AmarSharma-Sensible Nonsense

Privacy Concerns & Perils with App-based Gate/Community/Accounting & RWA Management

2022-08-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

Letter to RWA President

2017-09-29T23:07:00.003-07:00

Context Setting:

The letter is addressed to a typical RWA (Resident Welfare Association) office bearer in India who thinks he owns the whole society and misuses its resources in a wanton manner, fulfilling his personal whims and fancies. This guy/gal is also a bully, coward, spineless and usually a bigot who openly discourages residents belonging to minority groups from using RWA greens for holding celebrations and functions while opening its purse strings for celebrating festivals & rituals prevalent in his own majority community. For those opposed to his wrong acts, there is a rule book thrown at them. For others, it is forever exception season.
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Dear President Saheb,

Saadar Pranaam Sir ji!

Let me begin this auspicious day by thanking you and your fellow travelers in the governing body profusely for showing unparalleled sensitivity towards aged men, women and kids staying in our society. I’m told that one of your office bearers justified bullying of dog-owners and your aggressive attempts to send our society’s pet dogs to Pakistan because even a random barking of a dog can induce heart attack or stroke in some people. What a deep and noble thought sir! Maan gaye!!

I don’t have any statistic as to how many people suffered heart failure or stroke after listening to non-stop blaring of loudspeakers yesterday evening. I did get lot of calls complaining about loudspeakers yesterday but sternly told them- So what if Modi ji & his govt. wants to banish loudspeakers from religious places, the country needs someone strong enough to stand up to him. After all, there is no strong opposition leader in the country. Not even for namesake. But now we know you’re the one who can stand up to power and show the powerful their place. I dedicate 2019 to you sir ji. Imagine the pride with which I’ll go on showing off – Oye, don’t you know that I have direct cell number of our PM ji…he is my next door neighbor. Challan kaat ke dikha ab!! Please sir, retain this number after shifting to 7, Lok Kalyan Marg also.

So what if our lawn is so small that a person calling someone’s name from one end can be heard clearly by the one at the diagonally opposite end and so loudly that it may induce heart attack! After all, we have a duty to generate jobs and warm up a Thanda business scenario! Imagine the plight of bechara tamboowalla, poor halwai (oops, caterer sounds more modern) and the wretched bhonpuwalla who are passing their time cursing the economic slowdown. And of the laborers who got one day’s, oops, 2 days (lagaana aur hatana) dihadi courtesy you. Not to forget the Tata 407 wala. Kitni duayen denge wo. No sir, your critics were wrong.

I can actually hear container-loads of blessings rushing and gushing towards your house. And upon finding the Lift Not Working sign, these blessings take the stairs to reach your place. And as they whiz past floor after floor they also blow away the banana peels, discarded sanitary pads, liquor bottles and chips packets carefully placed on the staircase. Yaani lage haath Swachh Bharat bhi ho gaya! Good that you organized the shamiyana and khana-peena closer to your block. That way, you get undiluted divine blessings. The other far off block walas will have to make do with diluted ones. It’s their bad luck that society’s president doesn’t live in their block. Bad karmas indeed!

Now you can organise the next such gala event, replete with halwais and bhonpus on Chatth pooja. We have sizeable number of people who’d bless you for this, once again. You can designate the swimming pool as the Vaitarni through an executive order so that devotees can do surya namaskar imagining it to be a river. We can think of placing a wave generator in the pool to give a real river like feel. Oye, have I given away a billion dollar start up idea phokat mein? Anyway, let someone steal my idea of manufacturing wave generators. He’ll end up making in India hopefully 😊

Now that my ideas tap is flowing, let me give another one.

Next time when you are allowing such grand event replete with loudspeakers et al, please inform all the residents in advance through a circular, specifying the date and time period. This will help all the anti-nationals (the ones who criticize the noise etc.) to plan an outing on that date and during that time. Which means, they’ll drive out of the society and go somewhere to pass time, mainly malls and movie halls. They’ll burn fuel in the process, which helps boost Ambani ji and Oil companies earnings. They’ll watch movies, eat out and maybe do shopping, all of which boosts the economy and cheers up the shopkeepers. Some with old, sick and infirm family members may check into OH-O Rooms to escape heart attack triggers or prevent their hearing aids from exploding, which will make their fly swatting owners go A-HA! You see, here too you are helping the economy grow by creating demand. Mr. Jaitley will surely recommend your name for a Padma award!

Sir, once you have had your fill of blessings, I too would like to get some. Please let me know the requirements for organizing similar events with me and few others who I’m counting on to contribute money towards this cause. God promise, I’ll lay out a lavish dinner on the lawns with naans and raans flowing straight out of the tandoor placed close by. Do I need to pay some sort of fee to use the society’s lawns for this privately organized event? Or will simply inviting the 10 governing body members and their families do? And I do promise to do my CSR bit by sharing the leftover food with all and sundry.

And before I forget, please let me know if some group supported by the RWA is planning to burn the effigies of Ravana et al in the RWA’s one and the only lawn today.

Eagerly looking forward to your reply sir.

Dying to be in your good books, always,

Your bhakt, truly...

Lipstick Under My Burkha: Pretty Overhyped Film

2017-07-29T05:53:00.000-07:00

At last, Lipstick Under My Burkha has been watched. And what a disappointment it has been!

The film’s director and producer(s) must thank Censor Board chief, Pahlaj Nihalani for providing the oxygen of publicity to a mediocre and regressive film which came to be hailed by feminists et al as a pro-women progressive film being stifled by archaic value systems held dear by Nihalani and his employers. In fact, that’s one reason I decided to watch it…as a form of protest against this stifling. People’s right to freely express themselves is paramount regardless of the quality of the thoughts & feelings expressed.

The film undoubtedly touches upon a topic that has been a taboo in Indian society – female sexuality. It uses 4 protagonists to drive home the point that like men, women too have sexual desires and feelings which need to be satisfied. Fair enough! It also tells you that these desires and feelings of theirs are suppressed by our patriarchal and feudal value systems. Fair enough once again. But that’s it!

If one hoped to take home any inspirational message or feelings about gender equality and ways to achieve it, this is certainly not the film to watch. To explain this point, let me summarize the stories of these four women and how plus where it ends in the film :-

A} BUA-Ji : She’s approx. 56 year old woman owning an old but prime property in the old city of Bhopal, something which builders are after. She doesn’t have a husband and lives within a joint family. Her sexual desires find expression in fantasizing while reading a novel with Rosie as its central character. She later runs into a swimming coach at one of city’s pools where she had taken her grand kids for swimming lessons. Sexually attracted to him, she joins swimming classes secretly while pretending to be going for satsangs, that is religious discourses typically attended by Hindus in India. Gradually she gets infatuated with her coach and starts making phone calls to him at late night sharing her fantasies. In the end, she gets caught out and her family members throw her out of the house of which she incidentally is the owner! She’s helpless and surrenders to her family’s diktat and is given shelter in Protagonist B’s home.

B} College Student : Hailing from a conservative Muslim family owning a Burqa boutique, this girl quickly abandons the burqa everyday she goes to college or beyond the boundaries of her Mohalla and we see her fetish for wearing jeans, t-shirts, boots etc. for which she steals stuff from high end showrooms in malls. She also sings English songs and has posters of her favorite western music artists in her room which are concealed behind posters and wall hangings of religious Islamic stuff. Post college hours, she helps her family by stitching burqas etc. Much against her parent’s expectations, she starts going out to parties, drinking alcohol and befriends a college guy. Police arrests her basis CCTV footage of her stealing things from a mall. In the end, her dad bars her from going to college and orders her to sit & stitch burqas at home till they arrange for her groom. She meekly accepts the diktat and is seen working on the sewing machine.

C} Saleswoman : Mother of three sons, this woman works as a door to door salesperson and is quite successful at her work, a fact that is hidden from her husband. Whenever she tries to disclose, he is not paying attention to what she wants to say. Her hubby has sex with her mechanically and without contraception forcing her to have multiple abortions. He even indulges in marital rape and dismisses her complains of discomfort etc. during sex. In the end, while she’s being promoted to the post of a Sales Trainer, her husband gets to know the truth (of her being an employed) and bars her from continuing with her employment. Like the other two protagonists, she simply listens to her hubby’s orders looking helpless.

D} Beautician : This girl dreams of starting her own business in partnership with her boyfriend who owns a small photo studio. She dreams of traveling, having a great honeymoon after marrying her BF and escaping the drudgery of her small town universe in Bhopal. She is sexually active and has sex with her photographer boyfriend right on the day she’s is getting engaged to another guy (arranged marriage). She’s also besotted with Bollywood style romance and poses freely in front of the camera…hugging and kissing the man with him, much to their surprise. She doesn’t want to marry the man her mom has chosen for her and keeps pushing her boyfriend to escape to Delhi and begin a new and romantic chapter there. However, they have a tiff and break off. Still, one night, she lands up at his place and wants to have sex with him which he refuses and tells her to get lost. Finally, her dreams don’t materialize and her fiancé gets hold of her mobile phone and her MMSes stored therein capturing her sexual escapades. Her boyfriend in the meanwhile approaches her and offers to join her in her escape to Delhi the next morning. She remains non-committal.

The film ends with all these four characters sitting together in B’s house smoking cigarette as one of them completes reading the last two pages of the novel Bua ji was reading but couldn’t finish. In the end they unanimously agree that these novels give them a chance and space to dream at least.

So, the message that I got was (I’m sure most women viewers would agree with me here) that while women do have their own sexual and emotional needs and desires, they finally fall in line with the diktats and expectations of the patriarchal and male chauvinist values floating around them. That they have no option but to oppress and suppress these feelings and desires as helpless creatures just so that they can survive. Being financially independent as gainfully employed citizens or as a property-owning landlady doesn’t matter at all. I agree this is a reality that pervades our society, even in ultra-glamorous and swanky strata of the society. But by simply showing this reality without presenting an alternate narrative, an ideal or an inspiration to break away from this ugly existence, how is this film doing any great service to women and the cause of their liberation or gender parity?

Don’t we see all powerful biwis and bahus who control and manipulate their husbands and in-laws 24 x 7 in our saas-bahu TV serials? If Lipstick under my Bukrha is a progressive and revolutionary film, then why don’t we call these Saas-Bahu shows progressive championing woman power?

I can understand that Alankrita Srivastva could not have shown all her four protagonists rebelling against the systemic sexual oppression built into our social mores. That would have made it a utopian film with zero credibility. But she could have surely shown one of them rebelling and doing what her heart desired or fulfilling her cherished dreams. We do have women around us who have rebelled and charted their own course. Should their stories not have been used to inspire and instill confidence in 48% of India’s population by telling them that not only do their bodies belong to them but also their dreams and both need to be celebrated in every possible way. How is it that controlling of women’s bodies by men is deplorable but suffocating their dreams is not?

How about ending the film with Bua ji kicking her regressive family members out of her house or the beautician girl actually boarding Bhopal-Delhi train with her boyfriend the next morning? After all, we do keep reading about young lovers eloping and marrying against their family and community’s wishes, even at the risk of being killed in the name of family, caste and religious honor; of women walking out of oppressive-abusive marriages and of couples knocking doors of courts across the country seeking police protection from `sanskaari’ goons of the society. These brave and courageous souls do need to be acknowledged and celebrated, not the ones who acquiesce before Palaeolithic societal norms.

Lipstick Under My Burkha is a pretty status-quoist film that serves and reinforces the very same patriarchal values (cherished by Nihalani types) which it is being hailed as opposing and challenging. No ladies and gentlemen. It doesn’t! I look at this film as part of a conspiracy to keep women where they are, just like the regressive TV serials do. Is it a mere coincidence that the film is produced/distributed by India’s numero uno producer of such TV shows?

Also, if the purpose of the film was to sensitize menfolk about women’s sexuality, there too the film has failed. Many women journalists and bloggers have reported that men in the hall invariably cheered every time one of these four women was shown her place in the man-woman relationship, specially scenes involving marital rape of Konkona Sen or when she asks her husband to stop saying `Jalan Ho Rahi Hai’ (I am having a burning sensation there) which he dismisses and carries on. Same in scenes where Ratna Pathak Shah is having an orgasm while speaking on the phone with her young swimming coach. So there you are!

Last but not the least. Smoking cigarettes by women was symbol of women’s liberation in 70s and 80s Alankrita. Even the feminist movement has dumped that imagery long back. Who gave you this idea BTW? Please take a walk across our villages in any state and you’ll come across women who smoke. Are they liberated?

Chhavi Rajawat - The Sarpanch of Soda

2015-12-20T05:30:00.004-08:00

Imagine you are suffering from loose motions but cannot step out of your house to relieve yourself till after sunset.

Imagine you are sitting in an open field for defecation with no bushes to hide behind because being in arid zone, there is very little vegetation around. You are forced to stand up everytime you hear vehicle approaching or people talking and wait till they pass by and are a few hundred meters away from you. Only then you get to sit again. Imagine these interruptions happening several times during just one round of defecating in an open field!

As she speaks with me in the sunny back lawn of her ancestral home in her village, I can see pain and anger in her eyes but not helplessness. Meet Chhavi Rajawat, the Sarpanch of Soda village in Rajasthan. When I jokingly tell her that a village called Soda gives an impression of it being a village where people are fond of drinking, she laughs and goes on to narrate all that ails her village and how she cannot let the villagers down after they have given her a second term as their Sarpanch.

Chhavi Rajawat- Sarpanch, Soda Village, Tonk District, Rajasthan

Had she relied on government funds, perhaps the women of Soda would have still being defecating in the open. Not anymore! She motivated villagers to part with some of their savings to build toilets and at the same time appealed directly to her schoolmates, college mates & ex-colleagues in the corporate world to chip in. Which most of them did. Today, more than 800 of the 900 homes in Soda have a pucca toilet (as of March 2015). But then old habits die hard and some people, mostly men, still prefer to defecate in the open. How to stop them?

One of the 800+ Toilets constructed in Soda Village

Her mom, super-proud of her daughter, jumps in excitedly and narrates how she has motivated young children of the village to start tailing such men and deprive them of moments of solitude, something critical to the excretion process! If necessary, the kids also make noise and tease the chap making fun of his choice to defecate in the open. These guys shout at the children, threaten them, curse them but in the end, it is the children who win!

Chhavi is India's first and youngest village sarpanch with an MBA degree! Before taking the plunge into full time Sarpanch-giri, she worked in the corporate sector including companies like the The Times of India Group and Bharti Airtel.

Construction of toilets without any government help is just one of her achievements. Her other successes include converting 40 muddy pathways inside the village into bitumen surfaced or stone paved roads. Hence every pathway and every gali in Soda is now motorable, barring a few connecting the Dhanis (Settlements) on the outskirts of the village.


Soda village at present has 40 such well surfaced roads, lanes& By-lanes

During her first term as Sarpanch, she also got the biggest reservoir in the village desilted to improve its rainwater storing capacity. This reservoir today is the safest source of potable water in Soda. Prior to this, villagers depended on shallow handpumps to draw groundwater which is laden with deadly pollutants and is highly saline making it unfit even for farming. She managed to get all such handpumps sealed and news ones were installed around the village reservoir. As expected, getting the state government to release funds for desilting the reservoir proved to be a herculean task as usual with the officials dragging feet and delaying file movements. This left Chhavi with no option but to approach for sponsors in the corporate world who partly funded this exercise.

With its groundwater heavily polluted, the reservoir is the only source of potable water for the entire village

As you enter Soda off the Jaipur-Tonk road, you are greeted by the sight of State Bank of India's Soda branch flanked by its ATM! Around the bank are shops of barbers, tea sellers and samosa-pakodi doing brisk business during banking hours. The bank caters not just to Soda but dozens of neighbouring villages as this is the only bank in the area. Chhavi has ensured that every Soda resident has a bank account here for easy transfer of MNREGA payments and other government subsidies and incentives. Getting State Bank to agree to open a branch in her village wasn't exactly a cakewalk. It is here that her MBA degree and corporate experience perhaps came in handy and she managed to convince the bank's top brass by convincing them of the gains the bank would make.

The village boasts of a Commercial Bank, a rarity in this part of the country

A few hundred meters from the bank is a towering mobile tower which ensures that the residents of her village enjoy good mobile and data connectivity 24 x 7, something that most villages in the vicinity can only dream of. Perhaps, having worked in Airtel, Chhavi knew the right strings to pull at the right places to get this tower situated in Soda.

From a village which got electricity for barely 4 hours a day, Soda now has power supply for at least 16 hours a day. While all homes in the main village are electrified, the ones on the outskirts (Dhanis) have been provided with solar panels for lighting up homes as well as streets.

Dwellings which have not been electrified have been provided with Solar power

So what makes an alumnus of The Rishi Valley School, Lady Shri Ram College & Pune University to give up the `good life' and devote her prime years to a village? Doesn't she regret giving up luxuries of playing Polo, riding horses etc. for this unglamorous life dealing with not so hot & happening crowd?

No way! For Chhavi, the upliftment and progress of her ancestral village Soda is her first & foremost priority and nothing can come in-between. She is convinced that with 70% of India living in villages, the country simply cannot become a world power without improving the quality of living & quality of life of its rural citizens!

This reservoir was dredged to increase its water holding capacity & supplies drinking water round the year to people & their cattle

An Untold Story of Love Jihad

2014-08-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

Upon learning that Muslim young men were getting some sort of special training to Patao (woo) Hindu girls in order to successfully establish marital relations with them, scores of young Hindu men across the country are reportedly switching over to the other side. Thousands of skullcap wearing young Hindu lads were seen searching for these `Love Jihad’ academies in many parts of the country, specially the state of Uttar Pradesh.

One group of `Muslim looking’ Hindu boys this reporter spoke to reluctantly spilled the beans behind their move to convert. They said that they have been trying very hard to hook girls from their communities in their neighbourhood; schools; colleges; workplaces; bars and even places of worship but the girls didn’t lay any grass before them (Ghaas tak nahin dali hamen).On the contrary, they got their fathers & brothers to beat them up and then threatened them with tying Rakhi.

One of them had even approached Bhoga guru Baba Kamdev for tips but he turned them away after giving a big (and boring) lecture on how to treat Naaris as Maa & Behens (Mothers & Sisters) in true Indian spirit. He then forced them to learn some yoga techniques to sap their bad physio-chemical energy so as to remove thoughts of love & sex from their minds (Shuddhikaran).

“How unfair! Had we known of these `Love Jihad’ schools, we would have known some really cool, tried & tested tricks to phansaao those girls.What’s the point of wasting your life fantasizing about them and letting your youth go down the drain, I mean it literally?”

When I asked them as to why don’t they learn those tricks from Bollywood, one of the guys quickly pointed out that most of the successful bollywood actors are part of this Love Jihad. “I’m dead sure these Bollywood Khans were coached in one of these Love Jihad paathshaalas”, he said.

Another one said that despite him & his brother trying everything under the sun, their girls refuse to give them any Bhaav. “We have tried topping in our class; played sports; indulged in body building; learned social dancing; even playing guitar and what not. Still no luck”.

“These girls are quite chaalu & materialistic. They don’t care for anything except moolah. They only go for guys whose parents have money, who drive in 10 Lakh Plus cars; have a bachelor’s pad of their own in one of city’s posh localities & pockets deep enough to buy them branded stuff.”

“I’m telling you, they’ll even marry a pig if that fellow had money”, chipped in another one.

Come to think of it, not all Muslim guys are that rich. We’re told that a lot of them perpetually hang around the poverty line. And yet they manage to hook our girls. Kuchh to sikhaate hi honge Jihad school mein varna unse zyada rich to hum hain hi!
Another guy who was listening quietly so far jumps into the conversation.

“You see, my elder bro had managed to pataao our neighbor’s pretty looking daughter. She had fallen for him completely and was willing for marriage even. But then our elders checked out their kundlis and declared that they were from the same gotra & hence brothers & sisters. Poor guy…he is still unmarried and passing his time over porn sites”.

“Oye, that reminds me of a classmate of mine. He managed to get into IIT, then IIM & then IAS. Girls whom he had earlier pursued unsuccessfully were now daaloing dore on him. And when he finally decided to marry one of his ex-hearthrobs, this bloody dowry thing came in-between! Her parents had heart attack after hearing the dowry amount. Bichaari ladki aaj tak kunwaari baithi hai”.

At the time of filing this story, reliable sources rang up this reporter & told him that the Parivaar is now rethinking its strategy of making Love Jihad a poll plank because it seems to have backfired.

Yeah, after meeting the guys mentioned above, I can safely say – It Has!!

Disclaimer: Readers may please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.

Will Justice (Retd.) Katju be rewarded with a 2nd term as Press Council Chairman?

2014-07-22T02:53:00.003-07:00

In politics as, in every other facet of life, TIMING occupies a great significance. A whistle blower blowing the whistle when something wrong is happening is a big deal. It can draw attention to the `wrong’ and help nip it in the bud. But whistle being blown after the thief has bolted cannot be accorded the same respect & must be looked at suspiciously.

Recenlty, we have had two such instnces-

One of an AIIMS Forensic Science doctor claiming that he was coerced/influenced by the powers that be to dilute/manipulate/conceal facts in the sensational death of Ms. Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. Soon after, AIIMS denied the charges levelled by this doctor and it was revealed that he had an axe to grind with AIIMS management relating to his career prospects, promotions etc.Or perhaps it is a strategic move by the doctor for endearing himself to the ruling dispensation by giving it scoopfuls of muck to be thrown at the ousted regime and keeping its key leaders on a tight leash by way of installing probe after probe into their deeds & alleged misdeeds & then using it as a control panel.

The 2nd one is that of highly respected retired Supreme Court Judge & presently Press Council of India Chairman, Justice Markandey Katju’s revelations about a corrupt Madras High Court judge being appointed as Supreme Court Judge despite an adverse reports from Justice Katju himself and the Intelligence Bureau.

Both these relate to events that occurred during the tenure of UPA government. But surprisingly, neither the doctor in question nor Justice Katju blew the whistle at the appropriate time. They both waited for a regime antagonistic to the UPA govt. occupy the seat of power in Delhi before spilling the beans, if one can call it that.

Among the two persons involved here, Justice Katju occupies a comparatively widely respected position in public eye than a careerist doctor fighting for a promotion here & an increment there. Also, as author of some landmark judgments as a judge, many of which had sermon-like flavor, one has higher expectations from Justice Katju. It therefore becomes important that Justice (Retd) Markandey Katju’s actions be examined under an electron microscope to see even the tiniest of their elements. It thus becomes imperative that Justice Katju answers these critical questions without losing temper or walking out of studios in a huff or without getting into a reprisal mode-

1. Dear Justice Katju, Why didn’t you blow the whistle on this Madras High Court Judge story earlier. Are there any rules/oath etc. As an SC judge that bar you from doing so? Anyway, it has been three years since you retired from SC in September 2011. Why did you sleep over this truth all these three long years? Even bureaucrats don’t wait that long to write books revealing the `dirt’ in the system!

2. Were you waiting for the UPA Govt. (that appointed you as Chairman of the Press Council) to go so that you don’t annoy the guys who gave you this lucrative post-retirement position within a few days of your retirement & thereby risk being removed from this post?

3. By raising it now and giving it an anti-UPA twist, are you trying in some way to score brownie points in the eyes of the NDA regime which will soon have to take a decision on appointing a Press Council Chairman once you retire on October 4, this year?

4. Of late, you have also been aggressively articulating your views on stuff like Common Civil Code, Muslim women wearing burqas and Article 370 etc. And your stand over these is quite in sync with the thinking of the ruling party and the `parivar’it belongs to.

Not that there is anything wrong in it and many people would have ideas that are in sync with someone else’s thinking. So what?

One is just wondering about the TIMING! Is it a mere coincidence or is it part of a well conceived Mile Sur Mera Tumhara strategy to impress the regime in Raisina Hill about you being on their side & thus subtly appealing to it to count on you? Is all this being done with an aim to get an extension as PCI chief sir?

Sir, with your kind of wisdom, you’d agree that one of the toughest things to earn & retain is credibility. In my view, your credibility would grow leaps & bounds if you were to answer the questions above and simultaneously declare that you won;t be accepting any post-retirement positions offered by this government and/or foundations & bodies linked to it and companies/institutions supporting it overtly or covertly.

Allow me to clarify that the above questions do not in any way dilute the positive impact & desirability of whistle blowing, if the term can be applied to justice Katju’s recent disclosures. The judiciary, like every other organ of our system and psyche, needs to be cleansed & purged of corrupt elements, including seemingly `soft & acceptable’ corruption that doesn’t involve illicit transfer of cash or valuable physical assets between two persons – one in position of power & the other at the receiving end of his/her power.

ANTICIPATING CRORES OF INDIANS BEING DEPORTED TO PAKISTAN, NAWAZ SHARIF MOVES UN TO DECLARE MORE THAN HALF OF INDIA AS PAK TERRITORY

2014-04-20T00:09:00.000-07:00

In a secret & astonishing move, Pakistan has approached the United Nations asking it to pass a resolution declaring the bordering Indian states of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan & Gujarat in addition to all its coastal states & parts of the North East as Pakistani territory effective May 17, 2014.

Pakistani Army has parallely started moving troops to the international borders adjoining these Indian states so that they can swiftly take control of existing Indian territory once the UN passes the motion. Pakistani Navy has also moved its fleet of warships to station them in the Bay of Bengal to take control of West Bengal, Orissa, Kerala & Tamil Nadu.

This unprecedented development has its roots in the declaration made by one Giriraj Singh, a BJP leader, wherein he is reported to have said that “those opposing the party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi would have to go to Pakistan after the general elections”. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bjp-leader-giriraj-singh-says-those-opposing-modi-will-have-to-go-to-pak/1/356623.html

Pakistan’s incredulous claim over such a large area is backed by a serious scientific analysis of polling data for Lok Sabha elections in the past. Given that BJP polled 18.8% of the total votes in 2009 and assuming a best case scenario of the party polling 25% of the total votes in 2014, given the much publicized `wave’ for it. In his confidential note to the UN Secretary General, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN has argued that given that India has close to 81.5 Crore voters, this would mean that close to 60 Crore Indians wouldn’t have voted for Modi. Assuming that those voting for BJP’s allies are spared deportation, Pakistan may still have to accommodate a humongous population not less than 45 Crores, more more than 2.5 times its own population!

Excerpts from Pak’s UN Ambassador’s letter-

“Where on earth shall we find space to accommodate so many Hindustani Kaafirs?”

“Our country hardly has many people with spines intact. As a result, our doctors and hospitals aren’t geared to treat spinal patients. How the hell are we expected to treat these Indians then?”

“Assuming that a large chunk of those externed would be women...mannerless & uncultured women who proudly show off their skin, Pakistan shall needs millions of meters of fabric to stitch Burqas for these `loose’ women. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees may thus be ordered by your excellency to provide this fabric as our own factories have been long destroyed by the Taliban and US drones which bombarded them suspecting these to be Taliban hideouts.”

“Issuing Visas & citizenship documents to so many people, that too at one go could be a herculean task your excellency. Pakistan neither has that much paper nor educated people to man Visa desks at its High Commission & Consulates in India. Thus, the Govt. of India may be instructed by your office to deport these anti-Modi Indians in small batches & allow the process to be completed over the next 10 years.”

Last heard, UN Secretary General has referred this matter to the UN Security Council and asked it to take a call before May 16, 2014. Instructions have also been sent to WHO to train Pakistani doctors in Spinal Injury Treatment. UNHCR has been asked to arrange for designer Burqas & keep them ready for dispatch to Islamabad at short notice.

It has also sent a letter to India’s Ministry of External Affairs to drop this idea of Externment.

Disclaimer: Readers may please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.

A nation’s search for an individual HERO or CONTRACTOR to govern & deliver

2014-03-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

At the recently concluded India Today Conclave 2014, Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party fielded several questions & barbs from the audience. One question that he was repeatedly asked by various who’s who of the country (yes, the conclave is for the elite, by the elite & of the elite) is whether he was in the race to become India’ Prime Minister.

When he refused to confirm, he was then criticized for not helping matters as it was sending confusing signals to the voters as to who then should they vote for; who then is going to solve India’s plethora of problems; and if he isn’t in the race, then all that is left to vote for is Mr. Narendra Modi (implied in their queries cum observations). To these, Kejriwal clearly responded by admitting that he didn’t have the answers, leaving the audience feeling `let-down’. What came out was that `people’ were wanting to repose their trust in some individual to govern the country just the way we do with commercial contractors and sub-contractors.

Which brings us to this ever-important question of why do we, specially Indians always expect individuals to rescue us from the mess we have ourselves created or helped create by way of our ignorance, apathy, gullibility & collaboration with the `system’?

I see this as a serious problem roots of which perhaps lie in the culture of hero-worship ingrained in our collective DNA. And most of it has to do with our local fables wherein gods & goddesses arrive on earth to destroy evil & demons. Till the gods decide to oblige, people need to put up with the status quo and suffer. This is further reinforced by our cinema wherein a lone hero comes and vanquishes the villains even as hordes & hordes of people just watch the fight either from the fringes or balconies, windows, behind door curtains. And once the `clean-up’ is done, this `impotent’ crowd rushes out to celebrate the `victory’. So whether it is a dacoit threatened village; smuggler infested slum; rural musclemen; urban gangsters or corrupt politicians, the masses keep suffering & praying for a miracle. And once their prayers are answered, a `hero’ descends on the scene to do the job. The same is true for the culture imported from the west. Right from childhood we are fed a diet of Superman, Spidermans, Pop-Eyes & Rambos - all individual heroes with unbelievable powers to vanquish terror & misery.

Second, and equally important aspect of this could be the fact that we, as people, are more comfortable being told what to do than taking our own decisions. Could this be because of the `clerical’ mindset ingrained in our culture since British days. Being a clerk is always safe as you never have to take decisions on your own and are simply following orders given by your masters. So you can never go wrong & can never be blamed for anything. While this attitude may have suited India’s British rulers, it has been a disaster for us, as people. We love to shirk responsibility & run away from taking decisions & being held accountable. And so we’d rather stay on the margins and let someone else shape our destiny. In ancient times, we used to go to temples seeking solutions to our problems from gods, represented by the priests. Now we run to spiritual gurus to seek solutions to problems that are our own creation. This is at personal level. The same approach can be seen working at the national level wherein we’d rather allow a handful to determine our destiny and are happy fooling ourselves about our misplaced notion of exercising our `democratic rights & powers’. It is sad to see the inability of our highly educated people with coveted degrees from sterling institutions to get rid of the clerk sitting inside them.

You look at literature, folk tales, cinema, popular culture or anything else & you’ll find the same stuff being repeated over & over. Seldom would you find any example of collective wisdom & collective action. Nor would you find any trace of `Systems & Processes’ that can deliver the `order’ that the masses yearn for. Thus, this looking up to a `hero’ (am already getting a neck sprain looking -up to someone all the time) and worst, waiting endlessly for his or her arrival.

When we read out stories of Lord Rama to kids, we tell them that he was a privileged man & incarnation of god. And being god, he finished off Ravana, the evil guy (from North Indian perspective). What if we told them that Rama’s wife, whom he loved so much, was abducted by an evil guy called Ravana of Lanka and instead of waiting for help from his dad or some other politically connected bigwig of that time, he decided to rescue his beloved all on his own and in the process built-up a team to conquer Ravana; that it all started with him being driven by his very own personal pain of separation from his wife & his strong urge to punish the kidnapper and not with a general agenda of ridding the country of a learned man with evil thoughts and sick agenda troubling the people; that he decided to help himself and the rest as they say is `his-story’.

Or for that matter, why can’t we interpret Goddess Durga’s ten powerful hands holding various weapons as collective power of women instead of some sort of an individual heroic character - women who joined hands to assert themselves and eradicate suffering! I’m sure that this would, over the years, give us the confidence & capability to achieve what we want to achieve ourselves with no one doing us any favour whatsoever.

Coming back to the question of `Who Should govern India’, it is time we stopped waiting for heroes and their magical powers to take the country forward. We must focus on delivery of good-governance through robust systems, processes & institutions and do our bit in achieving this goal. It is high time we saw a paradigm shift from individuals’ capability to collective capability reflected in the system of governance.

Remember, as an individual, Manmohan Singh was considered a learned, clean & honest (non-bribe taking types) man in whose basket we dumped all our hopes for good & corruption free governance and got busy with our own quest to earn as much as we could.

Look what we got!

A Tree & a Bonsai

2014-02-22T01:06:00.000-08:00

I, a Bonsai?

O’ dear sweet li’l kid

Am told you’re the one god lives in

Or is it godliness?

Whatever,

Everyone says you are god’s gift

The believers & followers of god

should then be respecting you for what you are

For the joys you bring

For the liberty you symbolize

And for the purity that you embody

With no biases

No preconceptions

No prejudices

And no ill wills

Born in a free society

So you are told

How then did i become a conformist

You wonder when as you grow old

The truth, my child

Is that your freedom is limited to

The narrow boundaries drawn around

You are at liberty to run as much,

But within this compound

Stray even a little beyond

And we have labels in our pocket

We call you names

‘coz we dunno what to do with you

It’s our own limitation

But we’ll blame it on you

We’ll trim you & prim you

And make you a Bonsai

That tiny li’l breathing thing

That appeals to my eye

We’ll place you in a corner

With a lamp on your head

We’ll cut out your roots

So that you never hug the earth again

In a puny little pot

You’ll get water & food

As part of this bargain

It is we who decide when & how you get to see the sun

Or hear the birds and bees

For whom you are no fun

Yet, as I said earlier

You are a free man

A woman of your will

Yes, there is something called a tree

Out there in the wilderness

It grows and lives life on its own terms

Free from the freedom you have

It blooms, blossoms and fruits

Year after year

Its millions of leaves selflessly cleaning the air

Its unruly branches sheltering hundreds of creatures

Its leaves, fruits and stem feeding a number of mouths

Its rough looking trunk shielding a number of lives

With adversity as perpetual companion

On the floor of the forest

Amidst competition it survives

Works its way around and thrives

Supporting innumerable lives

This fellow is a fighter & survivor

A creature pretty smart

Its roots turn explorer

Running deep in the ground

Resting only once water is found

Its twigs negotiate the winds

In their quest to touch the sky

O’ dear sweet li’l child

It is about time you showed who you are

Looked everyone in the eye

And chose for yourself

If you wanna be a Tree

Or will be happy as a Bonsai.

Open letter to Arnab `Go-Swamy'

2014-02-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hey Arnab,

Hope this letter finds you shouting, yelling & sermonizing in the name of `fearless’ journalism and scolding your panelists and poodles (`independent', `reputed' journalists who must agree with you & help you get out of a tricky & sticky situation where you can't admonish your subjects in your typical style, if they have to get their pay-cheques released).

There is one thing that THE NATION CAME TO KNOW yesterday- That Arnab Goswami is an empty vessel that only makes LOUD, IRRITATING NOISES all the time. Yeah, I am talking about your cowardly act of making noise on ‪#‎RILGasScam‬ or ‪#‎AstonMartinCrash‬ and a total black-out of this most newsy development of our times! You find #‎USWoosModi‬ newsworthy and worthy enough to open your NOISEHOUR with this lame topic. Taking pity on you, I have conjured up some better `Noisehour’ `shout & scream’ topics.

Arnab, the nation wants to know (am shouting while writing this)-

1. Why no Indian woman has won Miss World/Miss Universe title after Aishwarya/Sushmita? Has India stopped producing HOT women??
2. Why Delhi continues to feel cold even in mid-February?
3. Impact of cold wave on Valentines Day Celebrations.
4. Financial implications of keeping an empty chair named ‪#‎AAP‬ in your studio till yesterday & dedicating a camera unit to it.
5. Correlation between the noise generated by you & your panelists and cases of loss of hearing in the country.
6. The meteoric rise of comedian Kapil Sharma and his political leanings given his proximity to Navjot Sidhu.
7. Investigative expose' on Navjot Singh Sidhu & Archana Puran Singh's ability to laugh for no rhyme or reason. Is it due to some medical or psychiatric condition?

Hope this will suffice for a full week. Shall share more topics for next week soon. Keep checking your inbox & do take my suggestions seriously b'coz they are way better than your lame ones.

As they say in India's rural hinterlands, ANT(illa) BHALA, TO SAB BHALA!

Will You Ever Win this Race?

2014-02-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

Hey Mr. Smarty Pants,

O' You Guy `In Control',

Feel like slowing down or even stopping to enjoy all the good things that you see around. What's the point of remaining so busy that you don't have the bandwidth to relish what deserves to be enjoyed?

But what'll happen if I slow down or stop?

The other guys would race past me.

They'll make it bigger in life than me.

They'll have bigger bank balances, bigger cars, larger homes & king- size attitudes

They'll go on more exotic holidays.

They may get to supersede me in the next round of promotions.

My company may even sack me.

What a downer that'll be.

Even though I have more than enough money,
To spend the rest of my life with my honey,
How will I spend the remaining years,
As I know nothing beyond my cubicle,
my laptop, my tablet and my 3G dongle,
I am a lion of this jungle.

No, I can't afford to stop running,
No, I don't want to feel like a misfit in that strange place called real life,
I better go on,

`F' the `enjoyment' bit,
I can always do it once I hang my boots.

AND YOU REALLY THINK YOU'RE A MAN/WOMAN `IN CONTROL'?? THE GUY WITH SMARTY PANTS??

Man, this race is going to consume you.

Hanging your boots! Ha, you have hung yourself!!

Stop thinking,

Go, RUN and never show me your face again.

You can never finish this race,

'coz it has no finishing line,

There is only one certainty,

The race will finish you!

`MERCURIAL' MEHBOOBA

2014-01-28T22:49:00.001-08:00

जी तो करता है की तुम्हें लपक के चूम लूं
मदहोशी के खुमार में कुछ पल तो झूम लूं
पर डरता हूँ,
नहीं, नहीं,
थप्पड़ से नहीं,
प्यार से भी नहीं,
Anti-Rape Law के नए प्रावधानों से भी नहीं,
न ही तेजपाल के हश्र से

जो चीज़ मुझे तुम्हें चूमने से रोकती है,
पल पल मुझे टोकती है,
वो है पंगु हो के मरने का डर,
तुम्हारी चमकती-दमकती मरमरी त्वचा में बहता बस ज़हर,

में हूँ डरता न प्यार से, न उसके इज़हार से,
पर नहीं मुझे शौक निगलने का Mercury,
अस्पताल में शरीर से Chromium भगाने के लिए लेटे रह कर,
नहीं करानी अपनी किरकिरी,
छोटी छोटी रंगीन शीशियों और ट्यूबों से निकाल,
अपने चेहरे और गर्दन पे जो विष रोज़ मलती हो तुम,
सांवले होने की ग्लानि में कैसे गलती हो तुम

मुबारक हो तुम्हें तुम्हारा गोरापन,
अपनी त्वचा के कुदरती रंग पे जब आये शर्म,
जाने कैसा है ये छिछोरापन,
अपने रंग पे जिसका ह्रदय महसूस करे हीन,
गोरा दिखने की चाहत में जो हो अन्दर से ग़मगीन,
उस से भला कैसा रिश्ता बनेगा प्यार का महीन,
कुर्बान होने को तैयार हूँ प्यार के लिए
नहीं ज़हर से पुती दीवार के लिए.

`Fair Skin' Freakness

सठियाया गणतंत्र

2014-01-25T23:03:00.000-08:00

सडसठ पार कर चुका हूँ,

सठियाये हुए सात साल गुज़र चुके हैं,

इन सडसठ सालों में हर दिन यही सुनता रहा,

कोई रथ मेरे घर के पास से गुजरेगा,

जिसमे बैठा कोई विकास पुरुष,

मेरे और मुझ जैसे औरों की ज़िन्दगी में ख़ुशी के रंग भर देगा I

रथ तो कई आये-गए, पर ख़ुशी कभी नीचे नहीं उतरी,

हाँ, लोग कहते हैं की विकास हुआ है,

लम्बी-चौड़ी सड़कें बनी हैं,

सड़कें, जो जहाँ जाती हैं, वहां की सम्पदा लेकर दूर कहीं चली जाती हैं,

फिर, उस सम्पदा की तलाश में वहां के लोग उन्ही सड़कों के रास्ते,

घर से बहुत दूर चले जाते हैं,

एक बार जो गए, तो शायद ही कभी लौटे,

जो लौटे वो परदेसी बन के लौटे I

कहते हैं, विकास हुआ है,

फसल उगलने वाली ज़मीन पर अब चारदीवारीयाँ खिंच गयी हैं,

जिस ज़मीन से फूटती थीं कोंपलें,

उसमे से आजकल रातों रात खम्बे उग आते हैं,

खम्बे जिनपर काली चादर बिछाकर गाड़ियां, छकड़े और रेलें दौड़ती हैं,

वो गाड़ियां जो मुझे और मेरे जैसे को अपने देस से बाहर ले जाती हैं,

वही गाड़ियाँ जो सात समुन्दर पार से आया,

टमाटर, प्याज, धान और गेहूं मंडी तक पहुंचाती हैं I

जिस ज़मीन पे टिके रहते थे सपने,

उसमे से आजकल हरे-भरे दरख़्त नहीं,

रंग-रंगीले, लाल, हरे और पीले-नीले,

प्लास्टिक के पाइप निकल आते हैं,

कहते हैं, ये पलक झपकते दूर तलक सन्देश पहुंचाते हैं,

किसका सन्देश, कैसा सन्देश?

मेरी ख़ुशी किस चीज़ में है, किसकी तलाश में मेरा मन,

ये बात तो किसी विकास पुरुष तक कभी न पहुंची I

सुनते हैं, विकास हुआ है,

घर के बाजू में बहती थी जो नदी,

पानी था जिसका जीवन,

उसका रंग मटमैला लाल सा हो चला है,

कोई कहता है खून है किसी का,

कोई कहता ये विकास का रंग है I

एक दिन यूँ ही ख्याल आया,

खाली बैठे बैठे ऊबने से अच्छा है,

बाजू वाली नदी की निराशा में डूबने से अच्छा है,

चलो बाईपास के जरिये, घूमने निकल जाते हैं,

जहाँ कहीं भी हो, ख़ुशी को पकड़ लाते हैं,

घूमा किया चहुँ ओर

कभी इस छोर, कभी उस ओर,

ग्राम-नगर,

सुबह-दोपहर,

हाँ, विकास हुआ है,

लोग पहले से कहीं ज्यादा लोभी हो गए हैं,

खाली पेट और भरी जेब के बीच की खाई और चौड़ी हो गयी है,

आमदनी और खर्च के बीच का फासला और लम्बा हो चला है,

कोल्हू के बैलों की तरह ख़ुशी की फिराक में,

गोल गोल घूमते हुए लोग,

बस जिंदा ही रहने को हैं जिंदा,

व्यस्तता इतनी की औरों से मेल जोल हो नहीं पाता,

समय मिल भी जाए तो बाज़ार है बुलाता,

दिलों की दूरियाँ काली सड़कों की तरह चौड़ी और लम्बी हो चली हैं,

चलो इतना तो समझ आया, कि

कोई चीज़ जब बढती है, तो उसे विकास कहते हैं,

यहाँ तो बहुत कुछ बढ़ रहा है,

यानी विकास का नशा बस चढ़ ही चढ़ रहा है,

जो हो गलत मेरी समझ, तो माफ़ कर देना,

सडसठ का हो चुका हूँ,

सठियाये हुए मुझे सात साल गुज़र चुके हैं...

Man Grows Balls at Age 60; Is named Aar Kay Singh by Hospital Ward Boy

2014-01-14T04:06:00.000-08:00

An Indian male is reported to have grown balls at the age of sixty years. He has been promptly named Aar Kay Singh (pronounced as AadKe Singh in Bihar from where this incident is being reported) by the hospital staff.

Doctors are calling it a miracle but are denying that this is a fit case for Guinness Book of World Records. When questioned by the world media, Dr. Surgeon Singh said that this sort of things are a routine in a tribe called Indian Civil Servants and many before this RK Singh discovered their manhood (Mardanagi) post retirement. He said that many of his patients not only grew balls after retirement, but some also developed a Spine while others saw their Guts growing.

Explaining this phenomenon, Dr. Analytical Pande, a renowned social scientist & political commentator said that the symptoms of this disorder can be seen across Indian bureaucracy. Most officers seldom open their mouth in front of their political & corporate masters and blindly keep doing what their masters tell them to do. In lieu, they keep getting promotions and other benefits, including dirty cash & lucrative postings.

As long as they are in service, things like morality, whistle blowing, crusade against corruption, political interference are alien to this tribe. In fact, if any member of the tribe dares to open his mouth, the rest of the tribe locks this non-conformist member in doghouses called Deptt. Of Archives; Schools of Training; Directorate of Uniform Inspection; Directorate of Cattle Census; Department of Star Gazing & Wound Licking Cooperatives etc. Most of the members of this tribe develop a pig like pout after years & years of sucking-up to their masters. They suck hard till they get a post retirement posting in one of the super luxury, all paid stay at retirement homes also known as Raj Bhavans.

Those who fail to get such post-retirement benefits start leaking the dirty secrets of their respective departments & of course, their masters. They paint themselves as crusaders against evil, patriots, upholders of democracy & advocates of everything good under the sun. But when you question them as to why they didn’t blow the whistle while in service, the way Satyendra Dubey did, these chaps suddenly show signs of being deaf & dumb. They behave as if your question was meant to be answered by the pigs roaming nearby.

BREAKING NEWS:

Reports are pouring in from Delhi’s famous Shahjahan Road, about the discovery of a stinky grave right below Dholpur House, home to UPSC (Union Public Service Commission). Visuals of thousands of spinal cords, some fresh, others old; decomposed & decomposing guts and millions of balls, small & big, being dug out are being beamed across the country by news channels.

`It is nothing but massacre of Indian manhood, how the hell is India going to fight Pakistan with these type of men???? ’, thundered Door Knob Goswami, super prime time news anchor during Noise Hour.

“Imagine these gutless, spineless & above all ball-less guys ruling India as its bureaucrats!”, is how Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has reacted to this development. “There is no question of us allowing-in such guys into our party. Afterall, how do we know that they are even Aadmi? After all, a man is known by the balls he keeps, isn’t it?” Said AAP’s spokeswoman.

Yes Lady, a man should certainly be measured by his Balls!

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.

Nitin Gadkari is sitting on an Explosive Treasure Trove of Evidence against Aam Aadmi Party

2013-12-29T07:21:00.001-08:00

Nagpur, December 29, 2013

Clearly rattled by the never ending demand for presenting `concrete evidence’ to support his allegation    regarding a tripartite meeting between Aam Aadmi Party; Congress & a big industrialist, BJP’s literally     heavyweight leader Nitin Gadkari has announced a cash reward of Rs. Two Crores plus lifelong directorship in one of his several benami companies to anyone who has in his possession the evidence supporting his allegation made after he had mistakenly drank a bottle of desi tharra made from molasses at one of his many sugar mills.

Soon after the announcement was made, a bearded man named Rudan Krandan Jha, curiously claiming to be from the Media as well as Sarkar, contacted Mr. Gadkari’s office to discuss the contours of the deal. Their discussions happened at the banks of a dry & incomplete irrigation canal dug by Mr. Gadkari’s friend Mr. Dhan-Leti.

Within hours of their meeting, Mr. Jha presented Mr. Gadkari with a CD containing raw CCTV footage from the hotel where this meeting allegedly took place. This reporter is one of the few who got to watch the CCTV recordings with Mr. Gadkari & his associates. By the way, as expected the recordings are of 5 star quality, fully HD video & crystal clear audio. This is what can be seen in the CD-

Clip No. 1: A man resembling Arvind Kejriwal, wearing untucked half sleeve check-shirt reaches the `IN-GATE’ driveway of the hotel. There is a security barricade for checking of cars manned by about half a dozen security guys. Upon seeing Kejriwal walking towards the barriers, one of the guards stops & curtly tells him that this gate was meant only for guests and not for job seekers. The guard then guides him to the rear of the hotel and asks him if he has been called for an interview. Mr. Kejriwal is then seen exiting the camera’s range.

Clip No. 2: Captured by another camera facing the main road near the hotel’s OUT gate, Kejriwal is   recognised by one the guards from the slum in his New Delhi constituency. He promptly guides Kejriwal to the rear of the hotel politely warning him that if he continued to stand on the road sloping down from the hotel entrance, he was most likely to get run over by an Aston Martin, BMW or Audi.

Clip No. 3: Kejriwal reaches the `Staff Only’ gate with a broom in his hand. The guard asks him for his ID Card. Kejriwal tells him that he does not have one. Suddenly a man in hotel housekeeping uniform (Housekeeping Supervisor) comes from inside the hotel and seeing Kejriwal with the broom asks the guard to let him in - “Today we are short of staff as many of them have gone to attend some shit called Mohalla Sabha organised by this god-damn Aam Aadmi Party. Give him a temporary gate pass; I need people. One of India’s big businessmen is coming today for a breakfast meeting with a ruling Congress party guy.”

Kejriwal is heard asking the supervisor if this BIG BUSINESSMAN was Mr. Cheatin Gadbadi from Nagpur. His query was royally ignored by the supervisor who gave him a dirty look uttering-“Here comes one more highly educated & unemployed middle aged candidate”. Hoping to enter the hotel dressed up as a janitor and then finally reaching the private conference room for his meeting with the Big Industrialist, Kejriwal   quickly follows the housekeeping supervisor, broom held high in his right hand.

Clip No. 4: Kejriwal is seen changing into hotel uniform. He quickly tucks-in his own clothes in the huge pockets of the uniform and walks out of the changing room with his broom.

Clip No. 5: Supervisor is seen telling Kejriwal to take charge of the kitchen and clean it up thoroughly.    Kejriwal enters the kitchen and his services are sought by all the chefs & their assistants to clean up the floor on which they keep dropping food pieces, oil etc. Kejriwal is seen in the kitchen for the next 4 hours till the bell rings announcing tea time for staff. He quickly rushes out of the kitchen.

Clip No. 6: Kejriwal is seen crossing a corridor and landing up at the service entrance of the restaurant. As he tries to sneak into the restaurant, he is intercepted by the guard who asks to see his pass. Kejriwal takes out his temporary gate pass and hands it over to the security chap. The guard looks at the gate pass and promptly blows a whistle. Three securitymen are seen arriving within minutes and whisking Kejriwal away.

Clip No. 7: The securitymen enter the housekeeping supervisor’s cubicle holding Kejriwal firmly by his arms. The   supervisor shouts at him and tears his pass angrily. He sacks Kejriwal on the spot! When Kejriwal asks for his wages for 4 hours of work, the guards lift him and exit the camera range.

Clip No. 8: Two security guards throw Kejriwal out on the service lane adjoining the hotel. An autorickshaw with AAP poster stops; autowallah comes out; lifts Kejriwal and puts him in the back seat; starts the Auto and exits frame.

After the last clip ended, Mr. Nitin Gadkari called Rudan Krandan Jha on his mobile and asks him to edit it creatively to which he promptly agreed.

Last heard, Mr. Jha was on a flight to Singapore for carrying out post-production jobs like morphing & other special effects on the CD’s footage to make it look genuine.

Watch out this space for Mr. Gadkari’s next press conference for more details.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.

Begum Kalsoom Nawaz clarifies Pak PM's Dehati Aurat remark

2013-10-01T00:45:00.001-07:00

Having accidentally tuned into Indian TV news channels, Begum Kalsoom was shocked to see heated discussions and debates on her hubby Nawaz calling Manmohan a Dehati Aurat (country woman), including Modi's speech in Delhi yesterday referring to this `insulting' expression reportedly used by her not so sharif husband.

Fearing an armed attack on Pakistan by patriotically pissed-off Indian journos and Modi's supporters, Begum Nawaz hurriedly called a press conference right across the Line of Actual Control to clear the air. She just couldn't digest the prospect of Arnab Goswami gheraoing Nawaz Mian in his American hotel lobby and giving one-track high decibel sermons in the name of an interview.The loudspeaker horns were aimed towards Indian army posts in the hope that the Indian soldiers would get to hear her explanation and the military intelligence might record & share it with the media. To nip the escalating tension across the border, she walked into the press conference wearing a burqa with a male goat in tow.

Here is the full text of her statment -

“A lot is being made out of a so-called remark made by hamare sharif miyan about the Indian vazir-e-azam Manmohan. Sharif miyan has apparantely called Manmohan a Dehati Aurat and the entire Indian media is making a moutain of this mole hill ji.

Let me tell you, I am very upset with Sharif miyan for bestowing the Dehati Aurat title on a sardarji. I mean, is he turning gay....or was he already one? I say this indignantly because till now I was the one & only Dehati Aurat in his life. Yes, you heard it right! During our private moments which are not many, he calls me a Dehati Aurat. He specially makes me act like one and this goat is brought into the bedroom to add authenticty to the dehati setting. His eyes are tightly covered with a black cloth though. I had once questioned him about why does he call me a dehati aurat when he's in the `mood' and he gently explained me why.

He told me – Janoo, don't be offended when I call you a Dehati. You know, Dehati Aurats are always physically fit as they breathe clean air and eat fresh from the farm foods. And they work. Leave aside working in farms or cleaning up the house or being productive in the real sense of the term, city women can't even carry their own child during pregnancy. They go hunting for surrogate mothers who in turn are from villages, you see! Also, Unlike city women, Dehati Aurats do not spend half their life in beauty parlours, botox labs and in cosmetic surgery ICUs. What you see is what you get! No cheating, no dokha!!

Being forced to stay in Islamabad ever since he became Vazir-e-Azam, Nawaz Miyan has been missing the countryside. With Talibani mullahs on the prowl in each & every village, he dare not visit any of them for the fear of being bumped off by these ISI & Pakistani Army agents. Couped up in his prime ministerial bungalow, he has of late been showing signs of desperation of meeting village women. And he seems to have carried his infatuation for everything Dehati even to the U.S.!

You see, what is Pakistan if not a dehat? And extending that logic all Pakistanis are dehatis. Cities are not just about glitzy buildings, roads, fast moving cars & flyovers. They are as much about culture, people and their mindsets. And there I do not fnd any difference between rural & urban; educated & uneducated; sophisticated and crude guys & gals. And for that matter, how is India not a village. They too have their own versions of Taliban in Khap Panchayats & religious bigots. Rural or urban, educated or illiterate, most Indians anyway behave like Jahils, just like us on this side of the Line of Control.

Our Taliban shoots girls going to school. There they are raped while going to or coming from school or college!

We have our Mr. 10 percent leading a political party. They have so many of them demanding more than 10 percent! And like us, Indian people too pay whatever bribe is asked for, without a whimper.

We treat Cricket as our opium & so do Indians! Our cricketers take bribes for fixing matches, so do theirs!

Both, Pakistan & India crave for the patronage of Amrikka. So we have a common big brother.

And every time we are faced with domestic troubles, we divert attention to the Indian border. So do Indians!

I hope you all are now quite clear that we, the people of both the countries have so much in common. Being teth dehatis is one of them.

I appeal to all the Indians not to misunderstand my hubby's comments which were made with the best of intentions and as an expression of solidarity about our shared cultural baggage....oops, heritage!”

A Pakistani TV scribe stood up and interrupted her – How can you be so sure that the dehati aurat comment was aimed at Hindustani Vazir-e-Azam who is a man by the way.

Mrs. Sharif – Hai Allah...you mean to say that it could have been directed at the only female Hindustani kafir journalist...

Her face turned tomato red within moments and she jumped off the stage & rushed out uttering – “Taher kambakht Dehati...mainu isi wakt Amrika aati aur tujhe maja chakhati”.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.

RATTLED POLITICIANS CONNIVE TO UNDO THE RIGHT TO REJECT IN ELECTIONS

2013-09-28T01:23:00.001-07:00

By & large, the entire nation hailed Supreme Court judgement upholding citizen's right to reject all the candidates in a poll and its order to the Election Commission to introduce a special button for those wanting to exercise their Right to Reject. Sensing the public mood, most political parties and their netas have welcomed this judgement to harvest public goodwill by appearing to be `politically correct' even though deep down inside their hearts (I know they have one b'coz of the chest pain syndrome everytime a politician faces the prospect of staying in jail) & souls (not sure if they have one), most netas abhor this judgement.

I happened to eavesdrop into a sinister All Party conversation among a handful of politicians and their cronies. I must tell you that there was no one from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in this get together.

The place was a pub called PUB Lic-ki-Lee. And this is what transpired at the pub-

Congress-ee (to BJP Wala): So, you guys were damn clever. First you wanted the bill to nullify Supreme Courts order banning convicted politicians from contesting or holding seats and suddenly your party does an about turn to appear holier than thou.

RJD Cattle Herder: Bade chaalu ho tum log Bhau!

BJP Bajrangi (Smiling coyly): Aaapke Lalu ji kis se kam hain Tau! Let bygones be bygones man. We have gathered here to deal with this second supreme court bombshell about the extra button.

SP's Pehalwan: How I wish the supreme court had ordered caste & religion based buttons instead. People would then have had to press the button of the community they belonged to and their votes would have automatically gone to the candidate of their caste ot community.

BSP Behenji (objecting): As always, you can't help remiaining a dim wit! What if there are be more than one candidate from the same caste or community!!

RLD's Jatta: Arrey, in that case the votes would be proportionatley divided among all the same caste candidates. Bhai, making candidates stand is in our hands after all. We'd just need to make sure that we don't field same caste guys for the same seat.

As they kept ordering drinks after drinks, their voices kept on becoming louder but incoherent.

Congress-ee: What does Arun Ketlee say?

BJP Bajrangi: Same thing what your Cupill Sibbal said. Since the option is NONE OF THE ABOVE – let us place this button on top of all the other buttons.

RJD: Bhat an idea sir jee. You pee-pul are lucky to have so many chaalu vakilva-sab in your party. This way, ebhen if the voters press the `reject' button, we can always argue in court that since the button said NONE OF THE ABOVE & there was no candiddate listed above that button, hence the rejection has to be rejected.

SP: This way the snake gets killed while the baton remains alive!

TDP's Faidu: I have another idea. How about bribing the vendor who supplies components to the EVM factory. I have had a word with the guy who supplies EVM buttons to the elction commission. On being promised of a ticket in the state assembly elections, he is willing to make this button fragile with poor quality plastic and other third rate raw materials. It won't last more than two dozen pressings.

BSP Behenji: How will that help?

Trinamool Didi: I get it. Fed up with the candidate choices, a lot of bhoters are expected to turn up for bhoting now. Ebhen doj who nebher bhoted till now weel come to bhote. Bhith so many peepool presshing the shame button, it is going to break or stop vaarking after a phew times. Then peepool weel habh no chois baat to bhote for our candidates. Baba re baba- what a bhalo idea!!

TDP's Faidu – Didi, I wlays knew you are a clever girl. Good that you are so far away from Andhra Pradesh...err...or should I say Telangana???

RJD Cattle Herder: Arey Faidu saheb. Keep all this Gaana-Bajaana for later. I am pheeling bhery disturbed – Monday is the judgment day na! Be-chara Lalua. Ee Rahulva ne jo press konference mein ant-shant bol ke sara kaame kharab kar diya na! Warna ordinans-wa pass hoiye na jaata!!!

Arey waiter-wa...marde jaldi se ek tho aur badka gilas bhar ke lava na...sabbe ke khatir.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.

An encounter with Ram Jethmaligni, the man behind the malign-ant "Man Disease"

2013-09-18T04:37:00.000-07:00

A number of rape & molestation cases have been reported from across the country between yesterday & today. In almost all the cases, the victims were reported to be alone with their tormentors in a room. All the accused arrested in these cases have claimed innocence citing that the women complaining of rape & molestation were actually suffering from a mental disease that makes women yearn for solo male company inside a room. All the accused & their lawyers have spiritedly cited this `disease’ whose details were disclosed for the first time by none other than Ram Jethmaligni, India’s noted criminal lawyer and a presidential wannabe.

In one instance, a terminally ill patient tried to rape a nurse attending to him in a five star hospital. Upon being questioned by the police inside the ICU, he told the investigators that the reason the nurse came to his room while he was alone there is because she is suffering from the `Man Disease’ referred to by Mr. Jethmaligni. He even threatened the nurse that he has all the money in the world to hire Ram Jethmaligni should she decide to press charges against him. Fearing character assassination & the related media debates on Jethmaligni's vilification drive against rape victims, the nurse has reportedly decided not to press charges.

I just happened to run into a charged up Ram Jethmaligni yesterday evening exiting his office and chasing him were the Times Now crew members trying to pacify him. I later learnt that he was irked upon being questioned, hounded & pounded over his alleged character assassination and attempts to malign the girl whose complain has seen the crooked saint called Asaram Bapu behind bars.

Anyway, I followed him to his home and asked for a non-aggressive interview to which he immediately agreed. Here is what transpired in the interview –

Me: Well Sir, why did you decide to leave the Times Now interview midway? The channel is claiming that it was Arnab’s tough questioning that you couldn’t handle!

RJ: Go & tell that loudmouth buffoon that I quit the interview midway not because of his tough questioning but because I was craving for wine. The entire country sees me sipping wine every time I get interviewed on TV in the evening. And despite knowing this, that silly news channel didn’t care to send wine & glass from its side. And you know, I lose my mental balance if I’m not administered wine from time to time.

Me: Hmm….that perhaps explains why you chose to malign the poor girl assaulted by Asaram instead of fighting for justice for her. One isn’t allowed to carry their wine glasses into the court. And this must have upset you like anything!

RJ: Dammit! Even if the judge had made an exception for me and allowed me to sip wine while arguing Asaram’s case, that bloody Jodhpur is such a hot place and with no AC inside the courtroom, the wine wouldn’t have tasted fine, you see.

Hey, how about me telling the judge the next time that my client Asaram is innocent and the fault lies with Rajasthan’s hawa-pani. What else explains so many Rajasthani rape cases that have hogged the limelight…rape of a rural social worker or saathin, then the one involving Orissa DGP’s son Bitti Mohanty and the current hot favourite Babu Lal Nagar, a minister in Rajasthan Govt. Then there is this Mahipal Maderna, another minister accused of murdering a woman whom he sexually exploited. So the problem is with Rajasthan & its climate, you see. With so much circumstantial evidence, I’m sure Asaram shall not only be granted bail but may even be pronounced not-guilty!! I think this is the ultimate winner argument!!!

Me: Some people are playing around with your name and calling you Ram Jeth-maligni after you chose to malign the victim of Asaram’s hyper-sexuality.

RJ: Dammit!I give two hoots for any & all the people. They have no business deciding who I should do business with. How the hell do you think I earn my wine & cheese? What would I have got had I decided to represent the girl instead of Asaram!! Not even one sip of wine or one cube of cheese!!! Tell me, would she be paying me Rs. 15 Lakh per appearance? Also, what would you anyways call people who think that godmen can actually solve their problem. Aren't they mad! So, what's wrong with calling a mad person mentally unstable?

Me: Yeah, but that doesn't justify a sexual assault on her. Anyway sir, considering that you have been Rajya Sabha Member, a Union Minister and a wannabe President of India, shouldn’t you be living up to the public expectations of doing public good and leading by example? I mean, how can a person who has always defended criminals be expected to show the moral compass to the people of this country? What kind of leader does that make?

RJ: What a joker you journalists are! You guys just don’t see the good I am doing by taking up the briefs of known crooks who also happen to be rich & resourceful. I am a real desh-bhakt doing real jan-seva.

Me: Howzzat?

RJ: It is quite simple. By agreeing to defend these chaps, I actually try and rob them of some of their ill gotten money by charging them hefty fees each time I appear in their cases. Take for example, Manu Sharma’s case. I was personally convinced that he was guilty of Jessica’s murder and is not going to be let off by the courts. But then, what’s the harm in ripping him off before the inevitable punishment is handed out by the courts? I’m in fact, helping convert their black money into white and ploughing it back into the mainstream economy by buying wine. I am doing the same with Asaram. This bugger has tonnes & tonnes of cash & gold hidden all across his ashrams.

You see, by questioning the girl’s character in an inappropriate manner and at an inopportune time, I’ve ensured more public anger against my client; even the judges across the country, I’m told, are furious with my line of arguments. This ensures that he may never get bail and may forever stay in jail. My job is to have as many hearings & court appearances as possible and make a few crores to organize a Modi- Advani Holi Milan. Plus you see, I am a fan of Modi and Asaram whose racket flourished & prospered under Modi’s rule in Gujarat. And that can happen only when you're in Modi's good books. So it is my duty to protect people whom Narendrabhai likes.

Me: Now that you’ve spoken about Modi, I wonder what makes you back him politically?

RJ: You see, I have always wanted to be the President of this country. And Narendrabhai has promised to make me the nation’s President once he becomes the Prime Minister?

Me: But how can he give such an assurance? After all there is voting involved!

RJ: I know. I said the same to Narendrabhai. You know what he said?

Me: Tell me.

RJ: He said – “Ram bhai, voting will happen if there are other contenders. Isn’t it? What if there are no other contestants. Afterall, people know what Vanzara et al can do if they take panga with me. As you know I hate competition from the core of my heart. By the way, I’m going to make Amit Shah the returning officer for these elections.”

Suddenly, one heard a lot of noise outside & around his residence and more than a dozen women of all hues & shades barged into his compound claiming that they were mentally unstable and were suffering from the ‘Man Disease’ and wanted to be alone with him in a room. By the way, some of them were carrying brooms, chappals and even lathis while others were seen holding cans with black paint oozing out .

And the interview came to an abrupt end.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.

Your being `Educated’ has me worried

2013-08-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

There goes one more independence day marking India’s 67 years of `freedom’!

Freedom from what?

Being ruled by the British – certainly a Big Yes.

Freedom from everything else a society or nation ought to be free of – A big question mark!!

Like every year, Indians celebrated their nation’s independence in the usual way – putting on their traditional attires taking special care to wear colors resembling the national flag; hoisting national flag in their respective localities; standing as the national anthem was played; going shopping to nearby malls to avail `freedom discounts’; eating out as the domestic help chose to take an off on this important day; some took off to distant destinations to enjoy their long weekend while a few flew tricolor kites. And yes, we didn’t forget to wish our Facebook/Twitter friends a happy Independence Day. That’s about it!

Celebrating Independence Day in our country (& perhaps everywhere else) has been turned into a wonderful ritual full of tokenism. Anyone who doesn’t do any or all of the above stuff risks the chances of being perceived as `unpatriotic’ & weird.

Chasing away the British in 1947 was, at best, a symbol of natives taking charge and not the dead-end of our quest to shape our own destinies. Unfortunately, this is what things have boiled down to- Independence Day has degenerated into a mere `event’ instead of being a day of strengthening our resolve get rid of so many other things that continue to plague and fetter us as a people. This day should have ideally been treated as an occasion to constantly review & renew our goalposts about creating a truly emancipated society; truly reinventing ourselves and doggedly pursuing our common destiny as truly liberated people.

It is said that education is the key for change and a catalyst for making a better human being, better people. I too believe this, rather used to believe in this. But from what I see day-in & day-out, I wonder if education (getting a couple of degrees from an institution, coveted or otherwise) actually does anything to make us discharge our duties as socio-political-cultural change agents, something that educated citizens are expected to do in a largely uneducated & illiterate society like ours. On the contrary, I am increasingly getting convinced that India must stop looking at its educated middle class to liberate itself from the myriad ills it suffers from.

Sample these three cases, all involving urban, upwardly mobile, educated and well earning middle class & you’ll know what makes me think like this.

Case-1:

An MNC executive employed with the world’s highest selling mobile phone brand learns that an employee of his residential condominium has tried to molest his 11-12 years old daughter in the elevator. He rushes home, fully charged, frothing at the mouth with a lawyer colleague in tow and barges into the RWA office threatening the staff & office bearers of serious consequences and demanding that they file an FIR against the alleged culprit. The RWA informs its security agency and also the police. Subsequently a criminal case is filed, the alleged culprit is arrested & sent to jail and hearings in the case begin. The court issues summons to this gentleman to come & depose. He, in turn insists that the RWA attend the hearings as it was the RWA’s employee who did what he did. Cops kept visiting his place with summons after summons to depose but he didn’t bother to oblige. When pointedly asked as to why did he raise so much hue & cry if he didn’t want to pursue the matter and ensure that the alleged molester gets punished so that others don’t dare to repeat such offences, he confessed & hinted that getting leave from office would have been a problem. Also, if he did take leaves to attend court hearings, chances are that his work would have been allocated to someone else who then would have got promoted over him. Frequent absence from office may also have led to him getting fired.

What about your wife? She too is an educated woman, why can’t she go?

She too is working you see…same compulsions.

After six months, the court released the alleged molester for want of evidence/witnesses but not before his family in Bihar had sold off the little piece of land to pay for his legal expenses etc.

Case-2:

In a high-end 15 floor multistoried residential complex, the elevators in one of the towers has been breaking down frequently despite a sum of over Rs. 9 Lakhs having been spent by the RWA on their refurbishment. People get stuck in the elevators while going to work, school, shopping etc. and have to be rescued by the security chaps. And this rescue can take upto 30 minutes given that most security guards have no idea about elevator mechanisms. Climbing 15 floors can be a daunting experience for even the able-bodied, what to say of children and elderly who have no choice but to trek up & down.

The other day, one encountered this corporate animal puffing & panting while climbing stairs to his flat on the 14^th floor. Barely able to speak out of exhaustion, he grinned & cribbed about the lifts.

Hey, this is serious. Have you complained to the management about these shoddy lifts?

“No yaar, what’s the point in complaining! I’m sure someone or the other must have complained given that a similar breakdown took place last week also. The management guys must be knowing about this”.

What if there were a medical emergency! And if it hasn’t been mended in a week, shouldn’t you be raising your voice against such sad state of affairs. After all, what for are you paying hefty maintenance charges? Someone in the RWA needs to answer!

“Well, the RWA guys are one of us only. They are our neighbours & I don’t want to screw up my neighborly relations with them. You see, my wife is a good friend of President’s wife and my kids go to the same school as Secretary’s. I look at it as an opportunity to get some exercise, something one doesn’t get to do very often. I think climbing stairs is good for my health”.

But think of others who aren’t as fit as you. And by the way, you can climb up & down may be once in day, but what about those who have to go up & down many times a day. What about children & elderly. Shouldn’t you be thinking of them & doing something about that?

He simply grinned and moved on.

Case-3:

A teenage girl studying in a sought after Delhi school visits my home during Diwali festival. She is accompanied by her parents who work in MNCs. I don’t remember clearly but at some point one started discussing cars. The girl told how her family car has been giving trouble despite being under warranty; how despite making multiple rounds of the authorized workshop, the problem remains. The manufacturer has stopped responding to the written complaints and is forever asking us to visit their workshop & get it rectified.

I suggested to her to escalate it to the higher ups and maybe put pressure through media by writing about it to their consumer grievances columns/shows; sharing the family’s experience on manufacturer’s social media pages and if everything else fails, approach a consumer forum.

She promptly rejected all these suggestions saying that if she did any of these things, her career may get jeopardized; she may not get admission to colleges abroad and may find it tough to land a job.

How come?

“You see, if I do any of these things, I, in all likelihood shall be perceived as a nagger, complainer, troublemaker, quarrelsome and difficult to work with types. I agree that one must fight for their rights, but not at the cost of one’s future & career”.

Her parents couldn’t have been more proud of her…their eyes said it all!

I would still like to continue believing that education could be a game changer in deciding the destiny of a nation, culture, a society & a community. I am convinced about its power to transform. But how does one explain educated people being conformists, regressive, reluctant or rather opposed to change, happy with status quo, scared, worried about consequences and their failure to see their roles in transforming the society or building a nation.

Just think- would the villagers and tribals of Odisha have managed to assert their legal rights in their fight against Odisha government batting for giant corporations like POSCO & Vedanta to protect their forests & ecosystem, had they been educated (educated in the sense middle class perceives it)?

I don’t think so.

Which raises another question – who among the two is educated & wiser and deserving of your respect?

Have our education and the educated failed us?

Rising Prices turn Manmohan into a Rebel: Refuses to vacate PM’s Chair for Rahul

2013-07-20T23:38:00.002-07:00

The otherwise shy, invisible, inaudible Madam’s loyalist Manmohan Singh is reported to have conveyed a strong message to 10, Janpath that he is no longer a pushover and is very much in the race for Prime Ministership in 2014! Sources close to him inform that he is no mood to vacate his PM’s chair for Rahulji in the event UPA returns to power post 2014 general elections and is willing to press for a vote when push comes to shove to decide as to who’ll lead the UPA-III next year.

In a damning revelation, FICCIleaks website has posted secret audio recordings of conversations at PM’s residence made by USA’s NSA operatives who are said to have dozens of listening devices planted at 7, Race Course Road, PM’s official residence!

In one of the recordings, PM is heard being battered by his better half, bitter over the rising prices of tomatoes, onions, potatoes and all other green vegetables with some of them costing and others rushing to the Rs. 100/Kilogram levels. Previously, she was only worried about her domestic helps flicking things like petty cash left in drawers or MM Singh’s pajamas, jewelry, expensive cutlery and gifts given by heads of states during phoren trips. But now she has to trail all the housemaids to see if anyone is laying their hands on her priceless collection of tomatoes & onions!

Alarmed at his poor chances of survival on his meager pension, the couple has decided that the best way to stay insulated from the rising prices is to continue being the prime minister for as long as one can. And to ensure that they have to spend bare minimum of their own money on food, Manmohan Singh would reach office before time & work till late seven days a week. This would ensure that his breakfast, lunch, tea & dinner are taken care of from PMO’s budget. He would also start travelling more & more, within & outside the country and never refuse any invitation to inaugurate something or the other anywhere in this country. This too shall ensure that his food expenses are taken care of by the host states, individuals & organizations inviting him. Since majority of such invites are also meant for the wife, a large part of her food expenses too shall be taken care of. Additionally, PM would host state dinners more frequently and also manipulate situations is such a way that all AICC & Congress Working Committee meetings have either lunch or dinner time overlapping.

So the food expenses are taken care of.

FICCIleaks has also uploaded another private conversation between PM & his wife. She can be clearly heard moaning about the frequent rise in petrol prices and then shouting at the Prime Minister that he better not think of making way for Rahul Gandhi ever.

“Why?” he is heard murmuring (audio not clear).

In response, she is heard saying- “B’coz your government has literally become a 100 rupee government! Be it tomatoes, onions or petrol, everything’s price is hurtling towards 100 Rupees!!”

She goes on - “Leaving your chair for that `young’ boy will ensure that we won’t have any official transport available at government expense! And by the time you demit office, petrol prices would have crossed the 100 Rupee mark, given the way the US Dollar is firming up against the Indian Rupee, a bulk of which carries your signatures as RBI Governer. We’ll have to use our own car for running errands-small or big! And paying fuel bills from personal pocket will ensure that we will be forced to sell the family silver within a year of two of retiring from Prime Ministership. Because I’m completely against asking our daughters for help! And Rahul baba has the option to eat at the homes of Kalawati and those of her ilk. The entire nation knows his fondness to spend the night in jhuggi-jhompris of the poor".

Political analysts & news studio lizards unanimously agree that the economist in Manmohan Singh has now clearly understood the economic ramifications of his political chivalry of vacating prime ministerial chair for Rahul Gandhi. Some are of the opinion that with such a solid motivation behind him, Manmohan Singh is walking into 2014 with all guns blazing and this may spell doom for Modi & his prime ministerial aspirations.

Nation confronted with Hobson’s Choice: Teachers as Cooks or Cooks as Teachers?

2013-07-18T08:28:00.001-07:00

An unprecedented exodus of household helps, specially cooks has been reported from all over the country bringing a large parts of the urban economy into a grinding halt. The most affected are households in big cities, specially metros which are home to a large number of working couples who depend on cooks or khaansamas for their daily nutritional requirements. Neighbourhood dhabas & roadside eateries too are reporting sudden & steady outflow of cooks.

To get to the root of this phenomenon, this correspondent decided to visit some of the slums where these culinary experts live. He sees a crowd at a tea stall intently watching TV. No, it wasn’t an Indo-Pak cricket match. They were watching TV news and studio discussions about the death of children in Bihar after eating mid-day meals in their school. They came to know that teachers & principals of the school have been suspended for negligence and FIRs filed against them for cooking & serving contaminated meals as preparing & feeding mid-day meals to kids is teachers’ responsibility.

“Well, I wonder what the F are we doing here in Mumbai living under constant threat of being pulverized by MNS & Shiv Sena goons. I can any day make much better and tastier meals than these god forsaken teachers”, muttered a man in his early 30s.

“Arrey, I had no idea that teachers need to cut veggies and cook food in school! All this while I was under the impression that you can become a teacher only if you can teach and for that you need to be educated. I’m not staying here for a moment more. I am going back home and taking up the job of a school teacher”, said another man with unshaven & unkempt beard.

Next morning, hordes of these people were seen boarding trains for journey back home.

Our special correspondents in Patna, Chennai, Siwan, Varanasi, Etawah, Babina, Sholapur, Ganjam, 24 Parganas & many other districts are reporting serpentine queues of men & women in front of District Education Officer’s offices seeking jobs as teachers. Incidents of sloganeering & stone pelting have also been reported from some places.

When asked about their qualifications for the job & questioned about literacy levels, this is how some of them justified their demand for being made a teacher -

Reporter: What qualifications, knowledge & skills do you bring to the table as a teacher?

Chef-de-Dhaba: I bring tasty, fresh, finger lickin’ good food to the table, garma garam from the stove. Give me the job and see both enrolments & attendance shoot up. With unprecedented literacy & education levels India will beat America in no time Baouji. What will a man not do for this paapi pait (sinful tummy; rolling his left palm over his tummy & patting it to produce a bongo like sound).

Reporter: What about teaching? What subjects can you teach & have you done B.Ed.?

Ramu Kaka (Chef-de-Middle class household): Teach? Why do I have to teach when all that the government wants teachers to do is to cook & serve meals to poor & hungry students! Don’t you read or watch news? All they are talking about is how the teachers have failed in their duty and all the actions being taken against them! With so much work to do – buying groceries, peeling & slicing vegetables, cleaning utensils, collecting firewood & arranging cow dung cakes for cooking & serving food to kids, where is the time to teach bhaiyaji? And why should one need B.Ed. for cooking!!

Reporter: Well, teaching children is no longer a simple thing like asking them to stand up & loudly read out their books & copy from the blackboard. These days, teachers have to do lot of complex stuff like Continuous & Comprehensive Evaluation, that is CCE! How can you do all this without having ever attended school?

Tandoor Master: CCE may be a new and fancy thing for teacher-teachers, not for us. How the hell do you think that people like me manage to give you well cooked rotis, naans & parathas with the right amount of crispness? It is all because of CCE man! Each & every roti going into the tandoor has to be monitored continuously & comprehensively!! You people really give too much importance to going to school. Big deal!!!

Reporter: But you see, teachers also have an important role to play in a country like ours. They are the backbone of election process, the very foundation on which Indian democracy rests.

Halwai (Chef de Dessert): I know. I have seen those teachers breaking chairs while knitting sweaters when I go to vote. What is it that they do that I cannot. I can put ink on anyone’s nails. Why do I need education for that!

Reporter: But you have to at least be literate to read the electoral rolls and check their credentials?

Chef de Dessert: Unlike teachers who come from outside & don’t recognize any voter, I know and can recognize anyone from 10 villages around this place. So no bogus voting! Where’s the need to read anything here. Moreover, teachers need cops to stop mischief mongers. Make me a teacher, give me election duty and see which mother’s son (mai ka laal) has the guts to create ruckus inside & outside the booth (shows off his muscles and swollen chest bulging out of Rupa’s vest).

Reporter: And Census duty? I hope you know that as teachers you also have to work as enumerators for various census operations?

Dai (Midwife): Sir, my seven generations have been in the midwifery business. What census are you talking about sahib? Make me a teacher and I’ll show you how census is done. I know exactly who is whose child. You can fool these school teachers about your family size and number of offsprings etc., not me sahib! I can tell you the name of real father of each child here, do you get it!! I don’t have to go around knocking doors of each house. I can fill up all the census forms sitting on my little school desk under the neem tree in the school compound!

Our New Delhi bureau reports that Shashtri Bhawan housing the HRD Ministry has been surrounded by cooks, waiters & kitchen assistants of all hues and shades including those from the Parliament House canteen, Hotels on Ashoka Road, Hotel Le-Meridein, Hotel Janpath & the Press Club of India. They are demanding a law scrapping the mandatory requirement of being educated and having B.Ed. or Nursery Teacher Training to become a teacher and absorbing all of them into teaching jobs.

A panicked minister of state for HRD, Shashi Tharoor has tweeted that he may starve to death given the fact that his domestic cook of 20 years has just announced his resignation on Twitter. Sources in the ministry reveal that neither Tharoor nor his wife know any cooking (food that is). And considering that cooks of all the non-cattle class hotels where he usually wines & dines could be seen in the crowd from his office window, he has no idea where his next meal would come from.

Last heard, Madam Sonia Gandhi has called an emergency meeting of the National Advisory Council with Digvijay Singh as special invitee to chalk out a strategy that kills the snake and leaves the baton unbroken. Diggy Raja is known to have floated the idea of declaring parliament house, state assemblies & luxury hotels as schools and rechristening cooks as teachers. This is the only way politicians could be assured of a sumptuous mid-day meal every day.

Gujarat is the only state which has remained an exception so far as there are no reports of any such demonstrations or sloganeering from any part of the state. Some of the cooks who spoke to this reporter on conditions of anonymity said that with their chief minister being a master chef himself, there is no way they can beat him in the race to become a teacher. Upon being questioned as to what makes them call NaMo a Master Chef, a Gandhinagar based cook replied that NaMo can cook what none of them can – cook up figures; data; police encounters; success stories about himself & his state like no other politician.

Supreme Court's comments on Daughters-in-law as Housemaids rocks the institution of marriage

2013-05-21T01:57:00.003-07:00

Psychiatrists & marriage-counselors across the country never had it so good. Huge serpentine queues in front of shrinks' offices are being reported from all the metros, cities and mofussil towns with men & women lining up in equal numbers.

It is now confirmed that all these people report sudden loss of purpose of life given the Supreme Court of India's ruling in a case asking people to treat their daughter-in-law as a family member and not as a housemaid.

Demonstrations are being reported from various places with men shouting slogans against the Supreme Court asking the court to tell them what to do with their wives & daughters-in-law now. Women too are pissed off with the court's order as they claim to have lost the purpose of living after their scared husbands and in-laws have stopped allocating them work.

“Tell me, how will I spend the day if all the work I was doing has now gone to my newly hired domestic help Kalawati”, thundered a housewife from a middle class locality.

In another part of the city, another woman rued the court's remarks saying that this order has actually left women like her at a major disadvantage. “If I do not work as a maid, why on earth would my husband & in-laws include my name in their wills; what am I supposed to do now to win their hearts, property & wealth & get it written all in my name. What an identity loss!!”, she yells angrily.

“With no domestic chores to do, I am finding it difficult to fend off my husband's boring bedroom advances. Previously at least I could give the excuse of being tired after a day's hard work and refuse sex. Now what”, rues another housewife from an elite neighbourhood.

On the other side, men too look devastated after this court order. Earlier, they would simply come home from work; ask for tea, snacks, drinks, dinner etc., plonk themselves in front of TV and doze off on the couch. There was no need to interact with their wives who were always busy doing their domestic maid-ish chores. Now, with their wives let free by the court order, they just don't know what to do with them.

“Earlier, the only talk I had with my parents' bahu is Hey, get me this & get me that. Now she's always sitting with me during breakfast, tea & dinner prodding me to talk something. Tell me, what do I talk with her? I shiver at the thought of coming back home and at the thought of having to talk with her. The only thing I can talk about is money, cars, IPL betting & bragging about paid sex during outstation tours with my male friends during drinking sessions. It is a rubbish judgment which has ruined my life”, he fumes.

Waving a banner criticizing the court's remarks, a top rung manager in a MNC regretted the development. “Having nothing else to do the whole day, my wife is full of vigour when I get back home in the evening. And she wants me to make each night romantic; she won't go to sleep till we've run the full course. And I just cannot do it. After getting screwed at my workplace for the whole day, I just don't have the energy for all this. I'm afraid, she is sooner or later going to get hooked with someone else and that'll be the end of our marriage”, he said in hushed tones.

A distraught elderly couple in Mangalore participating in a dharna organized by Bhartiya Sanskriti Sanrakshan Sene had this to say – “Our forefathers were very wise men. A lot of thought has gone into the concept of bahu or daughter-in-law. And you can realise their wisdom even today. Imagine the economic impact of having a maid to do all the domestic work and keeping another one just for sex & procreation of one's family tree or vansh! Maintaining this dual system would play havoc with the finances of many a household. And that must be the reason why both these roles were clubbed together, what you guys call multi-tasking these days” he explained proudly amid slogan shouting by the trishul & lathi wielding sene members.

Another old man standing & listening to this conversation jumps in to add -”In fact, the origins of the word `bahu’ can be traced to the Hindi word `Bahut’ meaning ‘Many’. Bahu therefore stands for a multi-faceted multi-role performer”, he said with a smirk.

Commenting on the issue Delhi's Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and MNS leader Raj Thackeray, both echoed similar sentiments and criticized the court in what they labeled an attmpt to pollute Indian culture. They cited railways figures about the increase in women passengers from East Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa & Chhatisgarh pouring into Delhi & Mumbai to fill up the vaccum created in the housemaid sector. This, they said is a ploy to change the demographics of their cities.

Rates for Jhadoo-Ponchha (Cleaning-Mopping), Dusting, Cooking, Utensil Cleaning and Baby-Sitting have skyrocketed ever since the Supreme Court's observations were reported in the media. Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram welcomed this development and is actively considering bringing the `housemaid' sector under Service Tax ambit.

Progressive women's organizations have also hailed the court's order and are planning countrywide agitation for creation employment opportunities for all the ex-housemaids set free by the court. All India Mall Owners Federation too has welcomed the court's order and is expecting an increase in footfalls in their otherwise empty malls.

“Married women or bahus now have all the time to shop and we are planning to add more malls basis the increased footfalls. We have also commissioned an ad-campaign linking women's liberation with shopping. After all, a woman's liberation & modernity quotient is measured by how much she can shop & how frequently, isn't it”, asked the federation's president.

Indian Judicial System CHESTized

2013-05-15T23:45:00.000-07:00

Human chest is a very handy thing…and please don’t get me wrong for I am only referring to some well known but least understood uses of human chest. Biology teaches us that we all have a chest…that it is held in shape by a rib cage which also houses our heart…so on and so forth.

Really?

Not if one goes by the way our justice delivery system works! For the Indian judicial system, Chest is the sole prerogative of the rich and the well connected. Ordinary people just don’t have it. Which is why almost all the financially well off scamsters and networkers seldom get to stay in jail even after being arrested for the most heinous crimes, including looting public money. They invariably complain of chest pain and land up in comfy confines of a hospital – usually an expensive five star types. The chest pain continues till their lawyers and well wishers pull strings to get them bail.

And this brings us to another chest – the currency chest. Yes, the same one which several court judges are alleged to have been caught stacking with crisp papers embossed with Gandhiji’s face.

And it is these two chests that form the foundation of our justice delivery system, leave aside a few pathbreaking ‘Chest Free’ pronouncements from the haloed portals of the Supreme Court and a handful of High Courts.

Which brings me to the case of Binayak Sen, by now a well known `seditionist’ if a Chhatisgarh court has to be believed. Lot of people seem to have been heartbroken (the non-chest types, I guess) by the news of Dr. Sen being denied bail by Chhatisgarh High Court who continues to stay behind real bars.

Why – the answer lies in the chest doctrine.

Also, a perusal of quality of judgments emanating from our High Courts would indicate that High Courts situated in states ruled by party(s) of a particular flag hoisting `nationalist’ ideology have seldom passed orders that’ll displease the ruling dispensation. That could explain why victims of one of the most infamous communal riot cases had to approach the Supreme Court to shift their cases outside the state. And the Supreme Court, in several instances has aceepted such pleas and shifted hearings to courts in neighbouring states for a `fair’ trial.

To me, this is a clear admission of inability of judges to work independently, either due to their own limitations or threats to their personal safety by overzealously `patriotic’ hoodlums or both. Remember how Pakistan Supreme Court behaved while Musharaf was in power and the kind of laws & amendments it approved of. And how the same Supreme Court of Pakistan suddenly grew a spine after Musharraf’s ouster. I know, many patriotic Indians despise the idea of being compared to Pakistan. But one can’t help but compare as the quality of justice and courts’ objectivity in both the countries seems to be a function of the ideological and administrative environment in which they work.

So, in addition to magistrates and judges being financially, morally and ethically corrupt, fear and flattery (towards those at the helm of affairs) too seem to play a role. Chhatisgarh government’s antipathy towards the likes of Binayak Sen is well known to all, including the magistrates and the judges who heard his case. And thus, the chances of him getting any relief from their courts are bleak.

So while our justice delivery system scans defendants for their chests, is their any way we can install high-res MRI Spine Scanners right at the entrance of corridors leading to the judges’ chambers?

Youth - An Overhyped & Overrated bunch?

2013-05-15T23:01:00.001-07:00

Indian youth had never had it so good. With over 50% share in the population, youth is being venerated day in & day out…paens are being sung by all & sundry…the media is going ga..ga over them, films are being made targeting youth & what not. In some cases, youth are even getting prominence at the cost of other groups. The entry of 79 MPs below 40 years of age is being heralded as a watershed moment in India’s parliamentary history.

Anyone who doesn’t fit into the `youth’ category must be feeling completely out of place, as if (s)he has committed a sin by not being young!

But why are we celebrating youth? What’s so special about this group…what have they done?? Why do we speak so highly of them??? It’s time we understood this stuff.
`Youth’ in my view, is synonymous with a deep & never ending yearning for positive change, an element of rebellion against what exists, the way it exists and a fountainhead of fresh ideas & boundless energy to translate them into action…above all, someone who romances idealism. Alas, the Indian youth doesn’t exhibit any of these qualities. Why only India, even globally, the role of young people in shaping public policies, influencing socio-cultural-political landscapes has been found wanting. When was the last time you heard about a youth movement that radically altered the level of public debate about the way the world is…and ways to change it?
Not very long ago, we had several young men & women taking part in India’s freedom struggle. Globally too, we have seen youth fighting against racism, apartheid, social inequalities, wars, gender bias, and numerous forms of discrimination and repression devised by those who rule societies and nations. The world we live in today is largely a product of these movements led by the youth.

So, is the youth of our times taking this glorious legacy forward?

No! Sadly, the youth today is nothing but an old, stagnant & defeated mind caged inside a relatively younger body…a body capable of more frequent copulation (perhaps the only distinguishing feature between the youth and the aged) but with a mind bereft of fresh ideas, new thinking and yes…idealism. He or she does not have a dream of his own…in fact, day after day, they live the dreams of the so called old people by chasing & craving for a house of their own, a healthy bank balance, retaining their jobs, possessing latest household gadgets, changing cars every three years, spouses every two years and cellphones every year. `Change’ for them means a change of job and wealth levels…`Rebellion’ for them means having utmost contempt for their elders at best and jumping traffic signals at worst…an `Upwardly Mobile’ society for them means personal movements up the money & influence charts excluding everyone and `Empowerment’ means nothing else but an enhanced ability to swing deals their way.

Try spending some time with young people at any coffee or fast food joints around college campuses in cities or cigarette shops/chai ka gallas in small towns or villages. Simply overhear their talks and all your ideas about `youth’ leading this country and making it the next superpower would get sorted out for good.

Because the youth today thinks and acts exactly like their grandfathers would. If that wasn’t the case, things like dowry & wife beating would have vanished long back…with youth rejecting this horrid tradition and those perpetuating it. Casteism would have become a thing of the past as majority of our young population would have freely & fearlessly married people from other castes, religions and regions (just take a look at matrimonial columns). Girls wouldn’t have been killed in wombs as their young fathers wouldn’t have thought of them as lowly creatures unworthy of their love and affection. And corrupt politicians & bureaucrats wouldn’t have enjoyed the powers they do today. They’d be living in mortal fear of being caught, exposed & questioned by the youth. On the contrary, young men & women of today aspire to be like them and curse themselves & their lineage if they can’t make the grade.

Let us look at our `young’ parliamentarians whom the media is raving about. We are being told that their presence in increased numbers would lead to a paradigm shift in the way things work in this country. Really? Isn’t it akin to saying that having a Rabri Devi as Chief Minister or Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister improves the status of women in the country? Has it??

As reproductive by-products of a political father or mother or both, they are well grounded in the kind of politics their parent(s) indulge in, just the way a shopkeeper’s or farmer’s son picks up threads of knowledge from seeing his father at work. And they’ll do more of the same things. The only difference being that they’ll do all this speaking the language that the `youth’ understands. With youth comprising the largest chunk of our populace, their acceptance is likely to higher than that of their old, doddering, incoherent & out of fashion parents. And that’s the only `change’ we are likely to witness. Period.

Unfortunately, I can’t name any young politician here for the fear of being slapped with libel but just think of any name and audit this guy’s actions in & out of parliament…what did (s)he do as a minister…in whose company did (s)he spend time with, where and doing what. How many times did (s)he questioned the way things were in working in his party or government? I bet your conclusion won’t be very different from what I’ve expressed above.

All this brings us back to the original question- why then are we venerating the youth the way we do?

Well, being the single largest constituent of our society, they happen to be the largest consumer group- consumers who’d lap up the goods and services being produced/imported in the country. The producers of these goods, with the help of the media have managed to create some sort of `uniformity’ among youth as far as desires, aspirations & beliefs are concerned. So from Jaipur to Jajpur, Pondicherry to Paonta Sahib and Dibrugarh to Daman, you’ll comes across young people with similar notions of progress, growth, happiness and matching shades of political vision & understanding. By & large they idolize the same people lionized by the media – cricketers, bollywood guys & gals and industry kaptans. They crave for the same things, be it material possessions or positions of power- be it in the government or the corporate sector. Nuisance value (the ability & power to screw others’ peace & happiness) is worshiped by young people regardless of the place or class they belong to.

And this universalization of thoughts, deeds & dreams is crucial to sell mass manufactured `standardized’ products, thereby helping gigantic businesses make a killing in the markets. And this perhaps is the reason why youth movements elsewhere too have died down. Afterall, it’s not for nothing that the world is called a globalized village!

And those of you outside the `young’ bracket, please take heart…the youth today doesn’t pose any challenge to you. In fact, it is very much like you, may be worse.

Scam Fallout - Mamata to tie Rakhi to Manmohan Singh; Ajit Pawar declares Sonia elder sister; NaMo suffers depression

2013-05-06T02:35:00.001-07:00

Kolkata & Mumbai, May 06, 2013

West Bengal's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today announced that she intends tying Rakhi to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh coming Rakshabandhan and making him her brother.

"Brathers are supposed to be sabhiours of their sisters, protecting them everytime they come in harms way. And Monmohan Shing has done ekjactly that by dibherting media and public attenshun from Saradha cheet-phund scam and phokashing the limelight on himself, his railway minishter Pabon Koomar Bonshol and Law minishter Ashbhani Koomar. I ken not tail you how reeleeebhd I am today. Thet constant cobherage of the scam was like hel baba...leebhing us no time to erect neeu electrishity poles in bhitween the court and the jail bhere Shoodipto Sen & other Saradha peepul are kept. You see, we hab to inshtall poles on both sides of the road becoj we don't know from which bhindow of the jail van Shoodipto would be peeping before his head bangs the pole," she said speaking to whatever journalists are left in the city, mostly representing media houses owned by chit fund companies.

When this correspondent asked her about the progress in the enquiry about SFI activist Sudipto Gupta's death, Mamata lost her temper & shot back angrily - "You see, anyone named Shoodipto can nebher be a good pershun. That Shoodipto Gupta was from the Left which is an unforgivable crime in my eyes. And the Saradha guy too is Shoodipta. Do you still think that Shoodipto Gupta was an innoshent nice boy? You have to be a leftist sympathiser to think like that!!!"

Hundreds of kilometres away on the western side of the country, NCP leader Ajit Pawar held an impromptu press briefing while peeing in a dried up reservoir adjoining a dam. Pawar expressed immense gratitude to Sonia Gandhi for mothering & mentoring a government that gives birth to a new scam everyday.

"It is because of her sacrifices that today I am standing & talking to you in such a relaxed manner. Life was miserable for me and the Marathi people in general till a few days ago with constant bombardment of news about unprecedented drought in Maharashtra and the builder-politician nexus in the wake of building collapse in Thane. And of course the beating up of that silly constable by our MLAs. You won't believe it when I would say that the sight of newsmen & OB vans used to make me super-anxious which resulted in dysuria. With the presswallahs around, my kidneys used to stop discharging wastewater properly & continuously. Drinking several pegs of Johnny Walker at one go also didn't help. All that is now history courtesy Coal-gate & Rail-gate. Only a loving & caring elder sister would sacrifice so much for her brother."

When our stringer asked him whether he has any plans to visit 10, Janpath on Rakshabandhan, Mr. Pawar confirmed his plans to do so & get a Rakhi tied by none other than the UPA-II chairperson. He also announced that in return for tying the rakhi, he would give Sonia ji 25% share in all the NCP's revenue from illegal building business and irrigation scam.

Pawar also made a standing offer of providing enough water to Lutyens Delhi during the dry summer months. He promised to camp on the banks of Yamuna close to Okhla barrage and fill it up the same way he proposes to fill up Maharashtra's dams.

At the time of going to the press, our Gandhinagar correspondent reports that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has checked into a hospital for extreme mental depression. Sources close to his psychiatrist have told our correspondent that the root of his ailment lies in the widespread coverage & news studio discussions about lesser mortals like Ashwani Kumar & P.K. Bansal. After having featured in the media non-stop on a daily basis, Mr. Modi is not able to digest the fact that the media could ever consider anything else more important than him. He has been shifted to ICU whose four walls, floor & ceiling are made of video-walls playing Modi's looped visuals without a break.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a piece of imaginary satirical writing & should not be confused with real news or real facts. It is fake news and is not intended to personally offend any individual , institution, gang, gangster or a political entity or its followers.