Are You Ready for #VoterMania2014?

“Finally,” bellowed the announcer, “Arvind Kejriwal has come back to . . . Ramlila Maidan.” The crowd erupted with a huge cheer. They told him that this day wouldn’t come. They said that he would be a flash in the pan. They said that he was too insignificant to even be remembered as a historical footnote. Yet, here he was. Listening to the millions and millions of his supporters chanting his name. Arvind closed his eyes to soak in the moment. As he stepped up to the podium to take the oath of office, the noise was deafening. They could probably hear the happy roar of the crowd in the secure confines of a fancy bungalow in Janpath as well as the state capital of Gujarat. He smiled. From now on, he would be known as the most electrifying man in Indian politics. After everything was going to be said and done. After all the smoke will be cleared. There would only be one man left standing. And he will be none other than the trail blazing, Shiela Dikshit defeating, morning ablutions tweeting, muffler wearing, people’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal.

* * *

Previously, when we checked in with the people of New Delhi, they were busy haggling over who would get to play their chief minister and pretend to solve their problems. Since Shiela Dikshit had retired to spend more time with all the flyover models in her house and no one else had come forward to take her place, the city was being run by an empty bottle of imported whiskey. The Lt. Governor was so desperate to find a human administrator for the city that he even contemplated going old-school and settling the dispute as they used to do in ancient times: hosting a butter chicken eating contest and awarding the chief ministership to the winner of the contest. 

This situation came about because none of the parties in the legislature were in a position to form the government. In fact, in a first for electoral democracy, all the three parties wanted to sit in the opposition. The BJP fulfilled its election promise of providing strong leadership by refusing to even attempt to form the government, even though it was the party with the most legislators. The AAP didn’t want to form the government because (a) it wasn’t in the mood, (b) it had a headache and (c) it probably had too much wine at dinner, was very tired and all it wanted to do was go to sleep so would you please switch off the light, honey? The tiny group of legislators that belonged to the Congress were busy wondering what they were doing in the assembly anyway.

That question was answered a fortnight later when after days of goading by its political opponents, the news media, and its supporters, the AAP finally agreed to form the government with outside support from the Congress. Our national nightmare was finally over! The city with the highest number of government officials in the country was going to get another half dozen of them!

So history was made and thousands of people watched Arvind Kejriwal take the oath of office and become the first resident of Ghaziabad to become the Chief Minister of New Delhi. Never before had so many people gathered together in a single venue without any food stalls in the vicinity. The stage Kejriwal took the oath on was made of wood, concrete, Anna Hazara’s crumbled hopes, Harsh Vardhan’s tears and faux piousness.

In a month’s time, Arvind Kejriwal had gone from flash-in-the-pan-do-gooder, to being labelled as the most omnipotent force in Indian politics. He became India’s newest boyfriend and/or saviour. His narrative was less expert politician and more vanquishing hero. It’s like something out of a wrestling storyline. An unknown man comes out of nowhere and issues a challenge to the more established candidates. They mock him and act like he is no threat to them even though they’re really worried of losing their position. They try to stop him by any means necessary. They throw every roadblock his way and make him go through every obstacle they can think of. Yet, he overcomes all of their challenges and despite the overwhelming odds, emerges victorious and wins the championship. Even Vince McMahon couldn’t come up with something better.

So, now, everyone wants to be his friend. Social activists, people pretending to be social activists, actors, billionaires, politicians not affiliated to any other political party right now, busybodies, journalists, children and grandchildren of freedom fighters, senior citizens who are also members of their local laughter club, adults who once wrote an essay in school about things that they would do if they were made the prime minister, and folks who love that Anil Kapoor movie in which he gets to be chief minister for one day. All of them are all lining up to join the AAP.

Since he’s the most popular kid in school now, the other political parties don’t know what to do with him. The BJP keeps trying to prove that whatever actions Kejriwal takes has been done by them before. We hated the Congress before it was cool. The BJP zombies on twitter who-till last month-were so goddamn sure of Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister for life and their party winning all the parliamentary seats in general election are now spending the better part of their day fruitlessly trying to prove that Kejriwal is the worst thing to happen to the country since bollywood producers discovered Telugu movies. The Congress has a love-hate relationship with the AAP. They love them for taking away the ‘change’ mantle from the BJP. But they hate them for taking away the we’re-the-only-thing-standing-between-you-and-desi Putin mantle away from the Congress. However, they still have to pretend to like the AAP because Rahul Gandhi is fascinated by them. So they support the AAP with the same enthusiasm shown by children who are forced by their parents to accompany them on visits to older relatives who insist on discussing the strange rash on their pelvis during dinner.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that’s going to be your next few months. One man’s election campaign is going to be another man’s gladiatorial soap opera.

* * *

He stood on the stage and saw all his Modimaniacs looking at him with their expectant eyes, chanting his name, treating every word out of his mouth as a pronouncement from god. He smirked. Did anyone really think that they could stop his momentum? Or steal his thunder? There is no one out there that can even come close to inspiring the sort of devotion that he does. After all, he is the excellence of execution. The best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be. He is so close to taking what is rightly his that he can almost taste it.  All he needs to do is to keep reminding people to say their prayers and take their vitamins. His critics can do and say whatever they want. Haters gonna hate, right? The real question dear critics, he thought to himself, is that whatcha gonna do, brothers, when the Modimaniacs run wild on you?

A Great Day for Indian Shamocracy

A billion people shall wait night and day,
for this child of man to have his say;
for he will be the one to whom they pray,
this child of man who just wants to play.
- A modern day ‘re-boot’ of one of Nostradamus’ predictions 

Many many moons ago, when the sky was dark and the air was suffocating, a man sat looking at the future of the human race in the majestic portal that lived in the small lake near his house. Now, some people say that that old man was just trippin’ and most of his predictions are vague enough that they can be made to fit any event in human history. However, we true believers know in our heart of hearts that he always knew what we did last summer.  

As the great seer predicted, the people of this country spend their days and nights waiting for their favourite man-child to emerge from his man-cave to vocalize his most recent epiphany. India is a computer! Poor people are like spaceships! We’re all living in virtual world while our real bodies are used by our robotic overlords for their own sustenance!

Recently, while part-time Prime Minister and full time employee of Gandhi Inc., Manmohan Singh, was in Washington to meet the self-proclaimed leader of the free world so that they could have an awkward conversation of epic proportions, our childus emeritus decided to steal away the meagre spotlight from his company’s most loyal employee. 

Some members of Team Rahul (Yup, that’s a thing now. Apparently, every moniker these days must be dumbed down to buzzwords so stupid that even teenagers whose only point of reference is a book about vampires can understand them.) had a bright idea! They thought that it would cause no harm if they let their ward appear briefly on teevee to pronounce his opposition to a recent step taken by the government that would benefit members of the political establishment who, let’s just say, were a little creative in their interpretation of what is considered ‘lawful activity.’ Why not let the second most powerful person in the party directly contradict the Prime Minister while he is on an important international tour? That wouldn’t diminish the Prime Minister’s standing in the international community or anything. 

So a choreographed hijack of a press conference was arranged for maximum dramatic effect! It was a perfect setup. From the sycophantic welcome he received from the press club representative, to his pause for gasps and pearl clutching while declaring his opinion, to the metaphorical mic drop and stage exit. Another episode of ‘Two Minute Political Wisdom,’ brought to you by the information age. As easy to make as a packet of noodles!

Now usually the Prime Minister can win a couple of newscycles whenever he returns from a meeting with President Barry America. Just last week, if he’d let one of the bureaucratic adoptees working for him mention, in confidence of course, to an agency reporter that Barry himself walked Singh towards his car, it would have gotten him about three days worth of positive press. Even Arnab Goswami would have been impressed enough to call a large panel of Pakistani generals to his show so he could spend a couple of hours gloating to their face. (Although to be fair it doesn’t take much to impress Arnab Goswami. Just yesterday, Arnab spent five hours watching a goldfish swimming in a glass container full of water. In the end, it turned out to be a piece of toast that Arnab had dropped into the water when he bent down to look inside.) However, thanks to his younger boss, the only time the PM’s name was mentioned at all last week was in conjunction with the words “resignation” and “what a miserable state of existence to be in.” 

In fact, the clamour for Manmohan Singh to resign reached ridiculous levels. Someone who is considered a very serious person with intelligent opinions by most of our news organizations said that the Prime Minister should resign while he is on a bilateral visit! Because that is how you run a country. Just take your toys and go home because the mean kid from down the street questions your ability to authentically replicate the sound a train makes while in motion. In the whole sordid episode, the only person who actually seemed most like an adult human was Manmohan Singh. The man who wouldn’t be able to sell space on a lifeboat to passengers of a sinking ship! He was the designate driver in a car full of irresponsible idiots who couldn’t hold their alcohol! People planning on having kids, do you really want to bring them up in a world in which Manmohan Singh is deemed the sanest person around?

The only silver lining in the whole ordeal was watching the sycophants who had spent the past few days trying to sell the ordinance to the public, turning around and calling it the worst thing to happen to mankind since the bubonic plague. As a connoisseur of hilarity, it was rather entertaining. As a citizen though, it was disconcerting to watch the speed at which the members of our political cults inhabited the opinion of their dear leader and made it their own. As ‘India’s nightingale’ Jayanti Natrajan put it, if the scion takes a view everyone else will obviously fall in line. Obviously! Because in a shamocracy, holding an opinion contrary to the stated position of the object of your worship even though it might be official party policy is like trying to hold two radioactive nuclei in a box made of uranium-238.

If only someone had predicted that this would happen.

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who Is The Wisest Of Them All?

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

As they keep telling us, India is the land of diversity. We’re united in our differences! In fact, the only thing keeping us together is cricket, our inexplicable hatred for people who are even slightly different from us, and the inherent wisdom that’s embedded into each child that is born on this blessed land. Not that we’ve ever lacked wisdom. We’ve always been the land where lost souls arrive from other countries to find their enlightened selves. Foreign tourists have been treating our country like a global yoga retreat for centuries. But some of these ungrateful people also stole our secrets and used them for their own personal benefit. As any real patriot will tell you, the secret to everything was written in the puranas. Yet, we’ve never taken advantage of our own ancient wisdom, because we’ve been too busy following the self-destructive path Macaulay laid out for us.

However, all this is set to change. Recently, self-proclaimed avatar of Vallabhai Patel and the wisest man in the world, Narendra Modi, gathered some future disciples and explained some facts of life to them. He said that in 1947, when India awoke to freedom and being condescended to by our own elected leaders, the dollar and the rupee were at par. And now, thanks to the retirement community running our central government, the Rupee has fallen on hard times. In fact, the rupee is so destitute, it’s like an unemployed college graduate in a Raj Kapoor movie. The only way it can buy itself a few measly meals is to turn to a life of crime. We can’t let that happen!

Now, even though the assertion is completely false, it feels like the truth. So what if the Rupee was pegged against the pound until 1966? It doesn’t matter that in terms of real value, a dollar in 1947 was equivalent to four rupees. Let us ignore the fact that if the dollar and the rupee would be at par right now then we’d actually be in the middle of an economic disaster. We wouldn’t be able to continue to be the ‘outsourcing haven’ that we are. Neither would we be able to become the ‘economic powerhouse’ that is our god-given destiny.  The point is that if one rupee is not equal to one dollar, then a great insult has been perpetuated on our people. It’s not economics deciding the value of the rupee, it’s racism! And this government won’t do anything about it because it’s so effete. Real men avenge imaginary insults. So we’re going to have our revenge by seducing more British directors into making movies about poverty so that another rejected AR Rahman song takes over the Oscars.

Not to be outdone, Modi’s opponent, Congress Vice President and ‘Boy Wonder’ without a Batman, Rahul Gandhi, enthusiastically declared that if India was a computer then the Congress party was its default operating system. Which explains why every file in the computer’s memory is corrupted, no programs work as intended and the computer only works for five minutes every morning. So this is why all of the computer’s software applications ignore the user and only take instructions from the motherboard.  Maybe the makers of India’s operating system should look into why there is no sound emanating from the speaker? I’m no expert, but I think the problem lies in the sound card. It was a popular brand in its heyday, but now it is just a shell of its former self, doing nothing but waiting for the time when a younger, much more subservient sound card puts it out of its misery. 

Following in the footsteps of his dear leader, real life Shakespearian tragedy and Minister in-charge of the government’s propaganda department, Manish Tewari, gave a speech too. Among other equally brilliant ideas, he proposed that journalists should be issued a license before being allowed to practice journalism (or its local equivalent). This is a great idea because that worked out so well for other similar democracies like China and North Korea. Not many people know this, but we already have a pilot program in place. If any expat journalist reports on things that the government doesn’t really like talking about, they don’t renew their visa under some flimsy pretext or the other. This project has been a huge success! There are no negative stories about India in the foreign press. What works in our favour is that there is no other way people in the world can know what is going on in our country besides reading reports by foreign journalists. After his speech, Manish Tewari got into his time-travelling Premier Padmini, stopped at Connaught Place in 1989 for a Wimpy’s burger and a Campa Cola. Then he headed back to whence he came.

However, the award for the most intelligent activity of the week goes to all those people who were protesting the movie Madras Cafe because it portrayed the LTTE in a negative light. Heaven forbid someone think unfavourably about the LTTE! They assassinated a former Prime Minister and committed various atrocities on the very people they pretended to protect; yet, appearing in a John Abraham movie is going to give them a bad reputation! All I’m saying is that if you want to protest a movie exploiting Tamil stereotypes to make a huge amount of money, then you’re probably confusing Madras Cafe with the other recent movie which uses the capital of Tamil Nadu in its title.

If only there were some place where we could go and seek the truth.

Mind Your Elections: Clichémageddon

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

While the rest of the country was busy shouting expletives at their favourite IPL teams on teevee and hoping that Sachin Tendulkar wouldn’t injure his ‘brand’ by pulling a ‘Ganguly’ and overstaying his welcome, the people of Karnataka were busy electing a new set of porn addicts to darken the legislative halls of ‘India’s weather capital,’ Bangalore.

Elections in India bring out all the clichés to the yard.

The clichémageddon begins before even a single vote is cast. Most days leading up to the election are spent talking about the gaffe of the day. Some unpolished leader will say what is really on their mind and people will be shocked and outraged that an Indian politician is a horrible person on the inside. If the person is a senior leader of their party or are instrumental to the election campaign, they will begrudgingly release a terse statement saying that they didn’t mean to cause any offence; a sort of non-apology in which you can sense the gritted teeth and the unstated contempt. If the leader is a disposable sycophant, their party will leave them to fend for themselves and they will disappear from the election campaign for a few days.

There will also be a lot of puffy teevee and print profiles in which a reporter spends a day or two with one of the star campaigners for a party in which they show how hard the leader is campaigning for the elections by addressing multiple meetings in one day, clocking thousands of miles in a helicopter and/or chartered jet. You can tell which leader is being setup for the electoral success-failed government-eventual comeback narrative by the amount of news coverage they receive.

The most common refrain that we hear from every second person covering the elections is that in India people vote their caste and do not cast their vote. Which is a horrible thing to say because not only is it a bad pun, it reveals a casual acceptance of racism. Nope, nothing to see here. Everything’s a-okay! Just a large percentage of people being bigots. It’s a feature of Indian democracy, not a bug! We are like this only, etc.

On the day of the elections, we get to see exciting pictures of party leaders casting their votes for the “political leaders: they’re just like us except they get to cast their vote accompanied by security personnel and hundreds of flashing cameras!” segments. After the polls close, they release the voter percentage. Without any exception, the most prominent urban city in the state is revealed to have the most appalling percentage of voter turnout. That city becomes the object of everyone’s disappointment. Celebrity panellists chide the eligible voters who didn’t bother to show up at a polling station and question their commitment to civic engagement because, apparently, casting a vote once every few years is the answer to all your problems. Low voter turnout also helps people on the internet play a round of their favourite game: my third world, dystopian shithole of a city is better than your third world, dystopian shithole of a city because more of us show up to stand in a line to select our next ‘most corrupt government yet.’

Then there are the exit polls. From the moment the last vote is cast to counting day, we are on the receiving end of analysis, debates, arguments, plausible scenarios, hypothetical coalitions, and bad metaphors based on these famed ‘polls,’ even though they are seldom accurate. But no one ever takes any responsibility for being wrong! Instead, we end up hearing paeans to the Indian voter who suddenly turns out to be ‘smart’ and ‘wise.’ Hey, the gypsy lady with a crystal ball who writes our poll predictions was having an off day. What can we do about it?

However, the major impact of clichémageddon is felt on counting day. If you turn on NDTV, you get to see a panel of experts who were popular and respected in the 1990’s but have spent the last decade being exposed for the hacks they are. Times Now will have more old people on its panel than a ‘yoga shivir’ in Haridwar so they spend all their time shouting at each other. IBN makes it clear that no matter what the results show, the real winner of the election is always their coverage, which has won every award they have printed out on Rajdeep’s personal ‘dot-matrix’ printer. Headlines Today is the popular destination for all the analysts no other channel invited - like the world’s premier writer of erotic Rahul Gandhi fan fiction, Sanjay Jha. Headlines Today is the “linked-in” of Indian news channels; people join it just to get a better job somewhere else.

The reaction of the political parties was also quite predictable. The BJP was pretending to be shocked that changing names of cities, banning beef every few months and beating up people trying to get a drink after a bad day at work didn’t make them popular. Deve Gowda’s party wrapped up all its dry cleaned jackets in plastic, put on its pyjamas, and got ready to go back into hibernation for the next five years. And the Congress ‘outsourced’ the election of its chief minister to the party’s ‘high command.’

If only there was some way to determine what the people really wanted.

Sophie’s Democracy

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

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

No one could stop him now.  .

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

No one could stop him now.

Fantasy Elections and slick politicians

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

One of the most strangely popular hobbies of sports fans is to participate in a fantasy league. A fantasy league is sort of a fan’s wet dream come true. It gives them the one thing that they think will help their team win the game. If only they could choose the players! Yes, the best judge of a team’s strategy is the guy with a beer belly shouting things at the television who has never played a sport in his life.

Such sentiment is not limited to sports fans, though. There is an amateur pundit in all of us. From the day the last vote in the assembly elections was cast, to the day the counting began, the punditrati was busy playing fantasy elections. The news anchors, political analysts and party spokespeople spent three days holding discussions on hypothetical results. Though no party would accept the fact that they would do as badly as the results predicted, the harsh rhetoric of the past few months had been already forgotten and everybody was in a conciliatory mood. Old tropes were being dusted off and called into service again to sugar-coat any future cynical power grab. Each party was ready to work with their sworn opponent, ‘for the good of the people of the country.’ Ah! We are so lucky to be living in a utopia in which our politicians are so patriotic that they don’t let mere principles stand in their way.

The Congress used this time for a soft launch of ‘Operation Don’t Blame Rahul Gandhi.’ Everyone from Rita Bahugana to the ghost of Arjun Singh went around saying that if the Congress did bad in UP the blame was to solely rest on their shoulders. The BJP took turns giving dubious reasons for the absence of Narendra Modi from the campaign trail to having to explain why having 15 contenders for a single post means that everybody in the party is on the same page.

Then, as the election results came in, alliances were being built in the television studio. As the largest party in all the states staked their claim to form the government with Arnab Goswami, common sense conclusions were being presented as an ‘exclusive’ (BREAKING: Water will quench your thirst. Remember, you heard it here first!). The only narrative anyone was paying attention to was the emergence of Akhilesh Yadav as the new star of Indian politics. Since he is a blank slate in the public imagination, it’s easy to project people’s hopes and aspirations on him. He’s young! He can speak English! He uses an iPad! He caused a tectonic shift in Indian politics as the people of UP rejected a scion of a dynasty for the scion of another dynasty!

However, in six months, everyone will be asking whether Akhilesh is “losing his mojo” when he is unable to clamp down on the law and order problem in UP (because how do you clamp down on the very people whose support you need to stay in power?). And then, in 2014, when some other party gets more seats than the SP in the parliamentary election, everyone will ask whether he was “all hype and no substance.” There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that a government led by Akhilesh will be any different than a government led by his father, but who knows! Maybe Chief Minister Michael Corleone will be the one to take the family business legit. 

It was also hilarious to watch the exberts on twitter dance on the grave of Rahul Gandhi’s political career. Because in India, political careers hinge on one victory or one loss! That is why the career of a young, promising MP called Atal Behari Vajpyee was ended in 1984, when his party was routed in the election. Who knows, maybe he could have gone on to become Prime Minister! And has anybody heard from former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha after she lost two consecutive elections? I bet she is planning to go back to acting in movies right about now.

People forget that Indian politics is like the Hotel California. You can check-out any time you like but you can never leave. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jai Ho!

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

[Hat Tip: Iyer Deepak]

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

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

Let's look at the evidence:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

The End

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

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

Maya's revenge: The perils of a VIP constituency

Why is this not surprising:

On Tuesday, Amethi observed a 'bandh' to protest the undeclared power cuts which last up to 18 hours a day. Amethi is being subjected to blackouts for almost a fortnight now.

So Amethi pays the price for voting their preference. Since the people of Uttar Pradesh threw cold water on her Prime Ministerial ambitions, she takes it out on them. Not that this is anything new. This woman lives in her own world where the constitution does not exist and everyone else in the country is there only to enable her to achieve her dream of installing a statue of herself in every inch of the country. She's like a female Kim Jong-Ill, right down to the bad hairdo.

Yes the power situation is bad all through the country, but the situation in Amethi is fubar'ed because of "political reasons":

If UP Power Corporation sources are to be believed, the 'power' problem is a more political one. A senior official said the Centre had set up a 220 KVA power sub-station in Rae Bareli at a cost of Rs150 crore, three years ago, to ensure uninterrupted power supply to Amethi, Rae Bareli and other adjoining districts. "Since this is a VIP area, the distribution lines were also linked with the national grid. If despite all this, power rostering of up to 18 hours is being done, then the reasons are obvious," the official said.

I find the fact that these two "VIP" constituencies given special rights quite disturbing indeed. That is nothing new and it deserves a whole another post.

However, denying the people their basic right and making them suffer for not voting for you is bullying and is nothing short of treason. She is proud of the fact that she spent millions and millions of Rupees building statues for herself while a large portion of her state lacks even basic amenities.

On Tuesday, people in Amethi who were trying to peacefully protest were lathi-charged.

Not that other people fare any better. When Mulayam Singh was CM, he used to do the same thing. Now is is huffing and puffing about the how the people of both these constituencies are being treated unfairly. How the mighty have fallen.

These "politicos" along with their counterparts in the bureaucracy and the police have their own unique system of governance. Instead of actually being doing their job, they exist to suck the the blood out of the tax-paying public.

People like them have no business in Government, but as long as they have a mass base which will continue to turn a blind eye to their shenanigans, we will never get rid of them.

 

Where is Mr. India when you really need him?

Gah.

 

Powerful Mayawati renders Rahul's Amethi powerless [DNA]
'Drubbed in polls, vindictive Maya targeting Amethi voters' [TOI]
Power crisis in Amethi, Cong suspects Maya's power play [IBN-LIVE]

Open letters

To,

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

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

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

To,

Prakash Karat,

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

To,

LK Advani,

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

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

To,

Conspiracy theorists,

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

To,

MK Karunanidhi,

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

To,

J Jayalalitha,

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

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

You do?

LMAO.

To,

Susan Boyle,

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

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

Priyanka Gandhi says that Rahul Gandhi's as yet unborn children are fit to be Prime Minister

Fielding questions from C-level journalists while campaigning for Congress candidates, Priyanka Gandhi today said that she thinks that her brother Rahuls as-yet-unborn children will be fit to be PM, as and when they are born and grow up.

"I'm sure they would make great leaders even though they are not born yet. How do I know that? Well, the as-yet-unborn kids are the great-great-grandchildren of Jawaharlal Nehru, they are the great-grandchildren of Indira Gandhi and grandchildren of Rajiv Gandhi. What other qualifications do they need?". She added that "Our family's hold on Congress politics and the country is just like the duracell bunny. It goes on and on and on".

HRD minister Arjun Singh welcomed the statement. "This country runs in the right direction only if a scion of the Nehru Gandhi family is at the helm. The children of our future prime minister, Rahul Gandhi, are our future, twice removed".

However, party spokesperson,  Abhishek Manusingvi, when asked the same question adamantly refused to answer it and said that "I don't answer hypothetical questions". This was right after the long answer he provided to a reporter who questioned him about the policies Congress party would follow if it won the elections.

Meanwhile, after holding a press conference about the party's unflinching support for Varun Gandhi, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said that "This is the difference between the BJP and the Congress. The Congress is all about dynasty, whereas we support no dynasty".

Even Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Karunanidhi chimed in. At a function to announce candidates for the coming elections, including his three children, he said that "Dynastic politics is like a termite which is destroying Indian politics. We should put an end to it and practice real intra-party democracy". Afterwards, in conversation with party workers, he alluded to the possibility of his son, Stalin, taking over the DMK by the next election.

Rahul Gandhi's as-yet-unborn children were unavailable for comment.

Loose Ends 4.0

So Barack Obama is getting as much bad press as Hillary Clinton. Needless to say, he is bitter.

Obama's favorite tongue twister:

Betty bought a bit of butter ... The bit of butter was bitter ....

Yesterday, Obama received an endorsement from Bruce Springsteen. When quizzed about it, voters in Pennsylvania said "We're still waiting to hear from Sanjaya".

Hillary Clinton labeled Obama as an elitist due to his "bitter" remarks. She made this statement while on her way to a $50,000 per plate fundraiser.

Meanwhile, John McCain called the people in Wall Street "greedy". Although he did add "...unless you're a republican. In that case you are just ambitious."
********
So George Bush went to receive the Pope at the airport. When asked about it, the president said that "He really wanted to meet the guy they named those eggs after".

There was this moment of awkwardness when Bush asked the pope about the wife and kids.

It was good that President Bush took time out from his busy schedule to pick up the Pope from the airport. I mean even though it's the fag end of his term, he keeps himself busy. I mean, the 24 set DVD set containing all the seasons of are you smarter than a fifth grader are not going to watch themselves.

Of course, when you think about it, Bush and the Pope have so much in common. One is a strict religious man with empty beliefs with continuing decrease in popularity and the other is the pope.

When the president and the pope came face to face with the protesters, the protesters got confused. They didn't know whom they hated more.

When the Pope landed in New York city, he said that he wanted to see all the sites in New York, like central park, the museum of natural history and Donald Trump's hair.

The Pope gave a very emphatic speech about the temptations of the flesh and the sanctity of marriage. And that was just to the Governor of New York!!

********

Snoop Dogg is now coming out with books for little children. The following titles are scheduled to be released:

(a) Cinderella's Fella
(b) Hump Gretel
(c) Horton's ho'
(d) Snowhite blows the seven dwarfs

********

Arjun Singh was recently hit on the knuckles by her highness for suggesting that the regent Dr Singh make way for the crown prince, Rahul Gandhi. Me thinks it's time to send old yeller to the farm. Or in this case, make him a governor.

Arjun Singh does not talk to his wife much. She's very reserved.

*******