My USA is here

We all know of the utter disdain with which the oldies refer to the new generation as – oh! Those aping west types. They cleverly forget those decades of their own affinity towards the bell bottoms, Elvis hairstyles and humongous shirt collars that resembled this fish –

Yes, we do try to be the west (which basically means USA to us) by talking in that funny fake accent and looking at them for approvals for everything from Modi to Oscars, but we do not believe that you have to ‘ape’ them to turn this country into USA. Now as our government officials prefer changing names of cities to swatting flies, consider a hypothetical situation where the name of our beloved motherland is changed to USA. Now the ‘A’ in this new USA can stand for a lot many things.

For example –

We can be the United States of Amoeba. Look at the rapid rate at which the states are multiplying. From 26 in my school days, we are now at 29. Or is it 30? And then in a very Draupadi-ish style, we share the capitals too. Chandigarh is being bedded by Haryana and Punjab since ages and now Hyderabad has joined the ranks. We have divided this whole whale of a state in two and it is impossible to find a city to create a new capital? The A for Amoeba can also symbolize the way humans divide in this country although the mode is far from asexual. Coming to think of it, we would have preferred it to be asexual. Then the girls and boys would have held hands and played ring-a-ring-a-roses without their parents fretting about the slaughter of cultural values.

We can also be the United States of Aunties. It may represent the nosy aunty brained politicians who recently arm-twisted the RTI act to save their asses. It can also represent those aunties who bully the vegetable vendor into reducing the prices by 36 paise, threaten him with dire consequences if he does not add free extra chilies to her bag and feel proud of their achievement for the rest of the day.

While we are at aunties, allow me to vent a bit gracious reader.

There is this old hag with whom we share our builder floor house. She lives in the ground floor with her husband (who has this permanent expression of shock on his face as if there is a cactus shoved up his ass), her elder son and his wife (the couple fights with the capacity of two Godzillas. The son is completely incoherent and blabbers in an alien language when he is fighting with his wife. Yes, we can hear everything) and her younger son and his wife (recently married, the couple was in a hurry to reproduce. It has just been a year and the couple already has a baby). So, this insufferable woman has a habit of coming up with brilliant ideas to piss everyone off. A few days back, she invited a few homeless local workers to create huts in an empty plot next to ours (a common sight in NCR). The plot is not hers. Her reason? She needs a new maid and she can pick one from the hut. We politely asked her to fu*k off because this is how illegal colonies flourish.

This pathetic excuse of a human being and her gang of similar creatures are also famous for poking their nose in everyone’s affairs. One night, I will don my Batman suite and hang this whole gang upside down from a high-rise.

Feeling unburdened now, we come back to the topic.

We can be the United States of Apathy, because this is what we teach our children. Nothing is more important than you, your family, your dog, your underwear and your money. Not even another human’s life. We are masters in the art. In fact the leftover compassionate people who have not yet converted should be caught and dragged into gas chambers and vaporized, just like those unnecessary Jews who lived a few decades back.

We can be the United States of Applesauce. Appreciating nonsense is one of our greatest achievements. Look at our daily sitcoms, our news channels, our politicians, our reality shows, our movies and our advertisements – everything is loaded with a slapstick sauce, laden with toppings of buffoonery, laced with layers of stereotypes and mixed with a sense of senselessness. Anything ‘normal’ is called ‘art’. We believe that fairness of the skin brings success. And we love it when SRK plays a Madrasi and licks dal off his arm.

We can be the United States of Arnab. Look at the way our own Superman Arnab singlehandedly bring the culprits to justice by his uncontrollable squeaks. Look at the way he ‘demands’ answers that make the most seasoned politicians cringe in their chairs, sweat instantly and beg for forgiveness. We can all roll at his feet and ask him to give his name to the country.

So you see, we really do not have to ape the west to be USA. We have all the right ingredients present right under our nose. All we have to do is to follow our heart, open our eyes and the path will unwrap in front of us. We are already living in USA. All we have to do is choose the right ‘A’.

Do you have any other ideas for what ‘A’ can stand for, O! Reader? I am contemplating starting a petition on change.org to amend the name of our country. Looking forward to your support.

[image from here and here]

Indian Idle

“Hello everyone! I am Nitin Haddkari and you are watching a very special episode of Celebrity Indian Idle! Please welcome our judges for tonight’s show. Our first judge is our very own number 2, Mr. Raul Gandhi…..” 

“What does Raul know about dance?” Mrs. Shukla who was sitting in the crowd whispered to her neighbour.

“Does it matter? What do Sajid Khan, Karan Johar and Mithun Chakraborty know about dance?” Mrs. Taneja replied.

“And why is Haddkari even hosting this show?” Mrs. Shukla asked.

“What else is there to do now? Besides, his hairy legs are turning me on,” Mrs. Taneja replied.

“Ummm. Me too.” 

“….Our second judge for tonight is Asaram Beg-u, who has taken out time from his busy schedule to be on this show. We had to beg for his presence because that is what he likes to see people do……”

“Christ!” Mrs. Shukla gasped.

“……….Our third judge is my driver Mansukhiya. Mansukhiya has been a loyal servant of our family from the last 20 years and is the CEO of one of my companies. So let’s have a round of applause for our judges and let’s begin the show!!”

The judges take their seats. Raul and Asaram Beg-u have quite a tussle for the centre seat but then Raul points at Rob-us Wadra sitting in the audience. Beg-u mumbles somethings like ‘bloody national calamity’ and sits on one of the side seats. Mansukhiya sits on the floor before Haddkari comes and yanks his arm and say something like ‘Are you Chu*iya?’ and pushes him on one of the seat. 

“Our first contestant is the very gorgeous Sonak-chi Sinha! She has done some amazing award-winning work last year in movies like Rowdy Rathore, Joker, Dabangg 2 and Son of Sardar! Please welcome!” Haddkari announces.

All 130 kg of Sonak-chi Sinha enters the stage in a bright red sari. The song Po-Po-Po-Po-Po fills the auditorium and Sonak-chi gargles to the tune. The audience cheer her loudly. Shatru-gun Sinha is in tears to see his baby girl do him proud.

“That was a perfect performance! Judges what do you have to say to this?” Haddkari asks the judges as Sonak-chi stands next to him chewing her finger.

“I loved it! Sonak-chi, your performance reminded me of our scams. The gargle step is so much like the way we have gargled the citizens of the nation and spit them out. Outstanding!” Raul beamed.

“It was a beautiful performance. Sonak-chi, will you come to my camp and dance with me?” Asaram ji asked shyly.

“Rubbish performance! Ye koi dance hai (Is this dance)?” Mansukhiya mumbled. There is a collective gasp and everyone stares at him. Haddkari throws his mike at him.

“Saale harami! Nikal bahar! Bahar nikal! (Bloody illegitimate! Get out! Out get!)” Haddkari screams as he drags Mansukhiya out. Sonak-chi is bawling by now.

“Khamosh!” Shatru-gun Sinha screams from the audience podium which makes Sonak-chi instantly stop and shudder.

“Sorry ladies and gentlemen! Mansukhiya will be replaced by Kanta Ben who is my maid and the Chairman of one of my companies,” Haddkari announces. Kanta Ben comes and sits next to Raul. She smells of phenyl which makes Raul dizzy. He looks at Asaram Beg-u and is alarmed by a cockroach stumbling out of his beard.

“Our next contestant is our very own silencer MaunMohan Singh!” Haddkari announces.

MaunMohan Singh enters the stage and waves at the audience. He then proceeds to stand in the exact middle of the stage and stares at the audience for two minutes. He then looks at Haddkari and says – done. Raul is in tears by now.

“What a wonderfully poignant performance! Judges what do you have to say?”

“This was by far your best performance MaunMohan Ji. I am short of words,” Raul says wiping off his tears using Kanta Ben’s pallu. He almost faints in the process.

“You remind me so much of all those silent movies I have watched as a child. You have revived my old memories,” Asaram says wiping a sole tear with his beard.

“Aigo! Mast performance! After all, you have been practicing from the last 9 years.” Kanta Ben says.

“It seems MaunMohan ji have won the heart of our judges! Our next performance is a belly dance by the one and only Baba Rum-de! Please welcome!”

Baba Rum-de enters the stage and performs a unique belly dance called Kapalbhati where he flips alternate coins on his belly. He then makes the coins jump in air as the dance becomes fierce and his belly quivers alarmingly. One of the coin lands in Asaram’s beard and kills the cockroach residing there.

“That was one sexy performance Babaji. Lets ask the…..,” Haddkari said.

“You killed him! You bloody killer! You killed Abhimanyu!” Asaram was up on his seat before Haddkari could complete his sentence.

“Who in seven hells is Abhimanyu?” Raul asked.

“The cockroack,” Asaram said sobbing.

“Why did he name his pet cockroach Abhimanyu?” Mrs. Shukla whispered.

“Maybe it was his beard. The poor thing might have been lost in that chakravyuh for years,” Mrs. Taneja whispered back.

“What do you have to say Raul ji?” HaddKari asked.

“I loved it. It was very arousing,” Raul replied.

“Oh! You haven’t seen arousing yet *wink wink*. Kanta Ben?” HaddKari said.

“Mast! Mast! What a stomach! Jusht like the utensils after I clean them”

“Thank you Rum-de ji. It was an honour watching you dance. Our next participant is the sexy, the seductive, the pole-bearer Sunny le-nahi. Please welcome!”

A pole is fitted in the center of the stage and Sunny enters wrapped in a plastic sheet. The pole dance starts amidst wide eyes and rising trousers. Haddkari crosses his legs like Sharon Stone. Mrs. Shukla sighs and faints. Beg-u hides his face with his beard. Kanta Ben whispers deva-re-deva and covers Raul’s eyes with her pallu. He thrashes desperately for fresh air but chokes and faints. During the dance, the plastic sheet covering Sunny gets entangled in a nail on the pole and comes free. Kanta Ben faints too. Sunny keeps dancing. Haddkari is on all five begging for mercy. Rob-us Wadra whistles and fires shots in air from his expensive gun. The audience thrust their children under the seats. Bachelors are busy making video of the once-in-a-lifetime event. Married men stare at the ground as their wives study them intensely. Suddenly the programme goes off air.

There is an uproar on Twitter and internet about the way the programme turned vulgar in the end. A committee is organised. It is found that PoleMeBaby, the company that provided the pole used in Sunny’s performance is at fault as all this happened because of the nail. The licence of the company is cancelled.

And, of course, Sunny le-nahi wins the first prize of Celebrity Indian Idle. 

[images from 1,2,3,4]

The Middle Finger Awards 2012

Welcome to the Middle Finger Awards 2012 presented by Mashed Musings. The awards honors the best news makers of 2012 in various categories. We are committed to an unbiased and honest approach toward selecting the nominees and the winners. If you have any concerns about any of the winners not deserving his/her award, please keep it to yourself.
So, lets begin the ceremony.

*Drum rolls. Trumpets Blaring*

Here is the first category :

The Middle Finger Award for the Most Courageous act of 2012

And the nominees are :

Dr. Manmohan Singh – for gathering enough courage to address the nation 7 days after the protests and letting everyone know that he too is a father and there aren’t enough commandoes protecting his daughters. Theek hai?

Sheila Dixit – for having the courage to come to Jantar Mantar and lightening something that looked like a half burnt candle while the crowd booed her.

Anushka Sharma – for wearing a blue XXL vest in Kashmir for a Yash Chopra movie.

Delhi Police Chief, Neeraj Kumar – for his courageous act to save Delhi Police from further shame and twisting facts. Apparently, he hasn’t heard the story of the shepherd and the wolf.

Madhura Honey – for her courageous act of walking with the Indian team in Olympics opening ceremony in a red top and blue jeans looking completely out of place. Just like all those students in Student of the Year.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* Manmohan Singh!!!! For his courageous bland as boiled pasta speech to pacify the nation.

Our next category is :

The Middle Finger Award for the Most limelight hungry Indian of 2012

The nominees are –

Abhijit Mukherjee – for the dented painted comment and letting Indians know that the President has a big mouthed son.

Kailash Vijayvargiya, Madhya Pradesh Minister – for talking about Laxman Rekha when he should have actually zipped it up.

Banwari Lal Singhal, BJP MLA, Rajasthan – for being disturbed by girls wearing skirts as he found it difficult to take his eyes off their legs.

Haryana Khaps – for leaving no stone unturned to be on national media and make us realize that humans haven’t completely evolved from apes.

Dharamvir Goyat, Haryana Congress member – for sharing his pearls of wisdom with us about 90% of rape cases being consensual.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* the Haryana Khaps for their consistency in churning out drivel!!!

Our next category is :

The Middle Finger Award for The Best Blind Eye of 2012.

The nominees are –

Delhi Police – for using teargas, water cannons and Lathis on college students and women and then wondering why people threw stones at them.

BJP ministers in Karnataka – for turning a blind eye towards all the cameras pointed at them as they enjoyed porn in the assembly.

Indian Citizens – for craving for popcorn while they circled the rape victim lying naked, shivering and bleeding on the road.

Indian Politicians – for ignoring thousands of rape victims till waves of people came out on roads and threw stones.

Vijay Mallya – for donating 3 Kg gold to Tirupati temple while his employees went without salary for months.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* the Indian Citizens for achieving the impossible of turning back the clock of human evolution.

Lets move to the next category which is :

The Middle Finger Award for the Most Confused Indian

The nominees are –

Pratibha Patil – for pardoning rapists and murderers and getting confused about her right to not to be a puppet who has to sign a pardon when asked.

Sushil Kumar Shinde – for confusing students with Maoists.

Arvind Kejriwal – for confusing the nation by jumping from one issue to another and giving everyone a terrible headache.

Saif Ali Khan – for his role in the movie Cocktail where he confused the audience in the first half into believing that he wasn’t playing an assho*e.

Delhi Police – for discussing confusing matters of jurisdiction as the rape victim and her friend lay on the road naked and bleeding.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drums roll* Pratibha Patil for letting loose deranged criminals on the society.

The next category is :

The Middle Finger Award for the most Dramatic Indian of 2012

And the nominees are –

Salman Khurshid – for his saas Bahu dialogues about replacing ink with blood if Arvind Kejriwal tried to enter his domain. No shit.

Robert Vadra – for collecting unmatched black wealth, mocking the nation and then getting away with it by saying something with a mango and banana in it.

Mamata Banerjee – for her histrionics by equating rapes to political conspiracies and asking profound questions like why men and women are allowed to mingle in our society.

Ponty brothers – for their swift and fortunate exit from the world.

Suresh Kalmadi – for having the nerve to express his desire to attend Olympics after being released on bail for the CWG scam.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* Robert Vadra for his unmatched feat of taking the whole nation for a ride.

The next category is :

The Middle Finger Award of the most Senselessly Swift Indian of 2012

The nominees are –

Mumbai Police – for their swift response in arresting two girls for stating the truth on Facebook.

Delhi Police – for swiftly arresting 8 random men after a constable died in the protests and filing an FIR without any proof.

Akbaruddin Owaisi – for swiftly going underground in London after his arrest warrant was out in India.

Indian Government – for swiftly moving the rape victim to Singapore when it became apparent that she was not going to live.

The Dengue Mosquito – for swiftly taking away the king of romance, Yash Chopra in the blink of an eye.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drums roll* The Indian Government for acting in the nick of time to save themselves from the blame of the rape victim’s death.

The Middle Finger Lifetime Achievement Award

The  award goes to the man who held a whole city to ransom for years, who divided the country on the basis of the state in which you live and who wore sunglasses even in dark rooms – Shri Balasaheb Thackeray.

That’s it for this year folks! We sincerely hope that the viewers enjoyed the awards ceremony and congratulations to the most deserving winners. We will be back next year with more fun filled categories!!!

[image from 1, 2, 3]

It was not just the driver who raped her

It wasn’t just the driver and his accomplices. Such monsters are not raised in a day. It takes meticulous planning. The nation has chalked out plans for this incident for 60 years. The citizens have put intricate details in it which has led to this inevitable feat. We will keep planning. This is not the first time. This is not the end.

While they were raping her, India stood guard. We cheered them as we have cheered such psychopaths a hundred times before. We will cheer them in the future too. After all, we created them.  

Are you not finding it coherent? Let me indulge you.

Politicians

You are the real termites of this country. The fact that the country is completely hollow because of you does not deter you. You still prowl like a blood sucking vampire and won’t be satiated till you drink the last drop of blood of our motherland. You were given a task. You took an oath of nation building. You could have stopped what happened. Long time back. Had you looked away from your money mongering, your own chairs, you would have realised the pitiable state in which the women of this country live. You would have made laws to make their lives better. You would have enforced those laws. But then they were not your vote banks. They could not turn your chair over. And now you call a rape victim ‘Zinda Laash’ (alive corpse)? You are not helping here to make them feel normal and accepted. Stop using a raped woman to advance your political motives. Stop shedding crocodile tears. Sexual harassment law is lingering in the parliament since 2005. If there is an iota of shame in your soulless body, stop being a virus. You have done enough harm. Do we have to carry you like an albatross around our necks for the rest of our lives?

Law enforcers

Your job is not to scare citizens. Your job is not to harass a rape victim. Your job is not to pass comments on the morality of women when they come to you for help. You are no better than the politicians. The very people whom you should be protecting are scared to come to you. You think that the women who report rape eye monetary advancements out of it. You think they are of loose moral values. And sometimes you even rape an already raped woman who has come to you for help. It is because of law enforcers like you that we are in this state. It is because of you that these rapes happen unabated, because you lack the will to protect. Because you have no idea what your job entails. Because you treat your job as a money-making machine. That girl is fighting for her life in a hospital because of the shameful negligence with which you have carried out your responsibilities over the last 60 years.

Media

You have already pushed the news to page 4 after Narendra Modi’s win in Gujrat. It shows where your concern lie. A story is masala for a few days till a bigger one washes it away. You would have kept the candle burning. You would have encouraged the people to bring the outcry to a logical end. But like the law enforcers, you have sold yourself to the termites.

And Bollywood – Congratulations for providing the much-needed objectifying of a woman’s body through the media. Yes, that is exactly what this sexually oppressed nation wants for entertainment. With all your Chikni Chamelis and Halkat Jawanis, you have done the harm. So, do us a favour. Do not shed crocodile tears for that girl lying in the hospital because you are equally responsible for raising those monsters that night. You have been brainwashing this country since decades – propagating sexual harassment euphemistically as eve-teasing. You have so menacingly raised those street-side Romeos who then splash acid on a girl because they could not differentiate between reality and cinema. Knowing very well that this is a powerful media, you could have changed the course, taken up responsibility. But you too, like the rest, turned things to your advantage. You kicked an already regressive society into the pit of regression in the name of masala entertainment.

And stop portraying rape victims as unwanted and shunned by society. Grow up and snap out of that money-making brain of yours.

We, the Citizens

Yes, we are the worse offenders. The citizens of this nation. Every time we treat our mothers, sisters, daughters and wives as secondary, we contribute towards this choking patriarchal society which then acts as an umbilical chord that feed those monsters. Every time we tell our daughters that they are weaker than boys, we stomp their mind with self-doubts. Every time we stop the education of our daughters because our son has to study, we help those monsters grow manifold. Putting our daughter-in-laws in place, killing girls in the womb, putting restrictions on women, not allowing them to follow their dreams – all these acts have fuelled the events to culminate to the mess we are in right now. We even have the audacity to question the morals and circumstances of a victim since she is not related to us. We have turned into selfish creeps who stand and stare at acts of crime. We tsk tsk rape victims as if it was their fault.

We have been doing this from the last 60 years. Have we not raised these silent equivalent of terrorist camps in our own houses? We have been drawing a dividing line and now it is permanent, raising Frankensteins one after another. Why are we recoiling now? It was we who gave courage to that man to insert a rod in a woman’s vagina.

A society which comes to this does not deserve a second chance. How I wish the Mayans were right.

Mother India has been continuously raped since our independence – by politicians, by law enforcers, by media and by us. She is wounded with bruises filled with pus. And we are that pus. Feeding on her. Killing her slowly.  Her own children.

And that is her curse.

No, it wasn’t just the driver and his accomplices who raped the girl that night. And they are not the only one who should be hanged.

The Tagliatelle Khichdi of India

The Contestants

In a special Disasterchef India episode last week, Amitabh Bachpan was asked to host the show because he was still a hot dish after 70 years of existence. He graciously accepted because Abhishek is completely out of work and Aishwarya is busy burping the baby.

“Swagat! Swagat! Swagat! To all of you in this special episode of Kaun Banega Crore….”

“Cut!!!!!”

“Oh Sorry! Senile decay! Swagat! Swagat! Swagat! To all of you in this special episode of Disasterchef India. All the contestants must be really happy to be in the top 10. Today, you have to make something special. All of you have to create a single dish as a team. As they say, too many cooks spoil the broth, but you have to prove this wrong. Please welcome our guest, the chef of chefs, the lady who has swirled expensive dishes one after another, the one and only, Sonia Gobhi!”

At this point, one of the contestants, Robert Vadapav, started jumping with joy and clapped his hands like a little girl who has just located an ice-candy man. The shooting stopped and everyone stared at him, including another contestant Rahul Gobhi, whom everyone suspected, was related to Sonia Gobhi.

“Jija G, stop clapping. Everyone is staring,” he said in Robert’s ear.

“I wish I had a wire cutter right now. I would have given this Robert a nice switch on the butt,” Arvind Kajuwala, another contestant muttered under his breath.

“Calm down! Calm down! Sonia G, can you please let us know what the dish is all about?”

“Ahhh! Surrrrre. It is my interrrrrrrprrrrrretation of a Khichdi in an Italian style. I call it – the Tagliatelle Khichdi of India.” At this point Sonia removed the cover of the dish to show her masterpiece.

“Oh sweet Jesus!” contestant Batata Ramdev gasped.

“She would not have cooked such a horrible looking dish if she would have been married at the age of 16,” Om Paneer Chautala, the fifth contestant remarked.

“Oye! Stop your Khapsense!” Robert roared. He got so angry that he was up on the table and tore off his shirt showing his eight pack abs. A bundle of 1000 Rs notes fell off his stomach and landed in the Tagliatelle Khichdi of India.

“Oopsie!” he said.

“The government is working towards punishing bribery in the private sector. This act will come under that,” Manmohan Soup, contestant number six said.

“He was not bribing anyone! And you are not supposed to speak until ordered!” Rahul Gobhi barked.

“OK!!! Tasting time! Contestants please taste the dish. Then you will have 15 minutes to discuss about dividing responsibilities and then all ten of you will have to create only a single potion of the dish. You will be marked on your teamwork,” Mr. Bachpan said.

Everyone jumped on the Tagliatelle Khichdi of India like starving villagers and then ended up running in random directions and spitting out the dish all over the set.

“Can I go to the temple toilet? I think I am going to throw up,” JaiRajma Ramesh, contestant number seven said.

“The Tagliatelle is too long. We should cut it with a wire cutter and I have proof that this Robert brought this money to bribe the producers of this show,” Arvind Kajuwala said.

“Mindless negativity over corruption cannot stop corruption,” Manmohan Soup said. Rahul rolled his eye and pressed a button behind his neck. Soup went still.

“I knew that! I knew that! He is a robot! He is a robot!” Narendra Malai, contestant number eight, jumped with joy and switched on the button. Rahul glared at him.

After spitting the dish, Batata Ramdev immediately started Kapaalbhati to cleanse himself.

“Your 15 minutes start now!” Amitabh Bachpan said as things went out of control.

Virat Kulfi and Mamta Bhurji, contestant number nine and ten, who have been mute spectators earlier were in a very bad state after tasting the dish. Virat was about to sue the producers for delaying his 1.5 crores for his appearance on the show and food poisoning. Mamta Bhurji hollered about not supporting the dish.

As the fifteen minutes allocated for discussions passed, the chaos grew.

“I will not boil Tagliatelle!!” Virat Kulfi said.

“He is a robot! He is a robot!” Narendra Malai shrieked.

“Jija G, is this salt?” Rahul Gobhi inquired.

“Ask mommy,” Manmohan Soup suggested.

“While doing Anulom Vilom, you have to suck it like this,” Batata Ramdev taught.

“It?” Mamta Bhurji asked mischievously.

“Air!!! Suck air!!!” JaiRajma Ramesh explained with a shocked expression.

“She should have been married at 16 as well,” Om Paneer Chautala exclaimed looking at Mamta Bhurji.

“Khap-ist!” she shrieked.

“You will boil the Tagliatelle!” Robert Vadapav bellowed, pointing a finger at Arvind Kajuwala.

“I will cut your nose with a wire cutter!” Arvind Kajuwala bellowed back.

“He is a robot! He is a robot!” Narendra Malai shrieked again and switched Manmohan Soup on and off.

By the time the 15 minutes were over, the Tagliatelle Khichdi of India was flying in the air, landing on contestants amidst punches, ripping clothes and hair pulling activities. Virat Kulfi was bleeding blue.

“I have never seen so much unprofessionalism!!!” Amitabh Bachpan said as he walked out.

Sonia Gobhi followed him but not before hiding the bundle of 1000 Rs notes dripped in her dish under her sari and waving at the fighting contestants with a bright smile.

The episode was never aired.

[images from 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]

Open letter to Karnataka state Women’s Commission chief Manjula

Photos of Molesters/Moral Policemen arrested after Mangalore’s molestation case 2012. The arrested are subhash padil (the mastermind, top left), ganesh kannur, taranath kannur, sharath padavingangadi, sandeep shetty, venugopal, tharanath alva, rajesh shaktinagar, chetan naguri, shailesh jelligudde, harish alava, sunil thokkottu, varun poojari, puneeth kudupu, and kiran poojari. Almost all of these attackers are from lower backgrounds, with either blinded minds or misled political ambitions.

Dear Manjula,

Let me congratulate you on your report which you submitted recently on the Mangalore molestation case.

Your report was a landmark report in many ways. Let me tell you how.

Your report reconfirmed the absolute lack of faith of a common citizen in our system. It reconfirmed the fact that till there are people like you in position of power, our country will rapidly adopt the ideologies of the Taliban and celebrate it too. It reconfirmed the fact that you are a mere puppet dancing to appease your political masters.

The fact that you report did an unbelievable magic trick by making the molesters from HJV vanish from the scene of crime and put the blame squarely on the boys in the party does not come as a surprise. We were expecting nothing more than a moral preaching and cultural preservation bullshit but you took the episode to a shockingly low level. The best solution you could come up with consisted of two steps :

• Consider the whole population of India to be dumb.
• Turn the boys in the party into drug addicts and someone who run prostitute rackets.

Job done!

Well, but there is a small problem sweetheart.

We saw the video.

Tell us Manjula,

Why didn’t your report probe the fact that a group of 50 shitheads forced their way into a house without the permission of people inside it?

Why didn’t it probe the fact that those 50 shitheads beat up adult men and women for enjoying a birthday party? Last time we checked, our constitution allows people to cut cakes on birthdays.

Why didn’t it probe the fact that those shitheads were hired deranged goons who stole things amounting to 2 lakh rupees from the location?

Instead, your report does not even mention those shitheads from Hindu Janajagarana Vedike (HJV). This Reminds me of that Vanishing Cabinet in Harry Potter. You are that Vanishing Cabinet.

Manjula,

Let us for a second believe your twisted logic that everyone was having sex with everyone in that party. Let us assume to please you that they were having an orgy. So what is wrong if young adults have sex? Why can’t your Neanderthal cultural sensibilities snap out of it? Why do you, the goons whom you are trying to save and their masters have to label it as prostitution? A lot of adults have sex with multiple partners before marriage. Our constitution does not give a right to anybody to go and punch them for having consensual sex.

Now coming back to not believing your twisted logic. If it was just a birthday party, then how can you turn into that vanishing cabinet? You have already given the hired goons a clean chit.

Instead, according to you, the boys attending the party were under the influence of drugs which the police was somehow not able to find. Did you dream about this possibility?

Instead, you have even blamed the mother of one of the boys for running a prostitution racket and suggested transfer of a police official who is the father of a girl who was there at the party.

Do you even realize what you have done?

Manjula,

Our regressive culture has done more harm to our nation than helping it. And people like you, who are in the position of power, who have the ability to change what is wrong, have been a huge disappointment.

You and your ilk has spread regressiveness in the name of saving our culture. Since when have our culture included beating up adults who don’t think like us?

You have given courage to every rapist and molester out there, especially those who are disguised as moral policemen. You have given courage to the throw-acid-on-her-because-she-wears-jeans brigade.

You have hammered another nail in our society’s mindset that there is no concept of justice in our nation. A middle class girl in a pub can be branded a prostitute just because she went there to have some fun. Her life is spoiled and the goon who slapped her is free to slap more young men and women who fall under his definition of cultural subjugation.

You have glorified the concept of controlling women. It is an irony because you are a woman yourself.

Just to tell you Manjula, the boys who were beaten up in that party and whom you have blamed for prostitution, have come forward. And, you know what, we are all proud of them because they are going to each and every college and telling students what happened to them. They are calling press conferences and telling the media about the truth. They are much more supportive to the girls who were molested than you.

Manjula,

We believe that it is not the moral police or molesters or rapists whom we have to fear. The people whom we should fear are people like you who nurture such monsters. You are the ones who let them loose on citizens of this nation.

And till there are people like you in positions of power these goons will spread like termites.

We know that you know that these goons have no idea about our culture, otherwise they would not have done what they did. They are just a bunch of losers with meaningless lives. The only culture they understand is that of Money and Power. And that is exactly what you are feeding them.

Stop suppressing the young generation of this country. You are forcing us to leave this country because of the disgusting way people like you are running the show. There are a lot of people who have given up the idea of coming back after incidents like these. Please do not expect us to bring in the cash to run the country and bowing to such tyranny as well. We are not slaves. We are sorry if your generation had a subjugated upbringing but please do not make us pay for it in the name of saving our culture just because you are jealous of the freedom we experience.

Yours truly,

An young Indian Citizen.

With great power comes great stupidity

I have been able to sleep peacefully from the last two days with the air-conditioner throwing storms of cold unbearable wind on me. Last night my room was so cold that I thought it would snow. When such bliss was showered on me after painfully hot nights of power cuts and voltage fluctuations, I felt I was dead and floating in heaven. I was pondering why all of a sudden the Uttar Pradesh government has turned so kind towards its pesky subjects and then it was revealed by a newspaper that the Municipal elections on Wednesday were the reason. So will I be back to sleepless nights from today, when I bang my head on the wall and curse the day I decided to leave Delhi and move here? Time will tell.

If you do not know, NCR is under a severe power shortage. Two days back, half of Gurgaon was on roads – blocking traffic, throwing stones at electricity sub-stations and beating up its staff. Similar cases were seen in Ghaziabad too where the Uttar Pradesh government promptly ordered police protection to its foul mouthed staff in various sub-stations. But the magic was that from the next day, the power cuts came down drastically.

Moral of the story – In India, newspapers, television reports, consumer complaints etc do not work. What the government officials really understand is – a smack on the bum, a protest and a traffic jam.  And you will get what you want, at least for a few days.

Believe it or not – government officials produce electricity when beaten up. How else did you think the power shortage vanished magically?

*

Akhilesh Yadav lost his marbles two days back when he tried to pass a proposal according to which the MLAs in Uttar Pradesh can use 20 lakhs from their local area development fund to buy cars. According to him, his crorepati MLAs found it difficult to reach common man to understand their plight without a proper vehicle. Now even if the MLAs cannot afford a car (wait! Let me stop laughing and wipe my spit spray from the screen), have they heard of a car loan? Akhilesh really need to polish his crystal gazing skills. I am not very intelligent but I know that if I try to pass something like this, the whole world will be at my throat before I could say – Oh fuck! Sometimes I wonder if the politicians get paranoid if they do not see themselves on the television for two days and end up passing bizarre proposals or watch porn in assembly or blame opposition for killing babies in hospitals.

*

Beni Prasad Verma, our honourable Steel Minister, is a comical man. A few days back he was up at arms with Laxmi Mittal, who pointing out that red tape is killing India’s growth. In reply, Mr. Verma told the press that Laxmi Mittal never approached him to rub his nose on the ground in front of the Steel Minister and he should stop maligning Indian government.

Really Mr. Verma? After all those scams?

And the amount of time you have taken (6 years and still counting) to clear Mr. Mittal’s projects in India, it’s a wonder he has restrained himself and has not shoved his middle finger in front of your face. Reality check – He doesn’t need us. We need him.

*

I was watching some random news channel yesterday and came upon a very serious effort by Jamiat-e-Islami to increase tourism in Kashmir. The organisation has asked the state government to impose a dress code on the tourists who visit Kashmir. The women are too skimpily dressed for their taste. According to these standards, Goa government is run by immoral prostitutes as they allow women in beachwear to run on the beaches in the state. Strangely, the images of Kashmir shown on television were that of Indian women roaming with their families in the valley wearing kurtas, T-shirts, jeans and slacks. It will not be a surprise if bed sheets are distributed in the valley (with two slits for eyes) to cover up the tourists.

*

Let me confess that I have never enjoyed the Presidential elections so much. In fact, there were times when I had no idea when the change of President is due, when he took office and when he left. I thought you could give up Presidentship whenever you have finished the world tour which comes with the package or simply got bored of sitting in a huge palace where the washroom is like a mile away from your bedroom. And the only time I have seen a President is when he smirks at the guest sitting next to him the moment a huge missile passes by during Republic Day Parade.

Coming to this year’s election, before it gets really bad and the shit hits the fan, Pranab Mukherjee and P.A. Sangma should fight it out like real men in a boxing ring. I think that is the only excitement we are missing in all this mudslinging. I must confess that after all the tamasha I do not find Rakhi Sawant and Poonam Pandey exciting enough.

*

Common man has been enjoying this political masala from decades. While the prices of food items become unaffordable, what else do we have to feed upon other than ‘Pavitra Rishta’, ‘Byaah Hamari Bahoo Ka’ and Political buffoonery?

Moral of the story – With great power comes great stupidity. Spider Man’s uncle was wrong.

What is the purpose of your life?

Last Sunday, as I was trotting towards the nearest bus stand with two of my friends as we hurried to catch up our show of  Transformers:Revenge of the fallen, we were halted in the middle of the road by three young chaps. They hailed from a Christian society and were very polite. One of them threw a question at us – “What is the purpose of your life?”

Now, imagine yourself in such a situation. You are all excited and ready to see the latest machine war flick and someone pops the “purpose of life” question in front of you. Its like asking a soldier to choose the menu for the dinner while he is busy dodging bullets in the enemy’s firing line.

“Right now, the purpose of my life is to reach IMAX on time.”, I said and smiled.

“Would you like to have a postcard from us which will entitle you to a dvd about Jesus Christ? Its for free.”

“Yes!”

I could not believe this. They were young kids who could be watching a movie or going on a date. Instead, they were stopping people in the middle of the road and asking them the purpose of life!?! I found those guys too spiritual, in the same way in which they would have found me too materialistic.

When Swami Dayanand saw the mouse trampling on the ShivaLingam, he was devastated. He could not understand that how can the Almighty Lord possibly allow a mere mouse to just walk over his statue and eat the offerings? Asked in another way, if God wants Earth to be the Garden on Eden, then why does he allow evil to breed? Yes, we have all heard about the balance between the Good and the Evil, but isn’t that too lame an excuse for God’s incompetency?

Sometimes I feel that we are obsessed with the unknown. Aliens, werewolves, mermaids, witches, vampires, yeti, fairies, dragons, heaven, hell. God. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that I don’t believe in God. I know there is a power which drives us. Its not all about probability, serendipity or theory of randomness. There is something more to it and I am sure that that shall never be revealed to us. That is our destiny. To understand God is to unscramble scrambled eggs.

What I hate is the Glorification, the Spiritualization of the rest of us by a selected few, the sanctification, the cleansing and the conversions. If someone has to come to me and ask me the purpose of my life then either that person is absolutely confused about the purpose of his own life OR my face gives an impression that I am completely purposeless and I am sure that the latter is not true. 🙂

If we have not realized this by now, Religion is a business in modern times. It always was, but now its booming. We have billions riding on it. When a temple can raise a donation of Rs 5 Crores(approximately 1,046, 684 $) in 7 hours, then the sky is the limit. The terrorism industry is an offspring of religion. The politicians use religion to get to the seat of power. We use it as a reason to rape women. We use it to forcibly marry off our children without their consent. Its a way to make instant money on the internet. And if you have no reason to hate your neighbour, religion can be a very tempting bait. And so where is God in all this? Well, maybe he is sitting in a corner and doing this :

I am sure I am born for a purpose but I am also sure that a priest or a spiritual Guru cannot reveal it to me. No one can. I am sure this is something which can’t be revealed. Maybe there is nothing to be revealed, but to understand. I am also sure that chanting a deity’s name or lying in the feet of the lord or donating crores for a yagya cannot be the purpose of my existence.

If you look at the chart of the Earth’s evolution at the top, humans have just appeared. Its amusing how we have pushed the Earth on the brink of collapse in such a short span of time. The rate at which we are going, we will end up being nothing more than a faint flash of existence on the vast timeline of the universe. We can either live for thousands of years in harmony or we can end up like the dinosaurs.

The existence of each generation of humans is a story with a moral at the end. It is us who will be writing the moral for the next generation. Its us who will be deciding whether the next generation will live a life better or worse than us. To give them a better life, all we have to do is to just live our lives without any hatred and everything else will fall into places. Just live.

Now how is that for a purpose?

When victim is the culprit

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. – Bishop Desmond Tutu

So when my eyes fell upon this news article according to which girls in Kanpur have to adhere to certain ‘safety’ measures taken by the colleges to discourage sexual harassment, my first impulse was a bewildered laughter. And what are those ‘safety measures’? Well, its quite simple and basic actually. They can’t wear jeans in colleges anymore. One clean sweep and we have taken a giant stride towards freeing our country of rapists and molesters!

Run! Quick! Cover the girls!

It reminds me of an ostrich, digging a hole and burying his head as soon as he senses danger.

This isn’t something new. Women have always been accused of inviting rapes and harassment because they were wearing ‘provocative’ dresses(how jeans is provocative is something beyond me). And its not just women. Recently, Indians in Australia were told by the authorities that they invited the attacks because they carry laptops and mp3 players openly(this was something not even worth a bewildered laugh from me). And haven’t we blamed the poor for their conditions instead of the socio economic structure and how the rich suck their blood?  So, what is it with us? Why is a victim the culprit?

The Utopia

Since our birth, we are seasoned to look at the world with rose tinted glasses. Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. God works in black and white, there are no greys. So, when a man is stabbed in a deserted lane, he is accused of inviting trouble by going there in the first place. He must have done something wrong for God to punish him with the lightening of his wrath. Death, rape, robbery, molestation does not happen to people who are good. Who remain in their limits.

Believe me, I know people who supported the recent beating up of girls in a pub in Mangalore. People are living in a fairy land created by God and they will go to any extend to maintain its sanctity. It does not matter to them that they are breaking the very laws which they have created to guard the sanctity. It does not matter to them that they are shielding the thief who stabbed the man.

Aha! A scapegoat!

Incompetency is a huge albatross to carry. Law enforcing agencies are full of incompetent people who are there just to collect money or with people who don’t have a clue about their responsibilities. And too bad if your vote bank is full of religious fanatics. Even if the government try to think about amending the age old laws which were made to curb the freedom of an individual, the fanatics will be at their throats talking about God’s will and the holy shit.

So, what happens when an illiterate housewife named Zafran Bibi goes to the police claiming that she was raped and was pregnant? She is accused of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. For a rapist to be convicted, the crime has to be confirmed by four male eyewitnesses and the rapist must confess, they said.

Suffering and Happiness

We feel relieved and in control of our lives when we see someone suffer or when we spot a fresh scapegoat. Its a human trait. Nothing to be ashamed of. We feel more close to God.

‘Thank God, It was not me.’, we say. God has blessed me and I must be good. Relieved. Happy. Unscathed.

We forget the fact that the whole society rides on the same wave. There is nothing disjoint here. We all go up together and we all come crashing down together. Its like cancer. You can’t tell your hand that everything is all right when you have a brain tumor.

Good old Fate

Its funny how while explaining the action and its outcome for other people, we tend to emphasise on their psyche but when we find ourselves in that situation, then its all about the situation. Its threatening to our ego to accept our internal failures. Its safe to say that you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh God what did I do? and all that crap!

Well! You were riding the wave and it came crashing down!

When a team wins, its skills and hard work and happiness. When it loses, we burn effigies. Suddenly from being the victims of our over-pressurization, they are now the culprits.

In the End

And so you ask, ‘What about the innocent bystanders?’ But we are in a time of revolution. If you are a bystander, you are not innocent. – Abbie Hoffman

Maybe its easier to blame someone who is weak. Its less trouble. We live happily in Neverland till tragedy is at our doorsteps. We need some sort of a vicarious brain machine to wake us up. We need to live ‘those’ moments which pull you to reality and make you realize that a victim needs the whole helping hand instead of a finger pointing at him.

Maybe we need to realize that the girls in Kanpur need a free distribution of chili powder and Karate classes instead of a ban on wearing jeans.

Maybe we need to realize that stoning a woman to death will not stop the next rape.

Maybe we need to realize that every culprit was once a suppressed victim.

As if the Terrorists were not tormenting enough…

…we have Mamta Banerjee literally arm-twisting the Tata’s out of Singur by Violence and threatening the lives of the workers in the plant, without giving a second thought to the fact that this might be the last nail in the coffin of West Bengal’s progress.

…we have Ramalinga Raju who did not care a bit about the 53,000 employees and their families before commiting the biggest scam in the history of the Indian IT industry.

…we have NDTV and Barkha Dutt attempting to Talibanise the freedom of expression by threatning to sue a blogger who wrote about the negative role of media during the 26/11 attacks. The blogger had to finally withdraw his post and put up a forced apology on his blog. So, wait a minute…in India I can’t roam around with my girlfriend, I can’t go to pubs and malls

 and I can’t give my opinion on my own blog. I wonder if I am free to breathe? 

…we have the DDA scam where thousands of people put up their hard earned money for a chance to get their dream house and finally realized in horror that all of them were taken for a ride.

…we have Hindu extremists raping and burning nuns in Orissa. The condition was similar to what happened during the partition. Even after more than half a century of independence, we are still burning each other up. 

…our fellow citizens are killing 5,00,000 unborn girls each year in India due to gender selection because of which India has the lowest sex ratio in the world. An estimated 10 million unborn girls have been killed in the last 20 years. Its ok to worship a woman as a Goddess but its not ok to bring her to life. 

…we have Raj Thackeray sending his Sena of cheap goons to beat up all the North Indian candidates appearing in the all-India Railway Recruitment Board entrance exam. This was one of the thousands of atrocities which Raj has tormented us with. He is the one who is truely responsible for dividing the people of India further and shaming the whole country.

…we have pushed 300,000-500,000 children in prostitution in India. The red light district in Mumbai generates at least $400 million a year in revenue, with 100,000 prostitutes servicing men 365 days a year, averaging 6 customers a day, at $2 each, AND that’s just the statistics for Mumbai. There are approximately 10 million prostitutes in India. Is that a world record? 

…we have sharply pushed the Dowry deaths up ever since India opened up to foreign investment in 1990. The country has seen a rise in dowry-related violence alongside its economic boom. Dowry deaths surged from 400 a year in the mid-1980s to 5,800 a year in the mid-1990s, according to a 2001 report in Time magazine. So, the more prosperous we become, we end up being more prehistoric? Is that a world record too? 

…we have the Ram Sena, molesting and beating up girls in Mangalore because they were not following the Indian traditions and defaming it. The best part is that the goons were out on bail the very next day. The next thing you know,they might be throwing widows into the burning pyre of

 their husbands just because they may want to bring back the old Indian tradition of Sati which got lost due to the Britishers.

…we have a jaw dropping 678% increase in rape cases since 1971. According to the NCRB report, over 75% rapists were known to the victims. In fact, nearly 10% were relatives. Another disturbing aspect was that about a quarter of the rape victims were minors. And remember, this is just a data of those cases which were reported. Got the picture?

…we have the repeatedly successful attempts by the Indian government for not providing security to its citizens even when they are repeatedly alerted about the terrorist attacks way in advance. The “soft” government which waits for hunderds to die before yawning into some action. 

And Oh Yes!!! India will be able to send a man to moon by 2025. Seems quite insignificant. Doesn’t it???