Toothless in Tehran

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

All eyes were on Tehran this week as it hosted the 16th summit of nations belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The NAM summit is the largest collective of tyrants, misogynists, homophobes, racists, scumbags, genocidal maniacs, conmen, busybodies, sociopaths, dirty Harrys and mouth-breathers this side of the Republican National Convention.

After the end of the Second World War, the world was divided into more cliques than a high school in South Bombay. All the jocks from the rich countries banded together in 1949 to form NATO and all the countries which grew up in tough neighbourhoods decided to tolerate each other’s existence to form the Warsaw Pact in 1955. However, outside of the UN, for the countries who didn’t belong to these two groups, there was nowhere to hangout. So in 1961, Nehru, Tito, Naseer, Sukarno and Nkrumah decided to get together and form a club consisting of all Goths, geeks, dorks, pacifists, poets, emo teenagers, mama’s boys, and hippies in the world who – at least on paper pretended not to be aligned to either of the two competing fight clubs – began calling themselves the Non-Aligned Movement.

Now, in 2012, with the cold war only existing in Jason Bourne novels, FPS video games and Vladimir Putin’s worldview, the NAM summit seems to have outlived its usefulness. When it was founded, India was part of all the countries who still needed a support group because of their oppressive colonial past. Nowadays, most heads of states attending the NAM summit oppress their own people and make them suffer atrocities that are equal to or sometimes infinitely worse than what happened when they were occupied by foreign powers. Like the host Iran, where a whole generation has been imprisoned both mentally and physically; where being gay is a crime punishable by public execution. Or Zimbabwean President and Hannibal Lector’s cousin, Robert Mugabe, a man who has jailed/killed/maimed more than half the population of his country and has led it to an economic apocalypse wherein the Zimbabwean Dollar is less valuable than the currency used in ‘Monopoly.’  

India still attends the summit mostly because of its obligation as a founding member and to prove to other countries that we’re totally not in the tank for America, even though in reality we totally are. We like to tout our non-aligned credentials, but we’re not really non-aligned anymore, are we? We’re part of the G20. We’re part of the ‘countries who can have nuclear weapons for some reason while the rest of the world cannot’ club. We pledge billions of dollars for funds to bailout financially irresponsible European countries. We’re like that guy who gets promoted to senior management but still shows up at the bar frequented by all the factory workers to prove to himself that he’s still the working class hero from every Springsteen song even though everybody else at the bar resents his presence.

We’re able to tread this thin line because we avoid taking a stand on important international issues for as long as we can. Most of the time we don’t want to say or do anything because we fear that anything we say or do will be used against us with regards to Kashmir. We can always be counted upon in the international arena to muddle the waters. We didn’t even vote against the falling Gaddafi regime, even though Gaddafi hated us and it was obvious to everyone that he was on his way out. Our stand on Syria is to ask both sides to lay down their weapons and talk. Basically, what we’re saying to all the people in Syria being massacred by their government is to stop defending themselves and try to talk to the guy trying to stamp them into oblivion. Because that always works out so well!

Our foreign policy is like that guy in a ‘modern’ Hindi movie who loves the girl who wears skirts and smokes and believes in casual sex but still ends up marrying the girl who dresses conservatively and knows how to cook because she reminds him of his Mom. The ‘social media outreach’ of our Ministry of External Affairs consists of getting our diplomats to tweet the links to every article they read on the Internet. Most of the time we only hear from the ministry when they hold a press conference to denounce the latest Times Now news report of some Chinese cat breaching the sanctity of the India-China border. And they do it with the smoothness of a battered woman denying spousal abuse “Ha ha, nothing happened. Everything is cool. The black eye? Well, it was nothing. I just slipped and fell into a fist. . . I mean from the stairs. Yeah. I fell from the stairs and broke my eye. What makes you think otherwise?”

But, hey, there’s nothing another fruitless bilateral Singh-Zardari meeting won’t fix!

Don’t break my glass house, bro!

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Everybody’s favourite failed state and South Asia’s #1 source of terrorism and the sort of music which makes you want to rip your heart out, throw it in the air and shoot it with an AK-47 just to make yourself feel better, was having a ‘crisis of democracy’ again. Pakistan has had more crises of democracy than the number of dossiers the Indian government has sent them.

The Pakistani Supreme Court thought that the best way to preserve democracy was to kick it in the nuts and bloody it’s face with a sledgehammer. Prime Ministerial careers were dying faster than a North Korean rocket. Just like a superhero franchise losing popularity, Pakistan rebooted its government and appointed a new – allegedly corrupt – Prime Minister. What are the odds! If a guy who looks like Ratan Tata mated with Killer Khalsa cannot restore the trust of the people in democracy, I don’t know who can.

Speaking of failed states, Greece, the birthplace of democracy and toga parties, also got over it’s weird Nazi phase and elected a semi-coherent government. Since the new government is made of coalition partners diametrically opposed to each other, this bodes well for the Euro. Because if there is one thing coalition governments are good at, it’s taking tough, unpopular decisions.

Which brings us to Egypt. For the first time in modern history, Egypt has an almost-popularly elected President who is not beholden to the army. Since he belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, right wing nutjobs all over the world are wetting their pants in both fear and gleeful anticipation depending on their chosen theocracy of allegiance. Are you saying that a ruthless dictator supported by the United States who was lording over a middle eastern country with an iron hand and who – among other things suppressed religion, and was overthrown by a revolution led by young people – has been replaced by religious parties? If only history had given us some indication that this would happen!

People presume that just because they ‘liked’ that photo of all the people gathered in Tahir Square and re-tweeted actual revolutionaries, that they have a say in who Egypt elects as President. They don’t! It’s like we’re telling them, Hey Egypt, you can have a democratically elected President as long as we get to approve who it is! Even if the new government goes south very soon, having had even a small say in the policies of the government which lords over them is a big step. The old system is not going to give way so easily. And democracy is not something you get right from the get-go. You’re always striving to be better at it. Democracy is the ability to choose which road you want to pave with your good intentions while you lazily saunter towards hell.

Back home in India, we still continue to try different combinations even after sixty four years. Our current head of government is a man who started playing ‘statue’ when he was five years old and till this day ignores everyone who asks him to ‘stop.’ The last President of America did not know his way around a pretzel. Democracy in Pakistan has had more false starts than a Scooter manufactured in the 80’s. Even people in Greece behave like amateurs when you send them to the voting booth. 

Dictatorships are like the iPhone. They may look good and have a controlled environment nearing perfection, but the slave labour required to achieve such a state remains invisible. Democracy is like Android. It’s messy, it’s chaotic, and nobody who makes it agrees with each other and it’s always in need of improvement.

Electing religious parties to government is not all that bad. Many countries have had governments led by parties which have religion deeply embedded into their DNA. It’s not like these governments started killing members of other . . .  

Uh-oh.

Be afraid, Egypt.

Be very afraid.

The cherished myth of the Noble Dictator

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Ever since Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, almost every subsequent election in other parts of the world has had a candidate promising ‘change.’ Like in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, LK Advani tried to be that candidate. Because nothing says change like an octogenarian politician who has spent the last four decades as a member of parliament and has been a prominent member of three governments.

Then it was Nick Clegg, who after a good performance at a debate was hailed as the UK’s version of Obama. Even though Clegg has the wit of a bottle of home-made disinfectant and the charm of a stale box of Pringles. Nobody in England even wants to have a drink with him as constantly hearing about how mass-marketed alcohol beverages are causing malnutrition in Somalia is a real bugger. And all a bloke wants to do after a hard day's work is sit in a pub, make some jokes about how the fat chick flirting with the bartender looks like Wayne Rooney and watch some bleeding rugger on the telly, so shut your pie hole and pass the crisps, Nick. Even insane asylum escapee and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinajad wasn’t impervious to borrowing cheap marketing slogans from the leader of the great Satan. Thanks a lot for ruining all elections, Barry. 

As in everything else it does the Indian media’s Obama obsession borders on the creepy. What they don’t realize is that if Obama was born in India (maybe he is? All irrefutable evidence may point to his being born in Hawaii, but who am I going to believe? My lying eyes or a racist & kooky con artist?) he’d get an engineering degree from an IIT, go abroad to work for an MNC and come back to India ten years later and write a terrible book about the whole experience. And even after Obama has jumped the shark, the media continues to look for a person to fit into their pre-existing narrative. Is it Mayawati? No, she’s turned into a megalomaniac dictator whose goal is to put a statue of herself in every house in the country. Is it Anna Hazare? No, he was already a megalomaniac dictator before most of the popular journalists could misinterpret their first fact. Is it the chief minister of a prosperous state who shall remain unnamed? Never mind. I don’t want letters from those people.

The latest messiah who was unable to deliver us from all evil was Mamta Banerjee. Last year, her ‘poriborton’ campaign was all over the news. She was going to bring change to her home state after three decades of misrule! She was going to turn Calcutta into London! She was going to use her powers to change the axis of the earth and force it to revolve around West Bengal! However, what came as a surprise to no one but the hard working men and women who ask silly questions on television, Ms. Banerjee turned out to be a megalomaniac dictator. Even a horse wearing blinkers could have diagnosed her malignant dictatorship. All the symptoms pointed in that direction: Erratic behaviour. Disregard for public opinion. Paranoia. Not allowing any other leader in the party to develop a following large enough to challenge her authority. Denying reality. Blaming all the problems the people are suffering from on the previous regime or a more powerful outside entity. Her relatives treating the state like their own personal fiefdom. And now, she wants to paint the capital city in her favourite colour! That usually happens when politicians get that funny feeling in their stomach and decide that they are in this for the long haul. Though most dictators come from very diverse backgrounds, they all end up as graduates of the dictator school of hard knocks.

Of course, in India, we love leaders who pretend to be strong and decisive. Nothing gives our emasculated populace a bigger boner than a leader who doesn’t care for other people’s opinions. Consultations are for weak people! Real men take decisions impacting a large number of people based on what they feel in their gut! A large swathe of the country continues to want a benevolent dictator. When history has taught us that those two things do not go together. Even with all the current nominal checks and balances in place, most governments in this country commit highway robbery in broad daylight. Yet, somehow, people believe that a person with unchecked powers will be inclined to combat corruption.

So what if Indira Gandhi placed her sycophants in every position of consequence and sowed the seeds for the systematic rot we see now and every action of hers was determined by the need for self-preservation, but hey, at least the trains were on time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Journalism 101

 

This is how you conduct an interview.

There was no shouting. No putting words in the guests mouth. But Fareed still handed the "professor" his ass in a handbasket.

To think, if Fareed had stayed in India, he would be reporting on some dumb bitch getting married on teevee.

Le Sigh.

The cost of wanting your freedom

From The Guardian:

According to the pro-government newspaper Iran, four players – Ali Karimi, 31, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, Hosein Ka'abi, 24 and Vahid Hashemian, 32 – have been "retired" from the sport after their gesture in last Wednesday's match against South Korea in Seoul.

They were among six players who took to the field wearing wristbands in the colour of the defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, which has been adopted by demonstrators who believe the 12 June election was stolen.

The fate of the other two players who wore the wristbands is unknown. None of the team members were given back their passports upon returning to Tehran after the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

How many people can they stop?

The cost of being at the wrong place at the wrong time

From WSJ's Farnaz Fassi in Tehran, Iran:

The family, clad in black, stood at the curb of the road sobbing. A middle-aged mother slapped her cheeks, letting out piercing wails. The father, a frail man who worked as a doorman at a clinic in central Tehran, wept quietly with his head bowed.

Minutes before, an ambulance had arrived from Tehran's morgue carrying the body of their only son, 19-year-old Kaveh Alipour.

On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Mr. Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an intersection in downtown Tehran. He was returning from acting class and a week shy of becoming a groom, his family said.

The details of his death remain unclear. He had been alone. Neighbors and relatives think that he got trapped in the crossfire. He wasn't politically active and hadn't taken part in the turmoil that has rocked Iran for over a week, they said.

Upon learning of his son's death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a "bullet fee"—a fee for the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back, relatives said.

How much more despicable can they get?

Elections have consequences . . .

. . . or that's what they keep telling us.

Unless of course you're in India. Then there are only two types of consequences. Either the country is royally fucked or painfully screwed.

Anyways, Iran had elections last week. Now, usually Iran doesn't really feature in conversations which aren't about the upcoming global apocalypse. And having President Nutjob running his mouth at every opportunity has made matters worse. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has all the bigotry of Ann Coulter combined with the wit and charm of Dick Cheney. So the people of Iran agreed with the rest of the world and wanted to see this guy go back where he came from so that he could spend the rest of his days hurling abuses at the Jews and homosexuals in obscurity. So he decided to rig the vote, pull out a number from his ass and declare himself President-elect.

But the cable news channels in India seems to have abandoned the story. Hey, some people from Bombay handing out home-made trophies at a big do in Macau and manufacturing news about how everybody hates Dhoni again is more important. Meanwhile Willow Palin (only someone who hates their child would name them Willow) secretly prays that she is taken away by Social Services so that she may be able to escape the pathological woman people say is her mother.

CNN's butt was kicked by twitter. CNN even had to ask it's resident twat to defend itself.

However, there are still some journalists in Iran who are doing excellent work in brining this story to the rest of the world.

No one really knows what is going to happen in Iran. But one thing is clear that this revolution will be live blogged. For more information and up to the minute coverage, check here, here, here and here.

Obama does not want to wake up one day and smell a burning Iran

Hopefully Kosher newspaper Haaretz reports that President Obama has told Israeli PM Netanyahu that he would consider a surprise attack by Israel on Iran a really bad belated inauguration gift. And if there is one thing Obama knows, besides knowing everything about everything else, it's about bad gifts.

U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Israel not surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran. The message was conveyed by a senior American official who met in Israel with Netanyahu, ministers and other senior officials. Earlier, Netanyahu's envoy visited Washington and met with National Security Adviser James Jones and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and discussed the dialogue Obama has initiated with Tehran.

In fact Obama was so concerned that Israel would sneak up on Iran and waterboard it Dick Cheney style that he couldn't even wait till Monday, the day he is actually scheduled to meet the Israeli Premier.

Thankfully, there is nothing going on this week which might freshen some old wounds.

OH NO! I think I spoke a little too soon.

But I'm sure there is nothing to worry about. After all, the people of the middle east are famous for their restraint, aren't they?

 

 

p.s. Can you twitter from inside a home-made bunker?

UN Anti-Racism conference ruined by Racism

The U.N conference on racism was doomed from the start. Not only were a few countries, including the US, Italy Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Poland and Germany boycotting it, the remaining delegates from the EU and Britain threatened to walk out if the forum was used for hate speech against Israel.

That's exactly what happened.

 

Can someone tell me who in their right mind would invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a racism conference?

Was the UN trying to be ironical?

Sure racism is a serious issue and it warrants discussion, but letting Ahmadinjad loose on the floor is completely the opposite way to go. It's like asking Micheal Jackson to address a Protect-your-child conference or asking Elizabeth Taylor to address a townhall where she answers questions about how to make a marriage last forever or asking Lindsay Lohan to enlist seven steps on how to keep your shit together or getting Paris Hilton to write a whitepapper on the ways to prevent STDs.

This guy denies the holocaust. Something which is historical fact. Just because some people who wrote fake holocaust memoirs which Oprah selected for her book club doesn't change history. This guy held a hold conference in Iran to deny the holocaust. Even Hitler's like "Dude . . . that's a bit too much". He also said that Iran has no homosexuals. Yes, that's because in Iran homosexuality is punishable by a death sentence. In fact, the government of Iran is so scared of "the gay" that they issued a fatwa against Cher.

If Mr Nutjob thinks that he's doing Iran a favour by making it sound like the most racist place in the world (killer slogan to increase tourism, by the way), then I think he celebrated 4/20 a little too hard.

Myths & Truths

The UPA government needs to go. And fast.

Any government which thinks that China and Iran are our friends and the US needs to be told to bugger off, needs to stop smoking. Seriously.

Myth: China is a friend

Err... No. China is the major contributor to Pakistan's nuclear missiles (which are mainly developed for us ... to be used when we finally cross the LOC and finally obilerate those mother fucking terrorist camps.)

Also, China illegally occupies Aksai Chin and has not given up claim over the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

So having a friend like China is like having a neighbor, who, after receiving an invitation from you for dinner and drinks, comes in and then occupies the door between his house and yours and then keeps claiming the area around your bar.

To put it in terms Pranab Mukherjee would understand:

China is like Rasgullas made from milk contaminated with lead.

To put it in terms the general population of India would understand:

China is like Amrish Puri in Ghayal. They pretend to be our friend, but are actually the ones who kidnapped and kill our family members.

To put it in Terms Sonia Gandhi would understand:

China Bad .... Dragon .... Fire ... Boom .... Chicken Manchurian give stomachache


Myth: Iran is a Friend

Iran is not a friend. Iran is like the "crazy uncle" we all know and hate.

Iran is what would happen if China and Pakistan mated.

Iran would never support us in a war with China or Pakistan. Or even with Bangaldesh.

Hell, Iran won't even support us in a bad Tom Clancy novel.


Myth: The US is a enemy

This is bullshit. Horse Manure. Really? The world's only superpower, who is ready to give us civilian nuclear power and integrate us into the Missile Defense Shield to protect our countries from maniacs in Pakistan and China?

Of course, the US would look out for their interest. Are they stupid not too? However, what they offer us, benefits both the countries. It benefits India more. And it is in the interest of the United States to develop it's relationship with India.

It is in the interest of both the countries to jointly fight terrorism in South-East Asia (pakistan) and around the world. It is in the interest of both countries to curtail the negative influence of China in Africa. It is in the interest of both countries to work together to solve the twin crises of Global Warming and the upcoming global food shortage.

Ok, they made a mistake with Iraq. Well, they are paying for it aren't they? Even if they are paying their own companies .... they're still paying? .... It's the thought that counts.

The left parties should stop acting like it's 1970 and the cold war is still on. Hellloooooo? There is no Soviet Union, by the way (and the Vodka from Russia sucks). So it's time to stop playing the populist game and actually do something for the country. For once, stop acting like a bad haired version of Hugo Chavez.

See the thing is, America and India are, now, for all intents and purposes, in a relationship. And so what if it's a little gay? Sometimes they're on top, and sometimes we are. It's fine. And they keep ignoring Pakistan's request for a blow job. As long as they do that, we're good.

And we never do things they request us to do, which we don't want to. Like we did not send troops to Iraq because well, they were busy protecting Mayawati from terrorist threats. Nor did we vote against Iran. So, as our good "friend" Nehru would say, "Why the fuck are you getting your knickers in a knot?"

So stop labeling the United States as a bully. They can't bully us. Hell, thanks to George Bush, they can't even bully Canada, now-a-days.

So I'm asking the left parties, to stop acting like headless chickens (oh.. i'll go there ...) and for once stop the idiotic statements and do what's best for the nation. Stop giving those knee jerk reactions. And for the love of Sweet Corn Soup, instead of being loyal to China, be loyal to the country you live in, India. After 5 years of fucking up the nation, you owe us that much, don't you?

It's time our government stopped acting like the actors in RGV ki Aag and start behaving with some intelligence. I know it's a lot to ask, but we can try can't we? If they don't our life will turn into an endless repeat of a Himesh (I'm about to puke) Reshyamiya movie.