It couldn’t have got worse for Pumba. On a day when the Sun came out 10 minutes before schedule time, when the delicious worms decided to stay under big cozy rocks to give Copenhagen a miss for an extended sleep session and Timon cleared his throat during his early morning chores, Pumba knew this wouldn’t be his day. And rightly so.
Scrolling through the mails he found almost everyone on Planet Dirt mailing him. Crazy subjects, sent repeatedly, humongous attachments and they were never ending. He decided to unclutter life. So, today’s mission: Delete all useless mails sent after last night and read all the important ones, and yeah, delete them after reading. Muscles flexed, eyebrows relaxed, a can of baked worms with salsa sauce, and Pumba was ready to march (read click).
‘Walk-Ins at Zek Tanindra, Baccenture, Outofsys’ – mostly, the mails had these subjects. So Pumba went on saying, “Delete, delete, trash, spam, delete, spam again”. Soon he realized, they were not disappearing from the Inbox. Gods of Realization hit on him and he actually started deleting them. He even deleted the one that Timon sent. The subject, “Let’s make a new State 1.0’. And then, the retina of his eyes came out, the balls came later. The most dreaded mail was lying there, staring right into the trembling Pumba. The mail from his programme coordinator, his name we can’t disclose due to ‘strategic’ security reasons. And the subject said ‘ABCD(EFG) - Tri-II & V: Important Notice - Lecture by Jungle Book Awardee’.
Pumba gulped down another can. Bravely, he opened it. And yes, what he feared, came true. It was lying right there in bold, underlined Trajan Pro 22 text.
Ram Babu wept. He had failed to produce ‘something substantial’ in the presentation (read pee pee tea) that he gave to the Sharma’s. They had never been so harsh with any of their servants, until this day. Credit goes to Akhilesh. He has changed things. Ever since he finished his 2 year full time diploma in management, there have been some serious changes in the house. Veervati has to wear formals (heels optional) while cleaning utensils and sewing some torn Mr Sharma-vests. She has adapted well to these changes. But Ram Babu hasn’t. They had just asked him to give a five minute presentation on various processes, tools & techniques involved in cleaning the house. He did it. Only if he could have memorized the mission of the Sharma house (1st slide), he would have not been shown the pink slip. But Veervati did. In fact, she spoke it more energetically than Mrs Sharma had once demonstrated. Now, she can come in casuals on Sunday’s.
Last heard from Santosh, a regular jobless at Guptaji tea stall, Ram Babu had decided to start ‘something of his own’ and was looking for funding. Guptaji on the other hand has recently benefitted a lot from Akhilesh’s IT implementation. Now the poor guy doesn’t have to keep that small little damp diary for accounting purposes. Every time his customer leaves saying ‘likh lena’, he just has to press a few buttons on his mobile phone to update the excel sheet. And yes, even he can’t figure out why the entry goes into the ‘credit’ side. Have to wind up soon. Need to copy group 8’s assignment from the server, rename it, and paste it in my group’s folder. And after morphing a pic on Photoshop for my Facebook account, have to find the best laptop deal for Veervati. Maybe, I don’t have time for the latter. Anyone? CR?
Last week, a research reported the sudden increase in the number of parents logging on to Facebook to keep a check on their child’s activities. Ever heard of the multiplier effect of addicts? But at times, it’s not as bad. Take for example, a certain spoiled brat Mukesh on Facebook. He got a weird message on his Wall from his brother Anil. The entire issue was about some gas their dad had bought for them. They fought for days, even months, writing hate messages on each other’s walls. FB authorities poked, but in vain. And then, Koks aunty, Anil-Mukesh’s mother, arrived on Facebook. Within minutes, both the brothers were sending her millions of virtual gifts. The gas case was soon solved when all three of them had an intense FB chat session. Next up, the ‘Budget’ app has been created by a fellow named Pranab. He has already received millions of friend requests from all over the country. Pet Society, last heard, was being flooded with ‘red’ and ‘saffron’ coloured stray animals.
No ‘I-told-you-so’ moments this time around at the park in the morning. Political pundits have been stunned. The winning party has stunned itself. By now Vajpayeeji must have slapped his forehead in disappointment. He did it last when Lal Krishna Advani declared that BJP would take the field with ‘Hindutva’ printed in Bold Times New Roman Font-Size 36 on their t-shirts. By now the Gujarat mass murderer must have wiped his forehead twice to check for anymore pitch black dirt. But that dirty history deserves a mention only after we taste the sweet present and sip on the delicacies in store for us in the future. We don’t need the according-to-my-laptop’s-excel-sheet-graphics political pundits to tell us about two major conclusions that can be drawn easily from this verdict. Firstly, honesty has been rewarded stupendously, hardline hindutva has been pushed out from the back door and that too with some force. Secondly, it has come at a time when the sapling called India is showing rapid growth on garden Earth. There is a sense of inclusive growth creeping in. A sapling needs exactly that to grow into a tree.
The electorate has spoken, and no article, no blog, no analysis can precisely explain this phenomenon called ‘Manmohan Singh’. When was the last time we saw an honest and dedicated man known being referred to as The King? The button pressed by billions of Indians shows that our electorate is not at all stupid. BJP did not lose the elections on 16th May. It lost it when they chose to go ahead with their Hindutva agenda and the casket was finally sealed when L.K. Advani decided to go head on against Manmohan Singh. 16th May was just an epic movie that remembered those who lost and honoured the honesty of The King and its Men.
Such clean sweeps used to be in vogue when our fathers used to participate in some serious lunch-time-prediction sessions at their respective offices. But now, the armchair analysts who sat inclined towards the Congress would now be standing up to salute the runner-up. And rightly so. L K Advani deserves the applause for whatever he has done for the nation. And I expect a thundering cheer in the coming days for the man who was missed the most by the BJP. Atalji, a great man – in stature and soul. It is very sad that BJP has reduced a fine nationalist to a mere excuse. BJP has been exemplary in its own way. One should learn that one tablespoon each of a chubby goonda, a mass murderer and a tentwallah are the perfect ingredients to make a shameful smelly dish. Vir Sanghvi explained it appropriately on NDTV. "Advani era is over, Rajnath will face the axe and the Young Jerks of BJP will hold Narendra Modi at the forefront."
The highlights package will flash on your scene for days. It will include the fine governance of Navin Patnaik and Nitish Kumar being rewarded. Also, a ping pong game called Delhi, that ended with the skunk or whitewash of 7-0. The King will go to bed thinking about more policies like the NREGA to come up in the next five years. For now, we can sip on some chilled delicacies of the future- Dream team of Omar Abdullah, Rahul Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Schin Pilot, Naveen Jindal, Milind Deora and many more. The mood is good inside every house, even if it has some dying lotus in its garden. The occupants need not worry much. When the fragrance completely oozes out of the lotus and its patrons come out of the illusion it had caused, there will be no chaos. For the hand blesses all, it doesn’t distinguish who built a temple or who let a mosque fall.
Dharampal was about to be crucified by his father, not because he had thrown something at his father, because that something got severely damaged in the process as it missed the target by some 15 inches. It was a black one, belonging to the family of Barricades and the clan of Adidas. Size 11. They shelled out 312 Singapore dollars for it when they had visited Mustafa, the shopping arcade in Singapore, where Dharampal found a three year old beneath a heap of clothes. He was searching for his mother who was not seen or heard for two days, ever since she realized that the basement section was exclusively for crockery and jewellery. Back to the shoe, Dharampal was no mean journalist and his father was not addressing any press conference. Still I cannot comprehend how in-our-house acts like these manage to creep outside and reach remote places like Iraq. But all said and done, we have to accept it, throwing a shoe has never gone up the charts like it has now, and Facebook is looking at ways to get back its 1st position on the ‘People Fads’ list.
MBA analysts, who did a lot of research, wearing blazers, ties and pointed formal shoes to office, have confirmed reports of skyrocketing sales of Bata shoes. The army chief announced yesterday about their tie up with Lakhani Shoes for the supply of these newly discovered weapons. It seems people have finally recognized the brands they think are good for such a cause. “Yeh public hai saar, sabse ghatiya joote se maaregi (The people of India, they will hit their target with the most pathetic shoes.)”, explained Surinder Singh, a shopaholic. The other night Samie came home for coffee and asked me why was I making this such an issue and not making other issues like Angelina Jolie’s threat to Brad Pitt and Rihaana’s breakup as issues. I had two things to say, after which I had a shoe ready to be flung, just in case he could not comprehend the two points. Firstly, why the hell is everyone missing the target? Bush was spared by a wind blowing in the hall. Ok, had I been in Iraqi journalist’s shoes, I would have tried again with the right one. Then Wen Jiabao was meted with a similar treatment at Cambridge. Had I been Jiabao, I would have retorted back with a pair of red sneakers. The Israeli ambassador to Sweden was also hit by a shoe when he was addressing an audience in StockholmUniversity. My second point, and a more important one was that why can’t we get creative in this era. And who better to do it than a surd. Jarnail Singh would have gained more brownie points had he used his socks instead for Chidambaram. They are more smelly, torn at the edges and would certainly have made India stand out in the league of nations.
Last heard, the coffee chain Barista was organizing a shoe fest, where pairs would be formed, an attacker and a target. I doubt if they can really measure what they intend to, how stylish the shoes would be and how beautifully they are thrown. Flavours of this season as my shoe targets? A Gujarat mass murderer and a Delhi tentwallah. But I guess Ankur, the dhobbi boy, would put my shoes to much better use. Last heard from Mrs. Neeta Ghulati, a GK-I resident, at a fundraiser : “A man is judged by what kind of a SHOE he is thrown at.” Reuters have just confirmed, Facebook is thinking of replacing its first four letters with the craze of the town. In the streets, wannabes have evolved too.
This is a protest against all those kaam waalis(maids) and car-wash guys who think they can get away with four figure monthly salaries and still be absent on critical days when the homemakers are expecting a VVIP visit. A candle light march was organized to pay tribute to all the housewives traumatized due to this heinous and gruesome sudden absence of maids. Two women, with startling resemblance from one of my favorite Ekta Kapoor serials, Kandles Ki Kudiyaan, were at the forefront of the march to India Gate, which brought together all the housewives from different parts of Punjabi Bagh. “This is our 11/12, enough is enough, humien iski jawaabdehi chahiye.”
Just when I finished registering my solidarity for the cause, by clicking “Yes” on the wall of “Homemakers Hit Back”, a remarkable initiative on Facebook by one of the tech-savvy homemakers, a friend called late at night, apparently after lighting a candle in his room as the local electricity board was on a strike. Their new bettery-candles were not being sold at all in these marches to India Gate. Sources say their head electrician being kicked out in the final round of the qualification of Roadies 6.4 could be a clandestine reason behind their clamor. Coming back to the friend, he had a business plan. Scented candles, multi-colored candles, Facebook candles, Roadies candles. He was already on his way, compiling a ppt, showcasing the estimated figures and pie charts related to the business plan. I was taken in by the Roadies candles. The very next morning, I poked him, before fine tuning my french-beard. ”Will they really be able to perform those tasks which other candles did with an attitude? Will they be able to withstand the challenges posed by Naqvi’s lipstick powder women?” His reply was startling, “ Dude, **** *** ”.
“Right arm over, medium faasht”, declared Maamu, adjusting his belt to the expansion he experienced in his belly after finishing his lunch. He marked his run up with precision. Bittoo screamed, ”Mammu, dheele ho to merko karne do firssht over (If you don't feel good, let me bowl the first over)”. Mammu, relentlessly shining the cosco bowl on his right thigh, expecting some reverse swing, paid no heed to Bittoo’s plea. He was right, it was humid, air was still and full of dust, ideal conditions for reverse swing. I gazed at all of them with such excitement, could feel the tension on Salim’s face, boldest of them all. He had just washed his eyes after being struck by a Maamu bouncer in the previous match they played before Sumit and I joined them. “Aaane do maamu, ab terko bataata hoon (Bring it on Maamu, I'll show you now)”, with that shout from the opening batsman Salim, a 7 over match started, and the village crowd grew in number with every ball bowled.
A huddle was formed, when I was bowled by Sumit. The huddle was a celebration, a victory, neither of any team, nor of any particular player. All nine of us in the huddle, celebrated the end of one of the finest cricket matches we had ever played. We opened the small 2 rupee plastic water cans and drank to Bittoo’s “Ye hai youngistaan” shouts. No one knew for which team we batted for or bowled for. No one knew who had won. We had kicked a lot of dust while playing and even stepped over spots where the local buffalo, in his post lunch session, had decided to stop, watch a few strokes and relieve with little shame. What happened after the first ball was bowled and before the last wicket fell is as unexplainable as the “Nadal-Federer” episode of my previous post. Tinku colliding with a buffalo while going for a catch, little Miss Chutki, with a tomboyish look, saving three runs by unconsciously hurling her stick to stop a fast moving ball towards the boundary, the ‘well-bowled’ and “shaaabash maamu” shouts by some bloke at the boundary line, who moved from his place only when it was his turn to bat, these were just a few of those unforgettable moments.
Many thanks to Maamu, Salim, Chutki, Bittoo, Tinku and the other two horribly funny characters who had very difficult names to remember. Sumit and I may ride again to the same place someday for another dose of ‘village-bliss’, only if the school run by some Shankar Sharma doesn’t change its mind and re-admits these seven students it kicked out, apparently for not being able to pay the tuition fees. Salim thinks this wasn’t the reason. Now he doesn’t idolize Sehwag anymore. His bat, broken from edges, now reads “Shahid Afridi”.
The wait is over. No words can describe what these two have achieved till date and what they will in the coming years. Forget the expert analysis, the physical states, ignore the past records, leave behind who is better on what surface, disremember the semi-final if you can and overlook the 5 hours, 13 titles and other numbering blah-blah. Sit back, pick up some strawberry and cream or whatever gets you going. Think for once those greatest rivalries you could not witness live. Borg-McEnroe, Evert-Navaratilova, Becker-Edberg, Sampras-Agassi. Today, not a single spare seat at The Rod Laver Arena. For me, as always, ‘Vamosssing’ in the Rafa camp. It doesn't get better than this. Rafa in four.
“The 12th person to do so“ – said Kiran, glued to the television with unimaginable levels of excitation in each cell inside her body.
Sten Guns, AK-##, noose-to hang, grenades, fire extinguishers, mosquito sprays, rat poison, pesticides, The ‘Taliban of India’ shall be nipped in the bud completely before it is allowed to spread like the wildfire that did in Afghanistan. How could they even think of forming such an ideology and then assaulting women in pubs when the basic ‘laws of the land’ permit women to enter pubs, consume alcohol, smoke cigarettes etc. How dare these people try to teach the real ‘Indians’ the culture of India. Don’t you guys understand that we are the real India and we set the trends and thereby the culture of India. We are free to consume alcohol and enter pubs any time of the day. If you stops us, we’ll get the media support, we’ll set up facebook groups, we’ll form a huddle near the India Gate, we’ll stroll to Jantar Mantar in demand for your execution. Dare not teach us any kind of ‘Indiannes’. What comes to our minds when we see ourselves as Indians is ‘democracy’, ‘cricket’ and painted faces while watching cricket. We are obsessed with gadgets, cars, bombs and other toys of super citizens of a to-be superpower. Beware. We can file public litigation cases if you tell us to sing ‘Hum honge kaamyaab’ instead of ‘Yes We Can’. Yes We Can.
Please understand that we are free to crucify anyone who interferes with our personal matters, for e.g. anyone doing some kind of moral policing and telling us that low waste jeans are so not a part of our Indian culture. But we can afford to praise Obama for his dislike for such kind of fashion. Yes We Can.
Please understand, we are free to be addicted to the news channel on 20th January and remember for eternity that Barack Obama was the 44th President to take oath. And we can feel completely fine about being unaware of what number is Pratibha Patil on the list of Presidents Of India.
So what if our stylish Tennis player sits in front of our national flag with her feet pointed towards it, and you hooligans, we can just slay you in the media if you question her preference for ‘I Love NY’ t-shirts. Yes We Can.
Please understand that we are free. We are free to choose Eminem without even lending an ear to Pandit Jasraj. We can freely join dancing classes where we learn to move like Shakira, so what if we don’t know if Padma Vibhushan Birju Maharaj is a Kuchipudi dancer or Kathakali dancer. Yes We Can.
We are free to know eagerly about who won the Oscar or The Nobel Prize, so what if we can forget the correct ranking of Padma Shri, Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan in decreasing/increasing order of their importance. Yes We Can.
We are free to jump lights when no one is watching and we have a really important meeting to attend, but we can appreciate for at least the next two years since our arrival from the US, while socializing, that they have very strict traffic laws and surprisingly people obey them too. Yes We Can.
Then why shall Mrs Ahuja worry about her son going out for a smoke with his friend. He is in free India. Yes He Can. Why should Mr Arora get tensed when he hears that his daughter had hard drinks at a gig last night? She is an Indian. Yes She Can.
This country gives us the same freedom the way The United States or The United Kingdom gives its citizens. Is it just our passports that are the last remains of anything that indicates that we are Indians? Or is it the paint on our faces when India plays in the World Cup of Cricket? The horrible acts of Sri Ram Sene cannot be tolerated, goes without saying. But why not act in a professional manner and centre our debate on a more critical issue, which might even be something what this Sene stands for. It is time to think for once what comes to our minds when we think about ‘being an Indian’?
And by the way, if at all, any of my patriots feel a little disturbed for not knowing what number is Pratibha Patil in the list of Presidents of India, you can look back to the first line of this post.
Satyam. Raju. Forged accounts. Fake employees. Inflated figures. More forged accounts. No doubt ‘Enron of India’ has just confirmed our claim to fame as a ‘global superpower’. And yes, comparing the enormity of the fraud with that of Enron’s, we are now true competitors on a global platform. So just like 9/11 of India is slowly fading away, ‘Enron of India’ shall pass too in the same way if we don’t consider it as one of the most important case studies in the history of our corporate frauds. Two questions lie before us. How many more Satyams do we have in our corporate kitty? What is there for us to learn from this saga?
To answer the first question actually depends on We The People. If we treat this fraud as serious as 26/11 and pressurize the government in the same way, even an ephemeral collective out pour from our side could at least expose some part of the iceberg or clear the air about companies like Wipro which, like Satyam, have been blacklisted by World Bank. How can every citizen contribute? Any employee can certainly be a whistleblower (they get huge rewards these days) whenever he senses foul play in the company where he/she works in. Of course, losing a job in these days would be one of the reasons one might not want to do that. But losing one’s integrity on any day is probably the worst fraud one can do with oneself.
Secondly, Learn? For us there is not much except that we must introspect and throw away the Raju inside us, whether he lures us to steal Rs 10 or 10 million. Educational institutions must act collectively and impart moral and ethical lessons at various levels in a creative fashion. Being creative here is important. We don’t want such an important subject to become like Physics or Mathematics, where huge lessons in truck-load of books are studied inside classrooms and hardly make their way outside in the everyday life of an individual. Gandhigiri in books was hardly being practised in our modern India. But when Sanjay Dutt marketed it creatively, it at least made people aware and now even has many young people subscribing to it.
Jeffrey Skilling, the Enron-chief, was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison. I am sure our Mr. Raju must have read this piece of news. If such punishments do not act as deterrents, they hold no meaning at all. I ask the Indian Judiciary to get real. Like most other thugs, the Rajus were seeking fame. So before the court sentences Raju into some custom made palatial prison for umpteen years, let him be given a perfect goodbye, at least by his shareholders. New Delhi’s central park in Connaught place Place has a huge pole where a man can be tied and the park can accommodate all shareholders easily. Shoes please.
Robin Hood, was an ace thief. And so, he was aptly known as The Prince of Thieves. A land of crooks must have its leader as one who has either masterminded these crooks or has done something far bigger in terms of crime. Remember the way his gang used to propitiate him? When our corporate warlords could not really make something out of the offer made to them to govern our country in the aftermath of 26/11 (ask Shobha De & Suhel Seth), they are now voicing their frustration by publicly advocating the election of another warlord, that of mass murderers. At this juncture, we need not rile about the deeds of such an improbable candidate, instead we must realize that we first need to create an image of a Prime Minister who would be apt for our nation and then see who fits in the position best.
Practically, it would take hundreds of eminent people of our country and enormous discussions amongst them to come to a conclusion about the characteristics of an ideal Indian Prime Minister. However, in the context of today’s circumstances, it is possible to briefly mention some particular qualities that the Prime Minister of this nation should certainly not have, if we are to even dream of becoming a global superpower in the coming years, decades, or may be millenniums.
7 Race Course Road shall certainly not house someone who has communal division on his mind. In Vir Sanhgvi’s language, we don’t need a brash demagogue as our PM, shouting questions at the crowd and waiting to hear a huge roar in response. Also, he should not be banned to visit our coveted friend, the United States and propitiate it when India is in despair. Yes, Narendra Modi has the charisma of a regional leader, somewhat comparable to what NT Rama Rao had in the 1980s. But can a mass murderer who sponsored the riots in 2002 lead a secular nation? True, that there is no evidence to prove that Modi ordered the killings, but he fought the election that followed those riots on a communal agenda and by seeking to link every Indian Muslim with Pakistan. It is hard to believe how ‘icons’ of corporate India, Anil Ambani & Sunil Mittal can back such a candidate. The next general elections shall prove that statements of such ‘icons’ have no impact on the awakened citizen of India. Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy January 20th, when the Big O starts working on his promise to bring change to the people of America and erase the racism dwelling in the country.
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