Raju Chacha

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In a rational move which smacks overtly of common sense, MNS cadre have bought the capital city of Maharashtra to a standstill, to protest against non-Maharashtrians.

Says a local level leader of the MNS,”These non-Maharashtrians were destroying Mumbai’s culture and ethos. Now you know that we Maharashtrians are second to none. So we said:’ they’ve destroyed the culture and ethos of the city; big deal! We’ll destroy the city itself! That’ll show them! Ha!’”

In a bid to prove that Maharashtrians can destroy stuff better than Hindi-speakers, MNS cadre went on a rampage in Mumbai, first setting fire to buses, allegedly because the buses did not speak Marathi. They followed that up by targeting taxis and auto rickshaws which did not speak Marathi.

The violence was not confined to Mumbai though; it justifiably spread to other parts of Maharashtra, including Pune—capital of the once-mighty Peshwa Empire.

“Pune once challenged the mighty Mughal Empire! Today we Maharashtrians will pelt three Pune Municipal Transport buses with stones to show how great we are. Jay Maharashtra!”, said an MNS leader in Pune, trying to incite a crowd to riot.

Taking a cue from their Maharshtrian brethren, in another extremely sensible, tit-for-tat move, Biharis have taken to destroying railway property in Bihar, including trains and railway stations. Protesters set the Motihari Railway station, in Bihar, on fire as well as attacking several Bihar-bound trains.

“How dare these Maharashtrians inconvenience Biharis”, raged a rioter, while trying to set fire to a railway station in Bihar.

The protests to support Biharis in Maharashtra have thrown the whole railway apparatus in Bihar out of gear, thus greatly inconveniencing Biharis in Bihar.

In spite of efforts to divide the country, Indians, from Mumbai (left) to Motihari (right), have bravely shown that the bonds of stupidity tie us tightly together.

Earlier, Shiv Sena and MNS lumpen competed to beat up Biharis who had come for the railway recruitment exams in Mumbai. The two groups almost came to blows but eventually sorted out their differences peacefully in order to beat up the sleeping Biharis.

Dilli Dur Ast

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My father, while visiting me in Delhi, suddenly decided that he needed to visit the Nizamuddin dargah, that too on a Friday. Not that my father is a very religious person but I guess if he had to fill in his Orkut/Facebook profile he’d put in something like “spiritual but not religious”. 

Now the problem with these places is the bloody crowd. For some reason, God and the people who get you to Him are an awfully popular lot and so it was with thedargah too. The only saving grace was that since we were visiting the place at the time of the Jumma Namaz, a large number of people had at least had a bath. The same can hardly be said of, say, a bus or a railway reservation counter. 

The area around the dargah itself was a typical Muslim mohallah of the type seen in Central Calcutta. Narrow dingy lanes with a profusion of small hotals selling extremely delicious food—Qormas, Qalias, Niharis, kheeri—as long as you don’t mind that from time to time, the man roasting your kawab, scratches his kawab through the folds of his lungi. 

In the background is Ghalib’s tomb which, as far as I could see, had no visitors.

 For those unable to read Devanagri: The two posters are wishing people for Eid. The one on the left belongs to the BJP, while the other belongs to the BSP.

Getting to the dargah meant passing through a number of narrow galis selling all manners of knick-knacks. There were wall hangings with the first Qalma, key chains with the number 786, Urdu books on Shahrukh Khan and quite a few shops selling, what they called, “Islamic VCDs and cassettes”—as if just having a dargah wasn’t enough to make Abd al-Wahhab turn in his grave.  

The entrance had, what has become a Delhi staple—a metal detector. The detector was defunct, though—a clear sign of the Delhi Police’s faith in the saint. After all if the saint can’t protect his own tomb, what good is he? 

The people of the area get the BJP’s support

Born to a father named Daniyal in 1238, Nizamuddin Auliya was obviously destined for greatness. Moving to Delhi at the age of five from his birthplace in UP, he performed wondrous miracles which elevated him from the status of a mere mortal to a celebrated saint—cursing the city of Tughlaqabad to ruin, predicting the death of emperor Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughluq and even having a gay partner in Amir Khusrau, the royal poet of the Delhi Sultanate. 

Fast eroding values

In fact, the complex also houses Khursrau’s grave which wears a rather deserted look. The only two people there were a couple of bored teenage boys, dressed in spotless kurta-pajamas, discussing the upcoming India-Australia series.  

Auliya’s tomb, serviced by no less that two split ACs, was , on the other hand, was bustling with people lining up to offer a chadar to the saint, shepherded by a man who kept on shouting “beware of pick-pockets”.  

The saint is obviously a lot more effective against bombers.

Note: The first picture is from Wikipedia. The rest have been taken by me.

Mumbai Police Smash Crime with Raid on Party

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In a daring raid (here is the staid version of the story), Mumbai police busted a rave party in the wee hours of Monday. The rave was apparently not your ordinary walk-on-the-grass with the relatives of the high and mighty of Bollywood—even Shakti Kapoor's son was present there—being involved in this heinous act of debauchery 

The raid was carried out by a crack team from the anti-narcotics department who were shocked by the depravity they witnessed. Says a constable who didn’t wish to be named:” I am an honest (sic) middle class cop. Plus I’m Marathi, so what I saw there shocked me. Drugs, sex and alcohol all around. Plus I saw a young man, undoubtedly under the influence of hard drugs, doing a macabre dance dressed only in his loose striped chaddis and a banyan and carrying out unspeakable acts with his nara. The horror!” 

Shakti Kapoor is shocked to hear of the raid

In what must be a rare occurrence, the Mumbai police have received plaudits from citizens for ignoring all other crimes and concentrating on the drug habits of the rich and famous. 

Mumbaikar, Ravi Kumar says, “Hats off to the Mumbai police. Bombay had 212 murders and 198 rapes last year. Any lesser police force would have concentrated on these so-called “serious” crimes, but I’m proud that my police force ignores these crimes and goes for what’s really important—the morals of rich little spoilt brats.”

 Rajkumar is grateful to the Mumbai police for bettering his life by carrying out that raid

 

The police though have faced some flak from Bollywood for its “heavy-handedness”. 

A police officer explains that there is “no heavy- heavy-handedness here at all. The Narcotics Act empowers us to book adults taking drugs. The problem with these “adult” Indians is that they start thinking they are actual adults. Just because an "adult" can decide who will rule the country doesn’t mean he can take decisions like whether he can smoke marijuana. He’s not adult enough to take that decision. We policemen have to take that decision for them. It’s quite a burden, you know, playing papa to these people, but somebody has to take the responsibility, I guess.”

Government Hides Cricket Match from Nation

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The BCCI has announced today that recently it organised a match between the board President’s XI and Australia in Hyderabad.

In what was an apparent bid to protect the Australians from terror strikes, knowledge of the match, while it was being played, was withheld from the public leading to empty stands and poor TRP ratings.

When this correspondent reached the ground, tipped of by his sources, he found only seven people and two dogs watching the match. In a country that worships cricket and ads featuring cricketers, such a spectacle was far from natural.

Not a bomber in sight

The correspondent did try and speak to some of the “spectators” but most of them pretended to be sleeping in an obvious move by the government to avoid the press.

We did however manage to speak to Arnab Bondhopadhya, who quite cryptic in his answers too. When asked whether anybody prevented him from coming to the ground, all he did was nod, without taking his eyes of the match, and answer, “Yesh, my bhife”

He, however, did open up a bit during the lunch break. “This is the 363rd match played by the Board President’s XI and the 43rd time that a captain is leading them who does not feature in the test team. This is also the 89th time that the captain of the Board President’s XI has hit a century and the 47th time he has done it in the second innings. For Yuvraj Singh…”

Attempts to get any information out of him failed as he stonewalled the correspondent using an extremely clever tactic, shown above, of evading my questions.

Although the match was shown on TV to maintain a show of normalcy, the Government’s machinations made sure that it garnered TRPs less than even that of the telecast of Parliament debates on Lok Sabha TV.

The BCCI President, Sharad Pawar, has assured us that the actual matches between India and Australia will be held normally. “After all”, said Mr. Pawar, quoting Virender Sehwag, “Delhi is not like Pakistan”.

As the two images of Chandi chowk(left) and Anarkali Bazaar(above) clearly show, Delhi is not like Pakistan

Rock On Sweeps Wall Street off its Feet

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Farhan Akhtar starrer ‘Rock On’ has turned out to be a sleeper hit in the United States.

 The film, about an investment banker who risks it all to follow his passion, has apparently struck a cord with the thousands of investment bankers who have suddenly found that their passion—making money—has been bought to an abrupt halt. 

Says, former investment banker, John Smith: “Farhan’s character had it all: a job in investment banking which paid him enough for him to have a friggin’ fountain or something in his house, a beautiful wife and a lisp. But in spite of all that he isn’t happy. It’s only when he tries to make even more money by moonlighting as the lead singer of a band that he’s truly happy. Now that, my man, is the real I-banking spirit. 

In these difficult times ‘Rock On’ inspires because it is ultimately a story of hope triumphing almost insurmountable odds. It teaches us that if a person with Farhan Akhtar’s voice can become the lead singer of a rock band, the U.S. overcoming its greatest economic crisis since the depression is child’s play. It also teaches us to have faith in God and His miracles. Didn’t He provide ‘Magik’ with an invisible bassist?” 

The lead-actor of the movie, Farhan Akhtar has become a phenomenon on Wall Street with middle aged bankers ex-bankers gushing about him like they were 14 year old school girls. 

“”Ooooh! He’s soo cool! And his lisp is just soo sexy,” squeals 41-year old Miranda Ferdinand, who claims Sylvester the cat is her favourite cartoon character. 

The film has been critically acclaimed too, apart from being a commercial success. 

Noted financial guru, Paul Gartner, claims that ‘Rock On’ is a film with a “message”.

“The film shows us that leaving our financial assets exclusively in the hands of bankers isn’t a good idea. While we maybe under the impression that they are hard at work trying to increase our money, all they might be doing is playing in some band-shand. 

‘Rock On’ also presciently hints at the glaring shortcomings of bankers when Aditya (Farhan Akhtar’s character), who later on becomes an investment banker, misspells the word “”magic” and names his band “magik”.

The movie asks us: ‘Can we trust our life savings with people who can’t even spell or, more importantly, sing songs named ‘Sinbad the Sailor’?’,” says Gartner.

Delhi Belly

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“I never believed, but it's true, my God, they wipe their bottoms with paper only!”

- Amina Sinai, Midnight’s Children.

A genius of an inventor, who is unfortunately unknown, has invented what is most probably the most significant invention since the Atom bomb – the Jet

And just like the A bomb, The Jet will change the way whole nations function.
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I was house hunting in Gurgaon a couple of months back when I first came across it.

“Sirjee, the flat has full power back-up; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 mo…”

“Haan, haan but how much?”

“Um, 14, 500 rupees, Sirjee ”

“Too much, boss. I told you my budget is 10 grand max.”

“Arre Sir, par the flat is so good. Garden hai, lift hai, bathroom mein jet hai…”

“Jet? Kya jet? Bathroom mei jet hai? Kya matlab?”

Although the rent was well out of my budget but there’s something about the human brain which makes one terribly curious when one hears the words “bathroom mein jet hain”. So I asked the agent to show me.
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It was rather unremarkable in appearance. All it consisted of was a nozzle attached to the back of the pot. After you finish your business turn on the tap beside the pot and it shoots a jet of water at your … well, you get the idea.

What’s truly remarkable about the Jet is that it represents progress in a field that has remained stagnant ever since the beginning of civilisation.

Today everything is done for us, automatically by technology. We fly in airplanes instead of walking. Computers do our calculations for us and even check our spellings. Missiles fired at the touch of a button can kill and maim people a thousand miles away. The Internet brings us porn from around the world to satiate our lust at the click of a mouse.

Yet, in the matter of morning ablutions, we are stuck in the stone ages. It’s as if we’ve, er, washed our hands of the matter.

But things will no doubt change with the introduction of the Jet. Now washing up afterwards will also be done automatically just like the rest of the day’s tasks.

All you have to do is turn on the tap controlling the Jet and maybe just shift a bit, you know, to get the aim spot-on, and voila! you’re done and on your way to a wonderful day without…umm… even lifting a finger.

And what’s more, although modern India would disappoint Gandhiji in many ways, at least he’ll be happy knowing that millions of his countrymen are getting instant enemas.

Note: I did not take that flat in the end and unfortunately ended up with a flat with a rather prosaic and normal toilet.

India Wins NSG Waiver

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The Government is ecstatic about the waiver from the NSG, which would allow India to carry out nuclear commerce.

"We never had a doubt that the deal would come through," says National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan. "Who would stop us? New Zealand? Pshaw! India produces a New Zealand every ten minutes. Although I admit in the middle it did get tough. New Zealand just wasn't getting convinced that we would be a responsible nuclear power. So we even though of nuking the country but Sharad Pawar put a spanner in our works as he didn't want one less test playing nation just before he became ICC chief."

He was however somewhat taciturn on the matter of China's sly intransigence.

"What China does is China's internal matter and for that you'll have to ask the CPI (M)"

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) meets to discuss the India-US nuclear deal. (file photo)

China worked rather furiously behind the scenes to try and sabotage the deal but diplomatic niceties will force it to put on a show of support.

"We congratulate India on the NSG waiver," said a press release from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. "We also hope that it will act responsibly to maintain the stability of the region just like we have done by illegally transferring nuclear material and technology to Pakistan and encouraging good and honest people like A.Q. Khan. And since we are a dictatorship we are also in awe of India’s strong and robust democracy, which helped us more than we could have ever dreamed of. The Left Parties and the BJP have stood like a rock with us during this deal and we join them in mourning the successful signing of the deal. "