a ‘hot’ topic of conversation lately. Unless you’re a hibernating bear languishing in a remote cave, you’d notice that the weather seems to have gotten a tad bit cooler. In fact, it was so cold, Shashi Tharoor said something controversial just to be in hot water again. However, nothing really says winter is here than when people start questioning whether global warming is real. Apparently, some folks like to keep warm by shrouding themselves in ignorance.

The fact that we’re still debating the reality of global warming does not bode well for our future. In simple terms, this is what happens: Human activity causes a large amount of gases to be released into the atmosphere. The earth’s atmosphere traps these gases as well as the heat generated by them. This causes our glaciers to melt at a faster rate than the natural process can replenish them. Glaciers deflect about eighty percent of the heat from the sun. So when the glaciers start disappearing, this heat is instead absorbed by the earth. This increases the temperature of the planet, thus leading to ‘global warming.’  The expected outcome of global warming is an increase in extreme weather conditions. So the cold weather will get colder, the rains will get more torrential, hurricanes will get more powerful and volcanoes will erupt more frequently. Basically, the weather will be more chaotic than closing hour at the stock market.

Denying climate change is like denying gravity. If you don’t want to believe the scientists (because why would you want to believe thousands of smart people who have conducted comprehensive research and have released study after study presenting overwhelming evidence to support their claim?), the erratic nature of the weather is visible to everyone. There is nothing “natural” or “cyclical” about having a cold wave and a heat wave in the same year. The past decade has been the hottest decade since when we started recording temperatures. Each natural catastrophe seems to be the ‘worst ever’ in a long time. Earlier this month, Jerusalem was hit with the worst storm in twenty years. The storm was so bad that Jesus turned to God and said “Hey Dad, next time drop me off somewhere warmer. Like Siberia.” Luckily, the city and its surrounding area is full of mature adults known for their tolerance, patience and their apathy to overreaction so they handled the situation quite well.

Australia – which exists in a hipster hemisphere and usually spends its time relaxing on a beach in summer while the countries in the northern hemisphere are freezing in winter – is witnessing such unprecedented high temperatures this season that they had to add new colour codes to the weather map. This has finally woken up their government which is now urging greater global action to combat climate change.

Climate change is exactly the sort of area that needs governments to step up. Not only do we need governments to pass laws to decrease the amount of harmful gases and radiation we release into the atmosphere, we also need them to actually enforce those laws stringently. We need governments to invest in renewable energy. We also need them to use the tools available at their disposal to subsidise the adaptation of technology which uses renewable resources as an energy source. We also need the government to protect whatever remains of our ecology and not cede them to corporate interests’ intent on mining every inch of the planet. But that doesn’t seem on the cards. Developing countries like India and China don’t want to take any major steps to combat climate change because they feel that they just started to pollute the environment and it’s their turn to ruin the planet. Hey, I just got the party, at least let me snort a couple of lines of coke before you call the cops. Most of Europe is busy trying to stay afloat in a large pool of debt using German life-jackets so they don’t even want to think about anything else right now. And half of America thinks that the earth is getting warmer because god is giving us a hug.

One of the reasons of global warming that we seldom talk about is our increasing population. I don’t get people who still insist of procreating. The earth is crumbling, habitable land is decreasing, the climate is getting harsher and living conditions are getting slowly becoming unbearable. Yet, we insist on introducing another life onto this earth, even though there are millions of children without anybody to care for them suffering in orphanages or out on the streets, A very common excuse people give for bringing new human prisoners for our computer overlords running the matrix (WAKE UP SHEEPLE!), is that they want to create life which is “just like themselves.” Someone who carries on their “family name.” Because we’re still like primitive tribal folk on the inside! I mean, really? Do you think that you’re so special that the world needs more copies of you running around? Holy extreme rise in ego, batman!

In the future, when we’re living in unshapely, sterile soviet-esque ‘barrack-homes’ while roaming around in space suits attached with personal air-conditioner units - because the heat outside would make even Mars seem bearable - we’re really going to regret our inaction.

Hopefully, I’ll be dead by then.

Chinese Democracy in New Delhi

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As the summer sun in New Delhi charred everything it could get its rays on, world leaders descended on India’s capital for the BRICS summit. The summit got off to an awkward start. Apparently, the Russian delegates got drunk on their flight here and were hitting on the wives of other delegates. While the Indians were busy making sure their guests had more food on their plate than any normal human being could possibly eat in one sitting, the Chinese delegates were going around giving everyone wedgies and forcefully taking their money. The South African delegates were just happy to be get out of the house for once because no one ever invites them to any summit and they wanted to use this opportunity to show off their sparkling personality.

The dysfunction was not limited to the lower-rung delegates. There were more cat fights among the heads of state than there are during a Spice Girls world tour. They couldn’t even decide what to order for lunch! Hu ‘What you looking at MotherF***er Spice’ Jintao wanted to have authentic Indian cuisine because the Indian food available in China is too Chinese for his taste. Dmitry ‘Assassin Spice’  Medvedev wanted to try this new bistro in Hauz Khas that he had read about in ‘Ballistic Missiles Weekly,’ Manmohan ‘Baby Spice’ Singh wanted to skip lunch entirely because his stomach was still working on a piece of chicken he had eaten for dinner yesterday while Dilma ‘Here to make it a non-sausage fest Spice’ Rouseff would go for whatever the group decided because she was tired of circling the mall and all she wanted was to sit down somewhere and have a refreshing glass of ice tea. The leaders finally decided to order from McDonalds so that no one got what they wanted and everybody could claim to have compromised. This also helped in breaking the ice as all the leaders agreed that while they may have problems with each other, nothing is worse than western capitalism wrapped in a bun.

This thawing of the ice also allowed the Indian Prime Minister to release his inner ‘Funmohan.’ All these non-Indians get him, man! They know that beneath the tough exterior lies the real Manmohan. This super-Manmohan-who is funny, sensitive and caring-is nestled between the buzzer connected to an office in 10 Janpath and a hologram of the 1873 edition of the Oxford English dictionary. Manmohan Singh at an international summit is like that episode of a sitcom in which the character with the least amount of camera time suddenly finds himself at the centre of attention. It is a bizzaro world in which he is treated with kindness & respect. People actually listen to what Manmohan has to say and don’t collapse into a coma as soon as he opens his mouth. He schmoozes at these shindigs. And sometimes, even lets a journalist ask him a real question! Though not an Indian journalist. Those wankers have got it out for him. He talks to real journalists from real newspapers. Indians and hacks not allowed.

This year the jovial atmosphere of the summit was ruined by a few so called non-violent Tibetans. Not only did they harm themselves, they almost caused an international incident. How dare they think that they can avail the freedoms guaranteed to them under the Indian constitution? They didn’t even bother going through the proper channels! And by proper channels I mean the dear leader of Indian news. Did they even give him a single interview? No! Did they have the decency to rent a fake mob? No! Did they hire former journalists as their PR agents who would advice them on what time to protest so as to draw the maximum amount of coverage or how to make a crowd of a few hundred people seem like thousands? No! Such amateurs. They didn't even try to come up with catchy slogans. There were no pictures of Gandhi. And no obeisance was being paid to the glory of Bharat Mata. YAWN! Get your oppressed soul off my lawn.

I, for one, am tired of such ad-hominem attacks on the government. You use British Raj-era tactics on your own people a couple of times and suddenly they start questioning your democratic credentials. What you don’t understand is that this was for the Tibetans’ own protection. These people are so flammable that they needed to be kept indoors, away from Delhi’s extreme weather. So what if they can’t visit Tibet? They can ‘street view’ it on Google Maps and see what China has done to their erstwhile home. And if there is one thing we can be assured off, it is that China is very kind to territories it occupies. Just ask the people in Aksai Chin. They probably don’t even remember that they were once part of India! And as for the people from Manipur who got arrested because of racial profiling, well, s**t happens, get over it. They were simply collateral damage in the arduous task of maintaining law & order. If they don’t want this to happen again, they should try not to look so Chinese all the time.

Frankly, there is enough freedom in this country. You can say and do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt the made up sentiments of everyone else or cause the government any perceived embarrassment or don’t point out things which might inconvenience people with a lot riding on some really big projects. All they’re asking for is a little mutual respect. You respect their right to do whatever they want and they will respect your right to not be transported-under ‘mysterious circumstances,’ of course-to the big twitterverse in the sky. Capiche? 

In an unrelated story, does any freshly democratic country want an old, well-written but barely used constitution? Asking for a friend whose country doesn’t seem to have much use for one anymore.

Eyebrow Olympians & Clerics: The Net is No Country for Old Men

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Last month, when the news broke that telecom minister and eyebrow Olympics gold medallist Kapil Sibal was trying to censor the internet, the twittersphere rose up in unison and protested. It was as if a million Manmohan Singhs were trying to move a rock by sending it multiple strongly worded letters. After all, twitter is for tilting at windmills.

These wounds were re-opened this week when the Delhi High Court warned search and social networking companies that if they don’t comply with its diktats, the court would block them like they do in China. The Indian twittersphere was exasperated! Trying to make us more like China! Who do these old fogies think they are, N Ram? They don’t realize that if we wanted some unelected, arbitrary authority to determine the boundaries of acceptability, we would have supported Anna Hazare’s fledgling political outfit. Somebody switch on the rusty Dell 486 sitting politely at their desks and show them that the internet is like a Cormac McCarthy novel: it’s no country for old men.

While the Delhi High court wanted to turn us into China, vapid television anchors turned to twitter to lament our growing similarity to Pakistan. Finding such tenuous similarity between two countries is as easy as finding a son of a deposed Nigerian prince who just needs your bank account number to turn you into a bona fide millionaire. Allow me to demonstrate: We’re similar to Italy because both our countries have renowned economists who, as head of state, preside over an establishment prone to corruption. We’re like Britain because a large amount of both our populations yearn for the glory of the past. We’re like Australia because bigots in both countries are prone to using ethnic slurs to taunt tourists from less developed parts of the world. We’re like America because both of our countries are home to a large amount of illegal immigrants who have come from a smaller, poorer neighbouring country. We’re like Japan because both of our countries treat washed-out hollywood hangers-on as entertainment gods. We’re like Afghanistan because both our cricket teams are currently struggling to win a match overseas.

Speaking of being lazy, we discovered this week that boycotting harmless human garden gnome Salman Rushdie is still a thing! Hadn’t everyone secretly decided to move on from that battle? In fact, our last international nightmare involving Rushdie was when he took to twitter to complain about being blocked from making a Facebook page. Sure, Facebook is evil too, but it’s still slim pickings for the man who fought and won a war of attrition against Ayatollah Khomeini.

Rushdie was scheduled to speak at a couple of sessions during the Jaipur Literature Festival being held this week. So when the high-priests of the Darul Uloom heard about his visit, they called for the central government to cancel Rushdie’s visa, even though he doesn’t actually need one to visit India. But when have facts deterred a fundamentalist bent upon proving that his religion has the biggest penis? Also, why are these high priests channelling American movie studios and rehashing stuff from the 80’s?  

Of course, now that UP is having an election to determine its next top statue model, and the Congress is practically grovelling for votes in that state–like a starlet in Mumbai who promises a horny producer that she’ll do anything to get her big chance–it needed to do something to appease the crazy people. Thus, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot, made some noises about the people of Rajasthan not wanting Rushdie to visit the state and then claiming that his government would not be able to provide adequate security to Rushdie. Firstly, we didn’t realize that Gehlot is just like the character Jim Carrey portrayed in Bruce Almighty, and can hear the thoughts of every person living in his state. Secondly, if his government cannot provide security to one single person, then what is the point of his government?

Not that any central or state government is interested in defending free speech even during non-election time. Most of them start shitting bricks at the mere thought of someone taking offence to something.

If we can't offend people who think a book of short stories written thousands of years ago contains instructions on how to live life in the 21^st century, then the terrorists have won.

India & America to continue to make love to each other, despite having insignificant others

While all of you were busy trying to drink away the cold weather (or was that just me), something important was brewing in a land, far, far away.

The White House is to throw a lavish reception for the Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, on Wednesday in an effort to patch up relations after a difficult year dominated by tensions over currency rates, jobs, North Korea and other international issues. President Hu is due in Washington tomorrow for the start of a four-day visit, the highlight of which is to be a state dinner at the White House on Wednesday evening.

WHAT?

Isn’t that cheating?

How can America make relations with China, behind our backs? Wasn’t it just last November when President Barry America swept us off our feet by uttering those magic words “Permanent Member of the Security Council”. Whenever our other diplomatic initiatives were rebuked by other countries, we took solace in the fact that maybe one day, we would take our rightful place, right next to America, and both of us together would heal the world and make it a better place for you and for me and the entire human race!

Is this why we gave you billions of dollars of our hard earned money, Barry? Is this how you repay us? How can you do that to us, Barry? What about all the nice things you said to us in the backseat of your plush limo? Were those a lie too? Did you think we would never find out? This is 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?

Tell us that it’s not true, Barry. Tell us you’re only doing it because you owe China some money.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh got a state dinner when he came here in 2009 as President Barack Obama's first state guest. Chinese President Hu Jintao is getting one too, but commentators are discussing it as if it was completely unexpected.

This and other comparisons are being drawn between India and China in a triangular relationship with the US, going right up to the White House itself, unsolicited and unprompted. Shortly before Hu arrived on Tuesday, Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters not to expect deliverables to match those of the India visit.

See? Barry could never do that to us. His mouth may say Kung Pao Chicken, but in his heart there is only place for Chicken Malai Tikka.

It’s okay with us, Barry. We understand your relationship with China is just fiscal! We can’t always be together. We’re not jealous. In fact, we have a confession to make. It seems like we might have had a short fling with France (it’s how you say “hello” in France), a one night stand with the poor man’s Canada Britain (but that was basically pity sex. We feel bad for the fella. Nobody even asks him out anymore. Even his neighbours ignore him all the time), and we even fondly remember the time when Russia date raped us (Bygones. Can’t blame him, though. He was in Delhi). What we want you to know Barry is that we were thinking about you all the time!

Both of us may stray, Barry, but we know that each of us will come back home! At the end of the day, our relationship is the winner!

That’s what everybody else seems to be thinking too:

Even the think tanks seem a little under-enthused. Though papers are being presented and talks are being hosted, the buzz is missing. "The bottom line is that no one expects dramatic breakthroughs with the Hu visit," said Richard Fontaine of the Centre for New American Security. Though corporate deals worth billions are expected to be announced over the next two days, the high-voltage success of Obama's visit to India in November might have raised the bar for visits of this kind.

"This is a little different from our trip to India. The economic relationship that we have with the Chinese is different on a scale with what we do with India," Gibbs told reporters.

ZOMG! In this relationship, we are the Betty Cooper to America’s Archie Andrews. And China is mean ol’ Veronica Lodge, with all her money and charm and her scandalous short skirts. Archie may take Veronica dancing every Saturday night, but he always spends Sunday afternoon making cookies with Betty. Betty might have to do all the work while Archie just sits there watching teevee, but, still, Betty loves to make cookies. In fact, Betty lives for all those Sundays she can make cookies for Archie. If Betty could spend the rest of her life making cookies for Archie, she would consider it a life well spent.

In fact, we have so much trust in Barry’s love that we even wrote a song* for him:

Barry, can you hear me?
Barry, can you see me?
Barry can you find me in the night?
Barry are you near me?
Barry, can you hear me?
Barry, can you help me not be frightened?
Looking at the skies I seem to see
A million eyes which ones are yours?
Where are you now that yesterday
Has waved goodbye
And closed its doors?
The night is so much darker;
The wind is so much colder;
The world I see is so much bigger
Now that I'm alone.
Barry, please forgive me.
Try to understand me;
Barry, don’t you know I had no choice?
Anything I'm saying
Even though the night is filled with voices?
I remember everything you taught me
Every book I've ever read...
Can all the words in all the books
Help me to face what lies ahead?
The trees are so much taller
And I feel so much smaller;
The moon is twice as lonely
And the stars are half as bright...
Barry, how I love you...
Barry, how I need you.
Barry, how I miss you
Kissing me good night...

No 'Hu' and cry over Chinese Prez visit, US prefers India [HT]
* Original song by Barbra Streisand from the film Yenti [Wikipedia]

Armageddon is almost here: Pakistanis in America pretending to be Indians!

According to this Reuters report, Pakistanis in America are pretending to be . . .  wait for it . . . . . wait some more . . .  . INDIANS!

"A lot of Pakistanis can't get jobs after 9/11 and now it's even worse," said Asghar Choudhri, an accountant and chairman of Brooklyn's Pakistani American Merchant Association. "They are now pretending they are Indian so they can get a job."

This news has made everyone at TImes Now come in their pants. Jinnah is rolling in his grave, and has started hitting the bottle again. Gandhi is smiling, not because he heard this news, but because he made friends with Che Guevara in freedom fighter heaven and he’s high. Nehru just shrugged and is continuously eating Lady Mountbatten’s head by telling her that he knew this day would come. And Sardar Patel is still mad at Hari Singh because WHAT THE FUCK TOOK YOU SO LONG TO SIGN THE DAMN THING, HARI?

Anyways, this is big news in the subcontinent, because this is even bigger than Arsenal fans trying to pass for fans of Manchester United! (Or vice versa! Or do all the kids love Chelsea these days? Real Madrid? Delhi Daredevils? Facebook United? I DON’T REALLY KNOW THESE THINGS!) or Red Sox fans cheering for the Yankees!

This is so because India and Pakistan were roommates almost six decades ago and had a really bad separation. And everyone is still bitter about it, mostly because Pakistan took India’s Kenny Chesney CD collection. EVEN THOUGH INDIA BOUGHT ALL THE CDs. And now, India is in a polygamous relationship with America and a few European countries and Pakistan is in a monogamous relationship with China, which is unhealthy because China always insists on being on top.

Anyway, this nationality switcheroo seems a bit strange, because most racist Americans (i.e. Republicans/people from Arizona) don’t know an Indian from a Pakistani. For them there are only two types of brown people. One is all those people from Burritoville, who bring up their kids, mow their lawn and sleep with their wives. Everyone else is an Ay’rab [sic], who do their taxes, make funny smelling food and watch those musical movies.

However, on this blog we are nothing but fair (snigger!), so here are some helpful tips for all those people who want to pass as a person of Indian origin living overseas:

9. Find out who Rajan Zed is – If I wanted to tell you, I wouldn’t say “find out”, now would I? This is important not because you need to agree with him, but whenever someone asks you where you are from, you can always answer with “Did you hear what Rajan Zed said now? . . .  Can you believe that guy? Sheesh”. Also, this might even lead to guest blogging opportunities at Sepia Mutiny.

8. Watch and love every hindi movie ever made – Not only is it important to watch those movies, you HAVE to like them. Even the crappy ones. And it is your solemn national duty to defend them in front of people who don’t like them. Even if your argument doesn’t make any sense.

7. Join the Narendra Modi fan club – You need to spend at least two hours everyday trolling the interwebs for blogs/articles/tweets about “NaMo” or any of his other brethren and attack whoever dares to write about them, without even reading what the blog/article/tweet is all about. If you don’t know what to write, just throw in the following in your word salad: “The mainstream media sucks, Congress bias, something something Sonia Gandhi and/or Rahul Gandhi”. Check the comments on www.rediff.com for more inspiration.

6. Always act guilty around your parents – A sure sign of Indian upbringing is when you see a perfectly normal, confident person act like a bumbling idiot in front of his or her parents. No matter how successful you get, no matter how much money you have, your parents will always make you feel guilty. You can’t fight thousands of years of civilisation. (Which reminds me, Mom, Dad, if you are reading this, then please remember that I didn’t do anything. I WAS TRICKED INTO WRITING ALL OF THESE THINGS). 

5. Excel at science and/or medicine – Let’s face it. Most kids of NRI’s are ready to do their PhD’s before they celebrate their tenth birthday. As to why, refer to reason no. 6. Hey, don’t take my word for it.

4. Don’t marry your cousin – That is because then you’ll be mistaken for someone from Arkansas. And believe me, you’d rather be from the caves of Tora Bora than from Arkansas.

3. Whenever someone tells you that your English is really good, thank them and inform them that their English is heavily accented.

2. Don’t kill your wife -- No, seriously. Don’t.

And the #1 most important thing to keep in mind while trying to pass as Indian in America:

*cue drum roll*

1. Don’t blow shit up.

Bada Bing, Bada boom . . . G’night everyone!

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).

The beagle has landed

 
Manmohan, dude, could you at least get your safari suit dry cleaned?

 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Washington on Sunday afternoon, for a five day "state" visit. Now, no one really knows what a state visit means, but everyone agrees it's sort of important, like the American Idol season finale or Tyra Banks opinion on America's Next Top Model.

Let's see what the demi-gods of our times, the conscious keepers of our nation, those wonderful people who tell you what you need to think, journalists are saying:

DNA wants our jumpy foreign office to stop being so paranoid:

Serious strains in Sino-US relations are showing up barely days after US president Barack Obama concluded a conciliatory visit to China, and ahead of Singh's visit to the US. These belie the paranoid perception from New Delhi that an emerging Washington-Beijing entente is selling India's interests short. In particular, a paragraph in the Sino-US joint statement at the conclusion of Obama's visit, which commits the two countries to promoting peace in South Asia, has given rise to much Indian angst over China being given a "policing role" over Indo-Pakistan relations.

Some analysts caution against the risk of investing too much authority to sentiments reflected in joint statements. "A joint statement is less binding than, say, a joint declaration," points out Pang Zhongying, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. "If the two sides were sure they wanted to work together, they would have issued a declaration."

Dude, didja forget that our whole foreign policy is based on paranoia? Most of the people in our ministry of external affairs are only seen in public when we have to denounce a statement made by some crazy fuck in Pakistan or some godforsaken "newspaper" in China. But, hey, if it is already broken, why even try to fix it?

Our ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, thinks that India wants Indo-US ties to be more than just a B2B relationship:

. . . defence relations have seen steady progress as an important aspect of the strategic partnership. Our Defence Policy Group (DPG) and its sub-groups, which meet annually, have acquired substance and depth in their deliberations. There has been an increase in the interaction between our armed forces. All our three services now conduct annual exercises with their US counterparts. At the same time, we are also looking at the US as one of the possible suppliers of weapon systems as we continue to modernize our armed forces. We would like the relationship not just to be limited to a buyer-seller relationship but also to move into areas of joint development and transfer of technology. Our armed forces are also cooperating in areas such as maritime security, which is vital to economic and national interests of both our countries.

Yay. Both our armed forces are ready to take on China the minute the US repays back all the money it owes to home of the dragon.

The US and India will also be signing a pact to cooperate on 'counter-terrorism':

US and India will sign a pact on intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism during the Prime Minister's visit, one of nearly a dozen agreements to be inked during the visit. Details of the pact are not being disclosed yet, but such was the importance of the agreement that CIA Director Leon Panetta flew down to New Delhi last week to discuss details with his Indian counterparts before the fine print could be drawn up. The agreement could involve exchanging and stationing more intelligence personnel in the two countries, including mobile units, to facilitate better interaction.
Initiative for the intelligence upgrade, including ''technical means,'' has come from the US side after Washington finally realized the fallacy of distinguishing Pakistani terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba from al-Qaida, a grasp that has been brought home by the latest episode involving the terror suspect duo of Tawassur Rana and Daood Gilani aka David Headley.

Does this mean our guys get to ask Rana why he was metaphorically sodomizing Rahul Bhatt?

Now, there are some people who borrow a page from the Obama campaign and lower expectations:

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team land at the Andrews Air Force Base in nearby Maryland on Sunday afternoon (early Monday in India) for the first state visited hosted by the Obama administration, they will find a capital region that is bathed in sunshine, although there is a nip in the air that presages winter, and trees are devoid of foliage, autumn having been swept out.

[snip]

However, circumspection is expected to be the order of the day, even though if you go by the fact that this is Singh’s second state visit and the third hosted for India in less than a decade (more than any other country), you’d think the two countries are more than just natural allies or strategic partners . While there is an element of security in the bilateral relationship, India and the US are not allies in the conventional sense and are not likely to be so any time soon, says Walter Anderson, a veteran South Asia hand. His advice: "India will have to formulate its own strategy vis-a-vis its neighbourhood devoid of any unrealistic expectations from Washington, despite the perceived closeness.’’

For a minute there, I thought I was in an Indian novel, with the talk of all the sunshine and the foliage. Before this, I used to think I was the world's worst metaphor writer. Clearly, someone has me beat. 

Now, if for a minute, have you ever wondered how this visit would have been reported in the Soviet Union fifty years ago? Well, if you have, this is your lucky day, because our second most favourite insufferable old curmudgeon, Prakash Karat, answers your question:

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday warned the United Progressive Alliance government against allying with the U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan and promised to launch joint struggles with its counterparts in the region against increasing American intervention in South Asia.

[snip]

“We have to continue our struggle against capitalism, put an end to it and establish socialism as the real alternative. At the same time, we also oppose the India-U.S. strategic ties — economic and military,” Mr. Karat said at a public rally at the end of the 11th International Meet of Communist and Workers Parties here.

Where do I even begin? Oh, Prakash. In case you had been asleep for the past twenty years, in the whole decades long football match between socialism and capitalism, the scoreboard stands as, Capitalism - 1, Socialism - 0. Even though capitalism is now crony capitalism, it's evil twin, your system still sucked. Also, fyi, you lost the election. So, please have a nice, warm cup of green tea from China.

Now lets see what the thought leaders on the other side of the pond are thinking. One wonders whether they would be as excited about the visit as much as our own press is.

Since not much of the American press is covering this right now, let's turn our attention to the Times UK, for how the Obama administration is preparing for the Indian PM's visit:

The first dinner party in a new house is a test for every hostess and an awkward eater is the last thing she needs. In Michelle Obama’s case, not only is her first guest of honour an abstemious vegetarian, but the whole world will be watching.

On Tuesday the Obamas host their first state banquet since taking office in January. After the staid years of President George W Bush, who liked to be in bed by 9pm, Washington is desperate for some glamour.

“Official Washington is hungry for this — it’s an important moment,” said Robert Watson, author of American First Ladies and associate professor of American studies at Lynn University, Florida. “It’s a test for Michelle. Every detail will be looked at, from the menu to the guest list, to who’s sitting next to whom. One faux pas and the critics will pounce.”

As the youngest White House family since the Kennedys, the Obamas draw inevitable comparisons. Everyone will be watching to see how Michelle ranks against Jackie.

OMG, did someone remember to send an e-vite to Manmohan?

However, Politico has WON THE DAY, by it's superb coverage of the state visit.

Looks like former President Clinton won't be attending:

Former President Bill Clinton did snag an invite to the White House state dinner on Tuesday, but he won’t be there with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

It’s not a case of “Been there, done that” for Clinton, though he hosted 30 state dinners of his own. Clinton just has other plans. “He’ll be at previously scheduled events in New York,” Matt McKenna, Clinton’s spokesman, told POLITICO.

Well, just get invite a young woman who is on the healthier side. I am sure that Mr Clinton's schedule would 'suddenly' open up.

Now, since Bill isn't going to be there, Mr Hollywood himself, Ari Emanuel, is going to make up for his absence:

Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel (and brother to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) is expected to be at the White House Tuesday evening for the Obamas' first state dinner.

[snip]

Ari Emanuel won't be the only one from Tinseltown at 1600 Pennsylvania on Tuesday. POLITICO confirmed late last week that Hollywood director M. Night Shyamalan will also attend the dinner.

Although, to be fair, Shyamlan's appearance at the dinner will likely be a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo. And, now that he's there, look for something really paranoid and boring to happen, simultaneously.

There were originally supposed to be 400 guests at the banquet. However, since EVERYONE in the WHOLE WORLD basically wants to be there, the banquet will now consist of 600 guests. The only criteria is that you should have some kind of remote connection to India. Cause, for this banquet, brown seems to be the new black.

 

Photo Credit: The Magalorean

If only Julia Roberts could fight terrorism, we would be okay

The opening paragraph of this 'report' is the most awesome description of why things in our country are so fucked up. [Rediff Movies]

Pakistan puts Hafiz Saeed 'in custody'. They will let us know what that means once they figure it out themselves. Meanwhile, intelligence sources told us that Saeed is still allowed to order his favourite biryani pizza from Dominos, everyday. So much for austerity. [HT]

After successfully ruining some dude's life by getting him to impregnate Rakhi Sawant with an alien child, the producers of NDTV Un-Imagine have decided to find a child bride for famewhore Rahul Mahajan. Mahajan's ideal partner should have long hair, believe in traditional values, be able to change adult diapers and have both male and female reproductive organs. [NDTV Movies]

Sonia Gandhi asks Shashi Tharoor to write "I will not twitter during class" a hundred times, using a Mont Blanc ink pen. This will also go into Tharoor's permanent record and might hinder his getting admission into a good college. [The Hindu]

Sarah Palin will address fund managers in Hong Kong because those douchebags have too much money and they thought that instead of a real person they would just hire a hockey mom who winks a lot. After she gives her 'speech', she will give each attendee a free copy of the      straight-to-dvd movie Knocked Up: The Bristol Palin story. Then, she will go sightseeing to the 'Americatown' part of Hong Kong. [Bloomberg]

The Union Home Minister says that Delhiites need to change their behavioural pattern and need to learn to respect the rules. Phooey! That's such false propaganda. Delhiites respect the law, we just tend not to follow it on rare occasions. Like I jumped only two red lights today. Okay, it was five. But I had a good reason for it. I was late for happy hour. Fine, whatever. By the way, someone needs to tell the minister that the biggest lawbreakers in Delhi are those guys he sits with in that Lok Sabha thing where he and his peers do that thing they do. As I said, whatever.[TOI]

Who wants to be a superpower?

The word on the street is that India is ready to finally rise and shine and take it's rightful place as one of the world's foremost superpowers. What is it about being a superpower that really attracts us? Besides giving nostalgic NRI's who meet every Sunday something other than marriage & food to talk about, what good is it, really?

Maybe it's because I never stayed in a hostel or joined the Boy Scouts, but I don't see the point of playing the geographical version of "Mine is Bigger".

If you look at the evidence, being a superpower is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Superpowers have to keep fighting wars. Even those which they have won. Did you know that there are still more than fifty thousand American soldiers stationed in Germany? Why? Probably just in case Germany gets that funny feeling in it's stomach and wants to try to take over the world again. No wonder McCain claimed that the US would be in Iraq for more than a hundred years. In India, we don't like wars. No, not because of the millions of lives that are fruitlessly lost. We don't like wars because they ruin the cricket season.

Superpowers also have to keep demonising an enemy with newer and newer stuff. We can't do that. We basically keep hugging Pakistan while it keeps stabbing us in the back. Also, the demonizing turns sadistic and people turn on each other (Does McCarthyism ring a bell? In fact, if had something like that in India, we would be like a nation of Vivek Oberois. That scares me. A lot).

Superpowers need to engineer & arrange coups in different parts of the world. Our intelligence department can't even arrange a dinner party.

Superpowers also need to keep messing with their smaller neighbors. And everyone knows that we love our smaller neighbours. Specially Bhutan, who we find so cute with their long robes and their pointy roofs. Let's face it, we quite love that little fella.

Superpowers also collect bad karma. As Sharon Stone told me one day during our yoga class with Deepak Chopra, Karma is a bitch. Between themselves, both the US and Russia have collected so much bad karma that it's coming to bite them in the ass. How else can you explain the career of Anastacia?

Then there is the superpower of yore, good ol' Britannia. If Britain were a person, it would presently be like a failed actor who shoots and releases his own 'sex-tape' which ends up getting him a half-hour "Where are they now?" special on VH1 and an interview with The Daily Mail. Even TMZ won't give a shit about that sucka.

A 'perk' of being a permanent member of the UN security council is something other former and current superpowers enjoy. Pfft. The security council reacts to events in two ways: (a) By issuing a strongly worded statement (b) By issuing a harsh, mean and really strongly worded statement which ends with an exclamation mark. The UN security council is as effective as my school's debate club. (Which, for the record, I was not part of. Why? Well, I think I was spending too much time studying the effects of medical marijuana. Also, the dude heading the debate team was sort of a cunt. Yes, I know. Sounds exactly like the guy who heads the United Nations!).

Being a member of the security council doesn't even get you tickets to a Depeche Mode concert. And no one really goes to their concerts! Also, despite all the rumors, there is no special supermarket for superpowers. It's just a sham, like the son of a deposed Nigerian prince and Shah Rukh Khan's marriage.

So instead of concentrating all our energy on being a "superpower", why not concentrate our energies somewhere else? Why not go in a different direction? A more saner one. Like Canada. Of course, you don't hear about Canada a lot. Which is a good thing. They've got healthcare for everyone, marriage equality, medical marijuana and authentic Punjabi cuisine. What's not to like?

Also, we're almost halfway there. So it won't take a huge effort. Like Canada, we have one huge national sport. Like Canada, our version of MTV sucks too. And as for the Prime Minister who looks like an old lesbian, well, for that we have Jairam Ramesh.

History is not something that can only useful to politicians so that they can distort it for their personal gain. It also helps us learn from the mistakes of the past.

So what we need to learn from history is that just like bell-bottoms and flannel shirts, being a superpower is so out of date.

Chicken Manchurian is the best revenge

Hey, remember the time when we lost the war and said to ourselves, "never again" and decided to shore up our defence capabilities.

Let's check in and see how that's turned out.

Admitting that India neither has the “capability nor the intention” to match China’s military strength, Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee and Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said here today that “common sense dictates” that India needs to cooperate with China rather than confront it.

“In military terms, both conventional and non-conventional, we neither have the capability nor the intention to match China, force for force. These are indeed sobering thoughts and therefore our strategy to deal with China would need to be in consonance with these realities,” Mehta said, delivering an address on National Security Challenges organized by the National Maritime Foundation.

Oh, goody.

If only we you were in a position to do something about it, like being chairman of the chiefs of staff committee or chief of the navy. I wonder ho things might have turned out.

Thankfully, we've not been at it for long.

For most of the last six decades, the ethos of the Indian military has been to prepare for a battle on two fronts — to the west with Pakistan and to the north with China.

Oh, a-ha, ha, ha.

*Gulp*

 

However, that's not the important thing to focus on. No, not at all.

Even if the military balance with China is heavily loaded against India, it is simply not in the culture of armed forces officers to publicly acknowledge the weakness.

Mehta has gone against the grain, fully aware that he was giving a reality check.

Of course, government-official-who-knows-what-he-is-talking-about, how dare you say something aloud which everyone is aware off? I don't believe you. The only people I believe are those "defence analysts" on my teevee who have never really seen a battlefield outside of watching reruns of Lakshya and Border.

Also, since when have we started acknowledging things in public? It's totally against our culture. Because everyone knows that unless you publicly acknowledge something, it is simply not true. Just like pregnant woman and homosexuality, if you close your eyes long enough, it goes away.

Have you ever heard someone talk about a fart? No, because he who smelt it, dealt it. That's the rule that applies to most public discussions in India.

Our government officials aren't supposed to speak the truth. Heavens, no! Government officials are supposed to treat the people of the country like a five year old who starts crying as soon as he hears about all the bad monsters under his bed.

So instead of saying what you said, you should have followed the lead of the all our defence officials of yore and said that "We are more than capable of defending our borders with might but we act like wussies everytime China jumps from behind the door and shouts "BOO! because we are a PEACE LOVING people".

And that, my friend, is how it's done.

 

Aw, India is less macho now [The Telegraph]
Don’t have capability or intention to match China force for force: Navy chief [Indian Express]

It's not the swine flu which is going to kill us, it's irony-deficiency

Congratulations, everyone. Remember Poverty? Well, thanks to the new government, it's over now. 

There are no poor people in India anymore.

In fact, we did such a good job of removing poverty in our country that now we're exporting our knowledge of poverty-alleviation to China.

That's right.

For the first time, India has extended a helping hand to China by participating in its poverty-alleviation project by setting up a state-of-the-art training-cum-information centre for thousands of farmers in a relatively backward and mountainous northwestern region.

For all those people who doubted that this government will be all about reforms for rich people who eat out of plates made of gold, I bet you're eating your own words right now.

This government is all about the common man. So what if that common man is in China?

It's the thought that counts.

Our governments concern for the poor is priceless.

For everything else, there is Mastercard.

____________

In other good news, the Indian National Congress (Indira) has decided to do away with all feudal titles.

Yay! Get your parent's bell-bottom trousers out of mothballs, people, the 50's are here again.

More than six decades after Independence and over three decades after the government abolished privy purses and privileges, the Congress has decided to turn royalty into aam aadmi.

“The party has decided to strike off all feudal titles (against the name of Congressmen and women) from its records at all levels,” party leader Janardhan Dwivedi said.

Excuse me for a minute, sir. Shouldn't you have done this, uuuumm, I don't know, a few DECADES earlier? Wasn't it your party which did away with the privy purse and titles and other ancient shit all the while stressing that everyone's equal now?

So does this finally mean that you won't nominate your leaders and the seats won't directly pass on from parent to child as if a birthright? Does this mean that you would do away with actual feudalism?

Janardhan Dwivedi, however, admitted it was an “indirect suggestion” made to the leaders not to use such prefixes and suffixes, such as Rajkumar, Nizam, Nawab, Sadr-e-riyasaat or Mahant.

Oh cognitive dissonance, you can be such a motherfucker!

___________

Our national airline, the Maharaja of the skies, the kohinoor of our aviation industry . . .  Actually, it can't be the kohinoor because that would mean that the British would steal it from us again. Anyways, the non-kohinoor of our aviation sector is going bust. It asked it's workforce to keep doing the work but to wait a few weeks before cashing the salary cheque. Or, in some cases, not even getting the cheque at all.

So, the employees decided that since no one wants to pay them, they'll go on a strike. Hey, the best way to stop someone from bleeding is to take his heart out so that no blood is manufactured in the body in the first place.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

___________

Speaking of people with great ideas, last week I had lost my mind and was channel surfing the news channels. I happen to land on a ongoing debate about how having the IPL a few days before the world cup was against our national interest.

Huh?

What national interest?

Do we need our cricket players to defend us against an invasion of spin ballers? Have the Taliban suddenly started training it's henchmen on throwing grenades like a yorker? Is the police going to suddenly promote people on the basis of how many catches they take? Is our missile defence system going to be based on how many missiles Sachin Tendulkar can deflect while piloting around a bat-shaped plane?

Okay. Admittedly, the last one would be a cool thing to witness.

However, if anyone believes that people play professional cricket because they want to serve the country then (a) What are you smoking? and (b) If it is that good, please give me the number of your drug dealer because mine was just deported to Nigeria.

Thanks.

___________

So according to research done by someone who was supposed to write an advert to sell artificial sweetener, (a copywriter with a conscience. A rather rare breed these days.) it appears that artificial sweeteners kind of kill your brain and turn you psychotic.

I always thought how an artificial sweetener could describe itself as "natural".

And this does explain a a lot of things about me.

I know it's harmful, but I always tend to use an artificial sweetener for my coffee whenever I have it along with a vanilla-brownie combo which is extravagantly dipped in chocolate syrup.

It's all about achieving a balance.

Things that deserve their own post . . .

. . . but won't be getting one.

A member of the Christian Taliban kills pro-abortion doctor. [WaPost] Other alleged accomplices include television blowhard and voracious consumer of m'fuckin Ice Tea, Bill O' Reily. [Salon]. Meanwhile, this still hasn't given other anti-abortion wingnuts any pause. [FoxNews].

The guy who is always wrong about everything wants the US to start a nuclear war in the Korea Peninsula. [Media Matters]

Staying on the subject of crazy republicans, Nancy Regan still receives twitter updates from her late husband. [Vanity Fair] Although, Paul Krugman won't be on crazy first lady's christmas card list this year. [NYT]

US Treasury Secretary tries to suck up to the Chinese, and they laugh at him and pee on his face. [BBC]

President Obama wants bankrupt American giant GM to morph into a new, improved company with the help of laundered US taxpayer money and make fuel-efficient cars which James Bond would also love to use. [DetFrePress]

Apple is doing what it does best; making hapless customers pay for the same thing twice. [CRN] This is why God is slowly killing you, Steve Jobs.

Frumpy Hyacinth Bucket clone Susan Boyle is busy crossing off the list of all the steps required for reaching superstardom. Be a "wronged" underdog. Check. Throw your weight around and abuse the paparazzi. Check. Visit a mental health clinic. Check. Congratulations, Ms Boyle. You're now the Amy Winehouse for senior citizens. Just do a jingle for Ben Gay and you're golden, girl.

The Real Countries of South Asia

South Asia has turned into a really, really bad Bravo reality show. [Wikipedia]

Pakistan is like a bad imitation of Sigourney Weaver's character from the Alien franchise. Although, it's doesn't have the balls like Ellen Ripley to kill itself and the alien queen it's carrying in it's womb. [WaPost] Also, Alien vs Predator is a perfect moniker for Pakistan's "war" with the Taliban.

Someone put some industrial strength drugs into Nepal's drink and now it's woken up with a really bad hangover. [NYT]

Sri Lanka is in a really bad mixed marriage and has set a new bar for domestic abuse. [InEXP]

Which in turn is causing J Jayalalitha to go more crazy. [Asian Tribune] (Okay. I'm not saying that Jayalalitha is big enough to be her own country, but you do need a passport to meet her).

Bangladesh had pre-pubescent sex. Possibly with Michael Jackson.  [Mon&Critics]

China was in a really bad place and sipped it's own lead infested milk. And then it had some Mexican food. Now it's feet are bloated, it's eyes are shut and it's hiding in a corner in the attic worried that it might get Swine Flu. Although, eating the household rat was not a step in the right direction. [TIME]

As for Bhutan, don't just stand there, DO SOMETHING CRAZY. [BusStandard]

The G20 lowdown

Sadly, the last international cocktail party before money becomes obsolete and we are back to using the barter system, called the G20 has now come to an end. While all the spouses chatted about the latest episode of Gossip Girl, the heads of state got down to business. In the end, everyone was happy and they decided to do the whole thing again.

Meanwhile, continuing our quest to tell you things no one else does  we bring to you the winners, whiners and losers of the summit. 

As the white house spokesperson would have you believe, America is a winner. Because it got to show off it's shiny new President to the world. (Look, he speaks English. Not just Texas English, but English English. People were actually cheering him. When was the last time that happened?) Although America was eager to start telling everyone what they need to do, not everyone was ready to listen. Still, it got some of it's "edge" back.

The Obamas are the biggest winners of the summit. It was supposed to be the first coming out party for America's sweethearts. And everyone and their tart of an aunt were enamoured by them. Michelle got more buzz than a contestant on the British version of Big Brother. And in Britain, it doesn't get big than big brother.  Everyone wanted to be her BFF. Even the queen. And as expected, Barack got to play messiah. For real, this time. Although as far as gift giving is concerned, I think someone needs lessons from Oprah.

The Queen finally won something other than contempt and disgust from her subjects.It would have been considered a successful visit if Prince Philip didn't say something obscene and racist. As luck would have it, not only did he STFU, the queen showed some human emotion. Someone finally touched her and (a) She didn't burst into flames (b) It didn't secretly launch Nuclear weapons on all of Britain's enemies. Even Prince Charles was a happy camper because whenever he stood next to Barack Obama, his ears did not feel out of place.

Gordon Brown scored some runs too. Not only did some of the Obama magic rub of on him, Mr Brown was able to justify the $75 million he spent for organising the summit. When they came up with the final agreement, it didn't look like a complete waste of time like the UN always does. Although, there was this awkward moment when the Saudi king tried to buy his wife. Other than that, it was a good summit for Brownie.

Nicolas Sarkozy & Angela Merkel won a hypothetical tag team match against well, hypothetical opponents. To think, just a little more than six decades ago these two countries wanted to kill each other. And now, they joined together and took on the might of the "Anglo-Saxon's". (Their words, not mine). Finally, the French stood up for something other than cheese and wine. Also, until now, people just thought of him as a horny cradle rocker (not that there is anything wrong with that). Now, Sarkozy has put his name on the map for something other than doing Carla Bruni. The press conference Sarkozy & Merkel held before the summit was for the benefit of their collective domestic audiences and for driving their respective translators crazy. I mean have you tried translating German to French? It's like going from "Yippe-ki-yay, MotherF*cker" to "Hakuna Mattata". Angela Merkel simply won because no one tried to give her a backrub.

China was so eager to win, it had a child labourer make it a trophy. The West was trying to seduce China because it's the only country in the world whose got money right now. In fact, no one really wanted to piss China off so when they talked about tax havens, they tiptoed around Macau and Hong Kong. In fact, China is a lot like a new, shiny iPhone.  It might look nice from the outside and have lots of third-party applications, but what it really wants to do is take over the world. Hey, don't take my word for it.

Unlike the Georgian invasion, Russia didn't do that well. All it's new President had to do is look a little less evil ,despotic and psychotic than the others. Sadly, that was not to be.

Manmohan Singh's trip, as usual, was in the middle. He had a sort of blink-and-you-miss appearance. None of the Indian news channels were even covering his visit. except of course DD "news". Although, Mr Singh got what he came for. And he also got an Obama verbal fistbump. As for our first lady, Mrs Gursharan Kaur, she was overheard sharing with the French First Lady Carla Bruni her secret butter chicken recipe.

Europe seemed to come out of the dark shadows too. The Grand Old Continent, once home to the most greedy and laziest people in the world, had dropped off from everybody's radar. Everyone had sort off forgotten about Europe ever since India and China started making money. The only people who cared were those, young, pesky travellers who want to see the whole of Europe with $30 in their pocket and a huge-ass backpack on their backs which they carry around even when they go to drink a cup of coffee. Now, the G20 has put Europe back on the map. In fact, even Barack Obama has promised that America will start making out with all the European countries again. Except of course, the British. Because frankly, they need to start brushing their teeth first.

Finally, another unexpected winner was the crowd of protestors. Thanks to the G20 they had a very productive few days. Otherwise they would have been stuck home watching new episodes of Eastenders and drinking home-brewed beer Or even worse, they would have been sitting in front of their computer and writing a blog. Who knows what kind of crap they would have come up with!

World leaders hold summit to formally blame George Bush for the current economic crisis

The heads of government of the (technically mathematically inaccurately) named Group of 20, aka G-20, are scheduled to meet in London, starting tomorrow, to try find a way out of the current global clusterfuck. On the agenda are possible solutions for the economic crisis, discussion of a possibility of a global stimulus package and some juicy gossip about German Chancellor Angela Merkel's love life.

A banquet was held by the Queen today to formally welcome all the heads of state.

"Basically we are all here to convince the world that the current economic crisis is George Bush's fault. I blame Bush for everything." said Russian President Dmirty Medvedev. "Even when my children catch a cold. Or when Putin gets drunk, puts on a dress and starts singing I will survive in Russian. Oh, Lenin. I really shouldn't have said anything. I am so dead." He then was seen getting down on his knees and making a phone call.


The facade of camaraderie was absent the summit this time around. French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to walk out when he saw that the Italian Prime Minister was continuously eyeing his wife. "Hey Berlusconi, stop lookeeeng at my wife or I weeel break youur arms." He then chased the Italian Prime minister through the lush green Buckingham Palace gardens all the while shouting, what one can only hope, nice things about Mr Berlusconi's mother. Both of them were then stopped by current US President and part-time Messiah, Barack Obama and given a sermon about how "Thou shall not covet your neighbors wife". "It's the same sermon I gave to Bill Clinton last week", Mr Obama told reports later on.

Meanwhile Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was spotted sipping some Gaterorade and playing chess with the Chinese President. "Madam told me not to say too much. It's good advice, I tell you. Very good advice. I usually bite off more than I can chew. Just yesterday, I had some butter chicken and I still feel a little gassy. Well, what can you do. Old age is old age. ha. hA. HA". When Mr Singh got up to refill his glass, the Chinese President repositioned the pawns on the chessboard to his advantage. No one knows if Mr Singh noticed the change when he came back.

The Argentinian President Ms. Cristina Kirchner, was in heated discussions with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown about who is a better football player, Lionel Messi or David Beckham. After hours of going back and fourth, the only thing both of them agreed upon was that Victoria Beckham has the aura of a slut.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was seen feeling left out, sipping his mojito alone, which brought back memories of his own senior prom. He spoke to us with a heavy heart while trying to hold back the tears in his eyes. "It's hard sometimes, you know. We barely get noticed. People only call on us when they want us to watch their kids or to attend a funeral. It's just not fair. Why does everyone do that? Is it because we're a little gay?"

New Rules

The Indian media has to stop having an orgasm every time India wins a match. Listen, sparky. The match was in India. On a fucking Indian pitch. We were bound to win. You can shove your balls in the Aussies faces once you win a match outside of India. Even I know that. And I don't even watch cricket.

CNN has got to show something other than news about the presidential election. There are more than 180 other countries in the world, dawg. Or didja forget the "International" in "CNN International"? It's gotten so bad that Osama and his freaks could blow something up and still not make the headlines. In fact, they just bumped Nelson Madela for an exclusive with Barney the Coffee Guy.

China has to stop trying to poison the rest of the world. It seems that everything that comes from China has some sort of poison in it. Listen up people, if your milk carton is cheaper than the cost of chewing gum, then it's going to make your lungs explode, you cheap fuck.

The British government has to stop trying to suck up to India. Face it, you old fart. We're not going to bail you out of your financial crisis. We told you that this would happen when you made Shipla Shetty your yoga guru. Now remove your leg from behind your head and stop asking us for chump change.

Weekend Update

A new movie has been released on the relationship between the Indian left parties and China. It's called How Harold gets Kumar to Fuck up his country.

ISRO is about to launch 10 satellites at one go. Apparently, the name of the project is Kareena Kapoor.

Harbhajan Singh slapped Srisanth in their recent IPL encounter. To get back at him, Srisanth superpoked him through facebook.

When asked about it, Bhaji said that after Srisanth approached him, he thought What would Amy Winehouse do?

A jealous Ponting asked Ishant Sharma to spank him like a little girl.

Jackie Chan recently visited India to release the music of Kamal Hasan's new movie. He was accompanied to the event by his groupie, pile-on friend Malika Sherawat. Before heading back home, he required surgery. Yes, he needed to have Malika's lips surgically removed from his ass.

The Delhi government has refused to disband the new Bus Corridor. In a statement, Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit said, it is our constitutional duty to provide as many road blocks as possible. If we don't fuck up things now, how will we promise to solve them in the next election?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a statement yesterday asked all political parties to refrain from politicizing the misery of the people. He then got back to reviewing the forthcoming book about his speeches, called Baloney & Bullshit.

43 year old Director Guillermo del Toro has been selected to direct the movie The Hobbit and it's sequel. He is moving to New Zealand for four years to sh0ot the movies. Yeah, Del Toro is a very famous director. In fact he is the only living director to have a movie made on his life. Yup. The movie was called The 40 year old virgin.

The president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, refuses to accept the result of the election he lost and is now going to hold another election.

When he heard about it, Al gore said Why didn't I think of that.

I'm not saying that Mugabe is rigging the election, but he just hired Jeb Bush as election commissioner.

The Dalai Lama said that he welcomed the talks with China, as long as they were serious. Apparently, he was angry at the email from the Chinese government which said Dude, we sooo need to talk.