Humour

General / Humour — 30 Comments
9
Jan 12

2011 : A Twitrospective

Yes, yes. As we all know, that’s how we do it on Twitter. People become tweeple, meet-ups become tweet-ups, and twins become er… you get what I mean. So as we twug along in 2012, twondering tworriedly if the twayans were twight, maybe it’s twime to do a twitrospective of 2011. Through my tweets, as you no doubt twigured out. So here goes. Twenjoy…

January

John Lennon once told us to imagine a world without boundaries. Dravid & Gambhir just gave us a brief glimpse of it.

Any chance of Rahul Gandhi entering the cabinet? Isn’t it time Sonia did some beta testing?

Maybe Yeddy could be sent to Kashmir. In a few years, all the land will belong to his family, and all problems will be solved.

The Republic Day parade should have a CBI tableau. Perhaps, a truck filled with clean chits.

Government of Egypt blocks all internet access. The country can now be renamed gypt.

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Humour / Politics — 4 Comments
5
Jan 12

Sir Cawry Academy of Management

Oops. I just realized that my last post here was made even earlier than Sachin Tendulkar’s last test century. The whole of 2011 has been dry as a Gujarat. But wait. I did write something. An article that Outlook published as “The ‘Er…’ In Leader“. So what better way to pretend that this blog is alive, than a slimy repeat of the same. Here it is…

Dare to think beyond the IIMs. Now dare to think beyond institutes that you think of, when you dare to think beyond the IIMs. And you have…
SIR CAWRY ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT - A B-school of notional importance.

Sir Cawry Academy of Management has been set up in order to create a pool of well-trained young people who will be placed in political parties.

Every aspect of the academy, from the campus to the curriculum, has been designed to equip our students with hard-core management principles, so that they can become the dealers of tomorrow.

CAMPUS

The academy boasts of a sprawling campus near Delhi within easy access of the airport, parliament & Tihar. The entire area is a hi-security zone with numerous metal detectors, but students are trained to bypass them. Each student is assigned a personal car with a red light on top, and provided with an escort detail that clears the road for them. This of course, leads to minor problems, when more than one student is on the move at the same time. Wherever one sees, there’s a mess. But that’s only because we want to make sure that our students’ every desire is catered to; at all times.

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General / Humour / Uncategorized — 7 Comments
31
Dec 10

2010 : Tweet by Tweet – Part 2

Hello again. And here’s Part 2 of MMXredux, which incidentally, has a high probability of being the Latin term for “2010 Revisited”. Which goes to show that there is, in turn, a high probability that I am a classical scholar, who’d be at home in Rome. A persona grata indeed.

Part 1 was a selection of tweets that pertained to actual events that happened in 2010. While this post is a selection (with no real standards) of my general views on things, neatly segregated into topics. So you could say that Part 1 comprised my topical tweets organized by time. While Part 2 has my er… timely tweets organized by topic.

Here they are. And as we say in Rome – Caveat Lector.

On media : Who are supposed to be the watchdogs of democracy, but have unfortunately misplaced the watch.

Now that they’ve launched the Crest Edition, the rest of TOI can focus on the trough.

Newspapers have columns, while TV channels have rows.

Every issue has a poll from Barkha, a debate from Arnab, a theory from Rajdeep and of course, a solution from C-Bag.

TV news is weighed down by its anchors.

When entertainment channels start showing reality shows, news channels have to move to fiction, no?

Barkha Dutt came out so strongly against raw news that I’ve started wondering if all NDTV news is cooked-up.

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General / Humour — 7 Comments
30
Dec 10

2010 : Tweet by Tweet – Part 1

What a nice time we’ve had in 2010 (Or MMX according to Romans). It’s been a great year with much to jeer. 12 months of strikes & bandhs. 52 weeks of scams and leaks.

This was the year in which Kalmadi made a killing, Assange did some spilling, CBI kept grilling, while Manmohan was just chilling.

The year in which Sachin kept scoring, and er.., so did Nityananda.

Many things happened. Lalit Modi was deposed, Yana Gupta was exposed, Rahman composed, while as usual, Deve Gowda reposed.

So here’s the year the way I saw it. On Twitter.

January

Jyoti basu dies at 11.47 a.m., yet again almost making it to P.M.

UPSC increases civil services intake from 580 to 965. Ouch. 385 more bureaucrats each year. A real Babulation Explosion.

Kerala gets 3G services. Now they can call themselves “GGGods own country”.

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General / Humour — 20 Comments
22
Jun 10

India’s got Talent

If you follow me on Twitter or are connected with me on Facebook, you have no doubt been subjected to repeated plugs for this article of mine that appeared as “Mum, I Shrunk The Workplace” on Outlook. For the others, I’m sorry, there’s no escape. Here it is…

The nice folks at Outlook wanted me to write an article on how the landscape of “professions” has been changing in India. And they said they would pay me per word. You might notice that I’ve already ripped them off with this 48-word introduction. So let’s quickly start.

I passed my tenth standard in 1984. So my impressions about the career options that people had earlier is derived mostly from movies.

From what I can gather, the 60s and 70s were simple times.

Professions were broadly divided into two categories. Industrialists, businessmen, smugglers & black-marketers formed one group. Honest, upright, poor, virtuous, government employees formed the other. Members of the first group acquired buildings, property, bank-balances, bungalows and cars. Members of the second group had mother.

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Desi Pundit / Humour / Politics — 32 Comments
27
May 10

The Alternate Press Conference of Dr. Manmohan Singh

Yawn. What a boring press conference our PM had earlier this week. Read the transcript if you want. Note : It’s partly in Hindi.

Everybody knew what the questions would be. The usual stuff – Pakistan, terrorism, inflation, Naxals, corruption, Rahul, Sonia, and so on.

And everybody knew that there would be no real answers. If it’s a problem, we will look into it. If it’s corruption, the law will take its course. If it’s violence, we are open to talks. And if it’s the Family, we will wax eloquent about them. I wish the man at least tried it to make it a bit interesting. We know he is just a puppet, but even puppets are supposed to entertain, aren’t they?

Anyway, like we do in the case of so many other things, let us try self-help. If the government staunchly refuses to answer our questions, we shall have to do it ourselves. So here are the real answers that Manmohan never gave…

On inflation & economy : Please remember that this is a UPA govt. Which is why the economy has gone UPA, not neechey. And unfortunately prices went UPA-2. However we are working very hard to bring prices down. This is a government you can count on. As well as discount on.

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General / Humour — 53 Comments
12
Oct 09

The Nobel Peace Prize – Behind the Scenes

The announcement of Obama as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has raised a few eyebrows, shaken a few heads, and drawn a lot of ridicule. After all the committee had 205 nominations to choose from. So why pick a man whose formula for success is supposed to be 99% aspiration & 1% inspiration?

The internet is filled with imaginative theories on why he won. Some people feel it’s because his name is easier to pronounce than that of Ahmadinejad. Others postulate that he won it in a contest by virtue of being the tenth caller to the committee. All these theories may have merit, but one can never know for sure until 2059, which is when the deliberations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee will be released to the public.

However, painful persistence, dogged determination and a dose of hallucinogenic substances have allowed Let’s Put Da to lay its hands on the minutes of the committee meeting. So, dear reader, here they are…

(Note : In order to provide insight into the proceedings, the editor has randomly retained a few caricatured European accents derived by watching Peter Sellers movies and other such credible sources)

MINUTES OF THE NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE

Nobel

Venue : Oslo
Date : October 2009
Chaired by : Thorbjorn Jagland
Also present : Kaci Kullman Five, Sissel Marie Ronbeck, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, Agot Vlle
Agenda : To decide the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2009

TJ : I call zis meeting to order.

KK5 : Ja, Ja. It ees time we start.

TJ : Ladees & me, we are gathered here to choose ze Nobel Peez Prize. As you all know it ees very prestigious and carries a heck-of-a-lot-of money. So let us choose carefully and wisely.

IMY : Yess. Yess. I agree. Peace is precious. War is bad. I have been reading a book by Tolstoy on thees subject for the last 4 years. It really helps me sleep peacefully.

TJ : Ok, Ingel. Let us get ze started. Sissel, could you read out the first finalist plees…

SMR : Thees is a man from India. Called Morarji Desai. It seems he was so fond of pees that he used to drink it everyday.

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General / Humour — 30 Comments
4
Sep 09

A Sarkari Formula 1

Dear Dr. Mallya,

I hope this missive finds you in the pink of health and the black of wealth.

I notice that you have been making attempts to help JPSK Sports get government funding for F1. But you must be aware that the sports ministry has firmly declared that anything expensive & entertaining cannot be called a sport. They prefer investing our tax money into activities that are cheap & boring (Kho Kho & Malkhamb to name a couple). In any case, hasn’t the Olympic telecast on DD conclusively proved to you, that in India, sport & entertainment do not mix.

I saw that you tried to take on the minister, MS Gill, on this issue, but you seem to have been sternly rebuffed. In other words you got a danda from gilli.*

But seriously, why on earth do the organisers want money from our government? I know that petrol prices have gone up, but still, isn’t F1 a rather prosperous pursuit? They say it has a global TV audience of 600 million. Surely such a venture would attract some capital. It’s like “Who wants to be a millionaire?” asking the government for a small subsidy.

And think of the perils you invite if you allow our government to get into the event. I can imagine a cabinet meeting where every ministry imposes its agenda on the race. Here is a partial list of possible policy decisions…

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General / Humour / Politics — 16 Comments
26
Aug 09

New Indian Nursery Rhymes – 2

Arun Shourie’s “Humpty Dumpty” outburst reminded me of some stuff I had written many months back and had completely forgotten to post – The second installment of new Indian nursery rhymes. You can check out the first part here.

So I dug them out and here they are. I know they are a bit dated (they pertain to stuff that happened 6-8 months back), but what the heck, it’s still better to have nursery rhymes that are drawn from India circa 2008 than Europe circa 16th century. Sing along for best results :-) …

Based on “Little Miss Muffet”.

Little Miss Jaya,
Eats some papaya,
Along with some curd and rice.
If you want a favour,
Some money you gave her,
For Miss Jaya comes at a price.

Based on “Pussy Cat Pussy Cat”.

Prakash Karat, Prakash Karat, where have you been?
I’ve been to Beijing to visit the Cheen.
Prakash Karat, Prakash Karat, what did you there?
I promised my bosses, that I’d do my share.

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General / Humour — 22 Comments
24
Aug 09

Happenings in Pigland

There is unrest in Pigland. Fat pigs are quivering. Small pigs are squeaking. Medium pigs are grunting. This has been a bad month for them.

pig-swine-with-mask-043009Firstly, there is this new epidemic – human flu – which has been scything through Pigland. As of date, no less than 17 pigs have been exterminated by this dreaded disease. The health ministry of Pigland is declaring emergency measures to combat this scourge. When it was pointed out that 17 is no big deal, that over 100 million pigs are slaughtered in the USA alone every year, he indignantly retorted, “Please do not cast these pearls of wisdom before a swine like me. This is a big health issue. We live in unhygenic surroundings. In gutters and like. No wonder we are referred to as ‘Sewer Ke Bacche’. So we have to do something. But don’t worry, there is a bacon of hope. A new drug can save you. One pork and you’ll be fine.” Meanwhile, the worried denizens of Pigland are roaming around the streets wearing masks. Which they only remove to dig their snout into some tasty garbage.

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Encounters / Humour / Politics — 55 Comments
29
Jul 09

Modi & Modi United

There’s a politically charged atmosphere in the room. All the leading reporters of India are babbling excitedly. Two of India’s most reputed administrators have called for a press conference. Rumours abound that a new political party is to be launched.

With Congress continuing to have congress with the public, BJP neither helping the Bharatiya Janata nor allowing anybody to Party, and thinking having left all leftist thinkers, the time seems ripe for a new formation.

In walks Narendra Modi in a spotless kurta-pajama and Lalit Modi in a spotted tie and his (only?) grey suit. There’s an eager silence as Lalit Modi unfolds a (thankfully) small piece of paper and reads from it…

I, Lalit Modi & he, Narendra Modi, have realized that we are India’s most capable administrators. We have, therefore, decided to launch a new political party – Modisattva. The party will work for peace, prosperity & high TRPs. I hereby declare the Modisattva party open. Any questions folks?

Reporter : Hi, I’m from the Pioneer, so I’ll ask the first question, heh heh. So, Mr. Modi, why have you decided to leave the BJP? And you Mr. Lalit Modi. Why are you leaving the IPL?

Narendra Modi : Well, for a party that calls itself right-wing, the BJP is getting too many things wrong. Our terrorism plank backfired. We tried Ram and got rammed. In fact, the elections results were such a joke that the party is now in splits. I believe it’s time to move on.

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Humour / Politics — 39 Comments
14
May 09

Deconstruction of Election Symbols

The polling action is over. And the appolling auction begins. All parties will now cook the fragile egg of democracy by scrambling for power and poaching rival candidates. Like any sporting contest, all parties have a common goal but distinctive styles. And one can get an inkling of what to expect from them by deconstructing their election symbols. Here is a post-modern attempt…

THE HOPEFULS

CongressHAND – The symbol of the Congress is the Hand. Or more precisely, the palm. Or even more precisely, an open palm. That is waiting to be greased. The five fingers represent the five guiding principles of the party – To keep entrepreneurship under its Thumb. Thus pushing up the consumer price Index after which they can announce sops. To occupy the Middle ground on all issues thereby staying clear of any principles. To Ring up Sonia before making any decision. And to pander to every Little whim of all their coalition partners. The Hand is intended to subliminally indicate that any parliament with too little Congressmen will behave in an underhand manner. Unfortunately, an excess of seats makes them high-handed. The party ran out of partners before the election and thus had no choice but to use its Hand.

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General / Humour — 62 Comments
18
Mar 09

The Bharatiya Oscar Awards – Bhaskars

I wonder why we folks are so happy about Slumdog Millionaire winning so many awards. Of course, I love the fact that Rahman finally got some recognition. And Resul Pookutty got a foreign trip. But why are we so ecstatic about the other awards? Isn’t it a bit like Germany celebrating the fact that Schindler’s List swept the Oscars.

Instead, in true swadeshi style, let’s institute our own Bharatiya Oscars – The Bhaskars. After all, in India, drama, action & comedy aren’t confined to the movies. They are played out in glorious 3-D in all aspects of our life. So here is my list for the 2008 Bhaskars…

Best Story – A Deputy CM demonstrates his adherence to the law by falling in love with a former assistant advocate general. Unfortunately he already has a wife. The Hindu lovers become a Muslim couple – Chand Mohammed & Fiza. Once he has got into her Nikaahs, he decides to go back to his first wife. Fiza attempts suicide, accuses him of rape, and his family of occult practices but Chand is unmoved. He divorces her through SMS and she gets a role in a Bollywood movie. For this fascinating saga involving politics, law, love, religion, crime, horror, glamour & technology, the Bhaskar Award for Best Story goes to Chander Mohan a.k.a. Chand Mohammed for “Fiza Ke Liye”.

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Humour / Politics — 27 Comments
10
Feb 09

Rationalizing Government – A Leaner, Meaner Council of Ministers

Warning : This is a long post. But then it is an ambitious task.

Manmohan Singh must be having a tough time priming so many ministers. Take a look at this. As of now there are 49 ministries & 2 departments being handled by him & 38 other ministers. Plus 40 Ministers of State (without independent charge). It’s time to trim. Here is a way to ensure that our cabinet bears less resemblance to a walk-in wardrobe…

1. The Ministry for Women & Child Development will be brought under the Home Ministry, which will then be renamed the Home & Hearth Ministry. After all, Indian Culture says that a woman’s place is in her home. The ‘food’ portfolio will also be brought under the Home & Hearth ministry, because within home, a woman’s place is specifically in the kitchen. Pramod Muthalik will run this ministry. And given his concerns about youth, the Ministry of Youth Affairs will also come in here. So will the Ministry of Environment & Forests. After all, Muthalik is well versed in jungle law.

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Humour / Speeches — 38 Comments
22
Jan 09

100-word Election Speeches – Part 3

Link to introduction & Part 1.
 Link to Part 2.

The elections are getting closer and closer. Parties have made their guest-lists. They are preparing their manifestoes and their bullet-points. People are talking Ram & stocking rum. Old leaders are trying to make news. While new candidates are making old noises. In all this buzz, here are some more suggestions for quick, snappy, speeches…

Sanjay Dutt - Oy there. Vote for me, ok. I want to be PM. My career started in a Rocky manner. But I soon made a Naam for myself. The Mumbai Blasts were a Kaante in my flesh because people thought I had made our Dushman into my Saajan. So I was called Khalnayak and kept in Kabzaa for possessing Hathyaar. But now I’m back with a Dhamaal. I fail to understand why, just because I’m a movie star, I’ve become the Dutt of all jokes. Believe me, I’m a man of deep conviction – 6 years to be precise. So vote for me and vote for a muscular India. Sanjay ka Haath, Arm Aadmi ke Saath.

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