As illustrated by this village in Karnataka. All men are named Gyanappa, and all women are Gyanavva.

No alias, no surname, no pet names even. [link]

This has got to be awesome for the administration. Makes their life so very simple. NOT.

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The WTFness of our times just keeps increasing. Take this.

Maoist leader Kishenji on Friday called a 48-hour bandh from September 13 in eight states to press for a probe into the death of top Naxal leader Cherakuri Rajkumar alias Azad. [link]

To be fair, yesterday was Janmashtmi; the day of Kishanji. But isn’t he a, erm, terrorist? Anyone remember the cold blooded murder of 76 CRPF men in Dantewada?

It doesnt stop there.

“Azad’s post mortem report quoted in a national weekly said he was shot from a distance of 7 cm. So, there is no doubt that it was a cold blooded murdered by the Andhra Pradesh SIB,” he said.

Note to CRPF: Next time you kill a terrorist, make sure you shoot from a distance greater than 7 cm.

And dear terrorists, if our home minister keeps resigning over every single petty murder in the country, who will take care of the recent phenomenon of saffron terror? You? Retards!

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For all of you who thought Indian journalists defined arrogance, watch this.

The gentleman’s name is Mubashar Lucman, and he can be as awesome as they come. In the above video he manages to prove a point with the Pakistani parliamentarian, totally losing the whole debate about what to do with match fixing Pakistani cricketers in the nitty gritties of what law to invoke. Good work.

The remaining parts of the interview here. [Hat Tip: Prerna]

A search on Youtube reveals more gems. Watch Mr Lucman exposing the sham that is the Indian democracy.

To paraphrase his noble thoughts: We are lucky that we got this nation that is Pakistan, and didn’t have to stay on in India. There’s as many lower castes and Christians in India, and if i tell you what they go through, you won’t eat for three days.

Ha, aren’t they getting their food supply courtesy the millions of dollars of aid going from India?

Watch it, Mr Douche. Shout at your politicians as much as you want, but one more offense against India and we will let Arnab and Barkha loose on you. Then you’ve had it.

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This latest Idea commercial could easily double up for national integration duty.

Interestingly, Abhishek and his run of creative ads for Idea Cellular seems to be going against the Bachchan khaandaan tradition of horribility. Big B’s Navratan oil ad and Aishwarya Bahu’s Loreal ads being cases in point.

Dare i add Big B’s adrenaline overdose campaign for the Champion’s trophy! If Junior sees that one on the telly, he will have nightmares.

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Alright, this is going to be one of those posts you should immediately bookmark. It is so epic it’s almost a public service announcement.

This post will tell you how to get a passport for your minor child. An Indian passport, to be precise. We don’t do China.

Let’s start with a little checklist. If you say no to any of the following, then this is not for you.

1. Are you Indian? By Indian we refer to the country of Pillai and Kalmadi, not Pocahontas and Crazy Horse.
2. Do you have a child?
3. Is the child less than 18 years old?
4. Was the child born in India? (Please refer to first question.)

Alright, so we have established that you are an Indian who has a child less than 18 years, which makes him a minor. (Which also means that you don’t have a life and are on track to baldness and/or craziness, but that’s besides the point.)

Now why would you need a passport for such a little precious thing? Tick the one that applies.

1. He has entered that NASA wala contest along with a million kids, and you are confident his solar system model will land him that trip to the land of H1B visas.
2. His International school has a trip planned to Egypt over the upcoming summer vacation, and you dont have the option of saying no without making a shrupnakha out of your darling. (‘naak katwa diya’)
3. You want to take him on a phoren trip while he can still travel without a ticket, which i believe is for children less than two years.
4. <Insert your own weird reason that, frankly, nobody cares about.>

Here’s what happens next.

Stage 1: Denial

Establish whether this is really required.

Can the school be changed? Will DRDO work instead of NASA? Will Mahabalipuram substitute for Egypt? It is very important that careful thought be given to this stage, because if you can nip this in the bud, you save yourself a lot of hassle.

Stage 2: Planning

Alright, so you didnt try hard enough. Now suffer. Tell your bosses that over the next month you will need a few leaves from work.

Stage 3: Documents

To get a passport for a minor child, you need the following documents

1. Duly filled passport application
2. Original birth certificate of the child.
3. Passport photographs. (Not yours. The kid’s)
4. Two address proofs for the parents. Not two each. Two overall. These address proofs can be:

4.1 Passport
4.2 Driving license
4.3 Pan card
4.4 Ration card: If you still have a full head of hair you probably dont know what this is.
4.5 Bank statements from a nationalized bank. And no, ICICI is not a nationalized bank, in case you didnt know.

5. Copies of passports of both parents
6. Duly notarized Annexure I. We were told to get this on a 10 Rupee stamp paper.
7. Duly completed Annexure H (Declaration of applicant parent). This will be self filled, by the parents.
8. If you apply for a Tatkal passport (which gets delivered within two weeks of application), then you may be asked for an application on plain paper requesting for a Tatkal passport for your child.

9. A marriage certificate (of the parents, duh!) will be helpful.

Some websites mention a verification certificate for the child. We weren’t asked for one, though we did have it ready. This needs to be attested by a government officer.

Also, the fact that the mother’s surname as per her passport was still her maiden name did not cause problems. Neither did the fact that we hadn’t got her name added to my passport.

Remember to carry originals of all documents.

Now getting all this material together may be easier said than done. Once everything is ready, lets prepare for the trip to the local RPO

Stage 4: The Application

Never assume that since this is a minor child he doesn’t need to go. My experience was in Ghaziabad, and they definitely want to see the baby. Take him along. Even if your RPO doesn’t require his attendance, take him. (The baby can be leveraged on application day – nobody wants to make a baby cry.)

Make sure the application is completed. Get the baby to sign at all required places. If he is like normal babies he will be unable to do so. Get an ink pad and get his thumb impressions instead. Try to get edible ink because that thumb is going to go into the mouth as soon as the form is attended to.

Get the baby to sign at all required places.

There will be a specific counter for the tatkal applications. At Ghaziabad, they gave us our number in line and asked us to sit. No real standing in line. Once the number came, we met the officer who inspected the documents and pointed out the missing ones, as noted in the list above.

All done, went in again. This time everything was in order. Got directed to the other gentleman in the same room, who did some entries in their register, made a file, and asked us to make the payment.

Payment of Rs 2100 (1500 + 600) will be required. I didn’t check, but very likely they will not accept credit cards. In return you get a receipt with an application number, which can be used to check the application status at their website.

A week (or two) later, the passport will be there. The postman will need some reward for his troubles, and you are all set.

Useful links:
Indian Passport – Official website
Few points for a Chennai application
Apply for a fresh Passport – Official version
Immihelp – Passport for a minor
Naveen Kapoor’s blog

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A new season of India’s Got Talent is on, and I am going to be following this season, just for this guy.

Goose Bumps!

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Looks like the great Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has some grand plans laid out. No, not the statues. This is even bigger.

The state government has plans for several ambitious highway projects, estimated to displace about 23000 of the total 1 lakh villages in the state. [link]

Among these projects is the 165 km Yamuna expressway which will reduce the Delhi-Agra drive to a 90 minute cruise. Just for this project some 43000 hectares of land has been acquired, and over 7 lakh people are going to be affected.

With over 20,000 villages getting displaced, that’s going to be a lot of people moving around. Raj Thackeray must be a worried man at the prospect of all those Bhaiyas moving to his land.

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…and this is where Manmohan Singh’s Independance day speech was drafted.

[Click image to open larger version]

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Actually, a lot of of them deserve to be hit with rocks.

Take this. The Uterus Snatchers of Andhra. [link]

Rural pockets across Andhra are being taken for a ride by greedy doctors removing women’s uteruses for any and every ailment. All because a surgical procedure would fetch them more money than a mere medicine prescription.

These victims of rampant medical malpractice and government apathy now make for a startling statistic of the National Family Health Survey – the number of young menopausal women is the highest in Andhra Pradesh,standing at a staggering 31.4 per cent.

So we have young women in worse physical shape than much older ones. These women cannot bear children, and end up spending all their savings on medicines due to the amazingness inflicted upon them.

And to think we spend our time worrying about Moon missions, UN security council memberships, and Cricket. Jai ho, India!

It sounds like a fair bargain to cut away these doctors’ jewels to repay for the women’s loss. Shall we?

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Here’s a compilation of some of my funny posts on Twitter from the month of July.

Read and enjoy!

• Young Indian techies don’t need Deepak Chopra. Pizza is much more motivating.
• Isn’t rahul mahajan the ass who laughs like a horse?
• Rahul Mahajan should marry Sarah Jessica Parker. They can then gallop away into the sunset.
• Just how long can desi techies talk before they mention their “years of industry experience”?
• For all fans of crappy whitening creams, I have one word for you. Sandpaper.
• Getting people into a crib session bitching about work can be a great team building activity.
• Don’t beat your wives. Never forget they are the ones cooking what you eat, and poison’s easy to find
• The Great Khali should be made speaker of Parliament. He will bring much needed discipline and glamor.
• Desi tele-serials are god’s gift to the percussion industry. They play dhols all the time. LOUDLY.
• If at first you dont succeed, blog about it.
• Angelina Jolie says she has a dark side. Rumour is she adopted it from Africa.
• Don’t run after fast bucks. They get away rather quickly.
• Behind every crappy software there is a crappy project manager.
• People who drive on the wrong side of the road should be rear-ended. No, not talking about their cars.
• A job at an Indian mall must be a gay man’s dream come true. Nobody escapes the frisking.
• I have already thought up a great headline for when Mamta wins in West Bengal. “There’s nothing LEFT to do”.
• Guinness Book to officially acknowledge India as the largest producer of crap. AajTak made all the difference.
• Delhi Police to launch new service for constipated people. Tagline: “We will beat the crap out of you”.
• Mamta Banerjee gets recurring dreams where she’s randomly driving around Calcutta. She never takes a left turn. Not once.
• In India we just have to go to the doctor. Apples cost Rs 150/kg.
• Is it called breaking news because it makes you want to break the TV? Using your own Head?
• Look at Akshay Kumar on Chak Dhoom Dhoom, grinning away like a Jackass.
• Dear retarded driver out on Delhi’s roads. The left is for Communist crap, not for overtaking.
• ‘hmmm’ is such a perfect conversation killer. Don’t know what to say? Go humming bird.
• Kapil Sibal looks like his eye-brows could use a Lawn Mower.
• How to be funny. 1. Use profanity 2. Sex sells 3. Fuck political correctness 4. Be offensive to at least one group
• IT types love the term ‘backend’. Maybe its because their backends get slammed around so much?
• Anyone heard of the manager who wanted his team to plan sick leaves in advance? By at least 2 weeks?
• ‘Reply All’ has got to be the worst software feature ever. Nothing comes even close in terms of grief caused globally.
• Why do they call it Human Resources when no humans work in that department?
• I wasnt born funny, but they had a picture of Rajnikant in the nursery.
• People who use the word ‘fuck’ most are likely the ones who never really get to.
• The way Krishna and Qureshi have been quarreling, you would think Qureshi’s real name is Godavari.
• The sequel of Inception will be called Conception. Contraception and Deception will follow thereafter.
• Baggage handlers at Delhi airport at it again. Set of stolen balls recovered last night. Rumored to be SM Krishna’s.
• The new rupee symbol is actually Raknikant’s signature. The contest was just masti.
• Nothing screams ‘liar’ louder than reporting to work after a sick day sporting a new haircut.
• Salman making ‘Wanted 2′. It will be titled ‘Unwanted’.
• Sena will burn all copies of Shivaji book. They’ll have to buy them all first, i suppose. Good for the author.
• If the govt takes away all the stones in Kashmir, will the protests stop?
• Every cloud has a silver lining. Everywhere except India. They stole it.
• It’s not like i don’t have a funny bone. It just got fractured.
• n the US, you hit a car, you leave a note. In India, you hit a car, you blame the other guy and ask for damages.
• The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once.
• With people dying because of Lauki juice, it may be time to find other a-laukic ways to good health.
• A coward dies a thousand deaths. Doesn’t that make him practically immortal?
• Zoel Saldana likes men with smooth palms. Indian govt officers, please take note. You guys have the most greased palms in the world.
• With that name, Dhoni and the wife would make a great couple for detergent ads.
• I miss Sunny Deol. He had such amazing SCREAM presence.

Head over to my Twitter page to check out the latest updates.

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