In a fitting reply to Pakistan’s banning of the Jamat-ud-Dawah, Raj Thakeray has ordered a ban on all Pakistani books in Mumbai. Raj is the head of the bestest and most patriotic party in the whole world, the MNS.
The move is, in fact, seen as being a logical follow up to his earlier move to ban Indians from the Indian financial capital, Mumbai. Raj is learnt to have called for a ban as soon as he learnt that Pakistan has no Marathi people. Raj is also apparently miffed that Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbai.“Only I can do that,” he is reported to have said
“This ban will prevent the spread of undemocratic ideas from the totalitarian state of Pakistan,” said an MNS spokesperson, explaining the reason for the ban. “Also, stopping the sale of the 30-odd Pakistani books per day in Mumbai is sure to cripple the sources of funds used by these evil terrorist.”
Meanwhile, publishers of those books are contemplating a surreptitious name change for the books concerned to try and sneak past the ban. Mohammed Hanif’s (not to be confused with Hanif Mohammad) brilliant book, “A Case of Exploding Mangoes ” is to be now renamed “A Case of Exploding Oranges”.I never liked Superman all that much for two reasons—the same reasons I never liked Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, in fact:
Of course, if you really want to watch a movie with a super hero, you’ve got to watch Ghajini. If Rab De was copied from the love story of
The movie stars Aamir Khan as a person who suffers from short term memory loss—he can’t remember things for more than 15 minutes—a result of getting hit on the head as he battled unsuccessfully to stop his lady love from getting murdered. The only clue he has, to take his revenge, is the name of his wife’s killer—her last words whispered into his ear—Ghajini. Imagine if the killer’s name had been, say,
Apart from that Ghajini has other delightful stuff to keep you entertained, IF YOU GREW UP IN THE 80s, THAT IS:
i) Disabled school girls (gets them into a museum)
ii) Old blind man (makes him cross street)
iii) Poor girls (saves them from being trafficked as part of the flesh and illegal organs trade)
***
The Aamir is dead. The Shah was never all that alive, anyways. Long live Dibakar Banerjee.
In times like these, one feels the little niceties of life are lost. I mean who has the time to thank someone in this dog eat dog world?
But there are some people for whome manners come before all else. Check out this spam mail I got:
Click to EnlargeIt’s nice to know that this gentleman had the courtesy to apologise for spamming my mail box.
I can just see it now:
Spammer’s wife: “But, honey, it’s wrong to spam people. People lose billions of dollars due to it.”
Spammer: “Don’t worry dear. I’ll apologise after insinuating that their phalluses aren’t big enough. Is that ok?”
Spammer's wife: "Awww!!! That's so sweet. Mummy was wrong. You are an awesome person."
You know what’s wrong with that placard? It’s in English.
How many people in India can talk in English let alone read it. Yet, the hoity-toity South Mumbai crowd had its banners in English to insult politicians—politicians who are elected by a set very different from the demographics of this crowd.
Symbolism of the language apart, it’s mildly amusing to see someone like Shobha De (if you’ve read her articles in the ToI or seen her blowing air kisses on TV) work herself into an apoplectic rage over these attacks. In fact, the whole of middle class India has worked itself into a rage and it has only one target in its crosshairs—the Indian politician. I get E-mails every day comparing Abhinav Bindra with NSG commandos, SMSes telling me about arcane provisions in the Indian constitution which allow me to register my vote for “nobody” and such.
But tell me, dear E-mail sender, what use is it to castigate all politicians? What does it even mean? What use will it be if we go to the polling booths and don’t return a legislator? Will a Parliament with 200 members instead of 545 be a huge improvement? If we get rid of all politicians, who will rule? The Army? Ah! Yes, now there’s a good choice. The Pakistani Army destroyed Pakistan. Why stop the Indian Army from doing the same to India?
I, personally, don’t see any changes in our system coming out of this attack. Yes, E-mails will be sent and apocryphal constitutional provisions discussed, but when the dust settles, the System will remain the same as before. To change the System we need to change the people who make up the System.
However, with the level of poverty and illiteracy present in India, people identify more with ancient codes of caste and religion rather than what’s going on in the Wasabi in South Mumbai.
Maybe the day there is a power station supplying power to Balia, Uttar Pradesh so that an E-mail about overpaid Olympic shooters can reach a reader there, we will see some progress. Till then, I doubt it.
P.S: I wonder if Bindra has got one of those E-mails.
