Unlikely Things to Hear In Indian Parliament
“Dear Mr. Speaker, I call for a pillow fight on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation.”
“Why can’t the BJP, have beer pong competition and settle their internal differences for once and all.”
“Now is the time to vote. So all the members of house are requested to please wake up.”
Speaker: Today we have a special guest in the house, DJ Mbanwa Jay Jango, So lets “Shake it! Shake it!….”
“This year I am making a change to the rail budget. From now on, the rail budget would be presented in the rail itself. So everybody, please book your tickets to tomorrow’s Shatabdi Express.”
“Madame Gandhi, Can you please ask or order our prime minister to sign on this act?”
Speaker: After counting the votes for the No-confidence motion, it seems that is a TIE. But don’t worry, I have tie-breaker questions.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t have too much confidence in a motion that is called No-Confidence motion.”
“Before we start the proceedings of house, lets congratulate our minister of defense for achieving highest score in ‘International Quake 3 Fight Down’.”
Prime Minister: …and that ladies and gentleman, is our State of Nation. Thank you! Jai Hind!…. Oh! And don’t forget Friday night, poker at my place.”
“There is only one man who can save us now, and that, Mr. Speaker, happens to be, Shaktiman! Shaktimaaaannn!!! Wo atam shakti hain, duniaya badal sakti hain, ….
“…population is rising, pollution is increasing, poverty is increasing, unemployment is rising, prices are going high, suicide rate among farmers is increasing, crime rate is increasing. I can’t understand why people are saying that our country is going down?”
“I DEMAND…am sorry, I forgot what I was saying..”
“We are the living proof, that Murphy was right when he said, “Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”
“Rakhi, I love you!!!”
Unlikely Things to Hear On Indian Reality Shows
“Aye, main to kaam waali bai re! mere ko to khali ghar saaf karne ka bola!” (I am the house cleaning lady, and I was told to clean the house)
All our audience who are wondering why they are seeing only a blank screen today, here’s the answer; actually a robber broke into our house last nite and stole all our cameras.
“I am Pratibha Patil, and I am a witch doctor!”
“Okay, all the participants, we are going to leave five alligators in your bedroom tonite. All those who survive will face a vote out tomorrow.”
“Rakhi ji is going to marry you one by one, but you have to tell her one new story every night. If you run out of stories, she will kill you and marry next one.”
“For vote out today, we have Jaadu (from outer space), Krissh and Laloo Prasad Yadav”
“I am a psychic and I know I am going to win this show.”
“Shilpa, you cannot use race card every time.”
“This is Roadies Whiteout. This year we go to Antarctica and winner will get to drive back home on his Karizma Bike. Losers will be buried in snow for posterity.”
“Due to recession, there would be no vote-out today. We are just going to throw some of you out.”
“I am writer of this reality show. So everybody, listen…”
“TRPs are falling. So lets shed some clothes!”
“No Sashi, you can’t tweet everything that goes on in this house. Not even after using metaphorical language.”
“I used to be a cameraman on the amazing race, then I thought, why should I run behind participants holding a camera? I can be a participant myself!”
“Our house got foreclosure notice. Who the hell owns this place?”
Unlikely Things to Hear on Ektaa Kapoor Serial
- He is dead and he won’t be back for sure this time.
- In the series finale….
- Narrator (in an Ajeet ‘Lion’ voice): (RECAP) Its very very simple…Komolika is trying to F$%k around with Tulsi by killing her husband, who just wouldn’t die, Mrinalini is helping Tulsi and also helping Komolika, and Mandira is not Mihir’s wife as popularly believed, Mihir is actually married to Komolika but Tulsi thinks he is married to her…whatever, its all bullshit!
- For all of you who are wondering what happened to Komolika, here is an update: She suffered slip disk under the weight of her lehnga. We need a new actress now.
- Narrator: It is not real!! So STOP crying!
- Narrator: Here is an important message for all the ladies watching us right now, “STOP PLOTTING TO KILL YOUR MOTHER IN LAW”
- (Doctor to Tulsi): You are suffering from Schizophrenia, (turns to all her relatives standing next to her bed) and its time for you to leave the show.
- Issued in Public Interest.
- This week in Kyunkiiii-fill-in-whatever-hain, all characters take a class on ‘ poisons that can be easily added to milk without changing its color.’
- Maa Saa! What did you do in park? There are Bajrang Dal people throwing stones at our house now.
- Tulsi: Oh! F$%k! You mean to say this is not big brother’s house. I want to leave now!
- (All the characters in unison): Reality TV is kicking our ass. So from next episode, we are going to use more profanity, wear skimpy clothes, and do whatever we do now.
[Note: For quite some time now, I have been so inspired to do a Mock The Week India blog, but till that works out, lets remain satisfied with Unlikely things...]
TV’s Moment of Zen
Last Friday, I had this genius of an idea that I should watch ‘Rakhi ka Swayamwar’ and then write at least 10 funny blogs on the idiocy that goes on in that show. But it turns out that I ignored the side effects of genius(ness), because here I am, with holes in my brain, gray cells that you can count on your fingers, and hollow eye sockets as I decided to gorge on my own eyes after watching 20 minutes of that show.
Taking cue from my favorite ‘The Daily Show’, here it is your moment of zen, (you can directly jump to 1.05), after which it becomes, AMAYYZIIINGG!!
Food vs Sleep
This graph is based on a lot of assumptions and some other things that I can’t remeber the word for. Anyways, i would have explained all the things but i had Indian for lunch and i am ……ZZzzzzz (Snore Snore) (Kidding! I never snore.)
Cyclone Aila Relief Work
[photo: A. R. Chowdhury]
Cyclone Aila struck the coasts of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India killing more than 200 people and destroying 180,000 homes. Over 3 million people have been displaced as per the estimates.
The govt help is as always not adequate. Association for India’s Development (AID) is partnering with local NGO partners to provide food, water and shelter. AID has already disbursed $21,000 to one of the partner NGO Baikanthapur Tarun Sangha(BTS) for this work.
If you would like to help the relief work please donate to AID All India Relief Fund.
Click here if you would like to follow the regular updates (from people working right in the middle of it and not from seasoned journalists)
If you would like to go and help in the relief work drop a hint in the comments section.
Cyclone Aila in press : BBC | The Daily Star | CNN | ToI | The Hindu
On Shoe Throwing and Uncle M.
George Bush
P. Chidambram
Manmohan Singh
L.K. Advani
…
oh wait…
my friend Patroclus (name changed, obviously), who had a shoe thrown at him by a classmate girl. (really!)
Wow, the list is increasing…Protest and Disagreement have a new form of expression, and I cannot imagine anybody more happy than my uncle M. Having conceptualized this idea of ‘shoe-throwing as a path to political reform’ late when I was still a kid, I am pretty sure, uncle M would have been the first one to execute it on a big stage, had somebody put him in the big stage in first place, maybe with a journalism tag or something.
Any political rally on TV screen, and after every promise of reform by the political leader, M would say, “Chappal maro saale ko! Kuch nahin karega elect hone ke baad” [which kind of translates to ‘He is not gonna do anything after he gets elected, so hit my brother in law him with slippers’]. M’s idea of worn out, torn out shoes to a massive social reform was not limited to his political discontent. Back when Indian cricket team was playing really bad, his solution was not change the captain or coach, but instead, “Saale har ek ko 100-100 chappal maaro, and phir field pe utaro” [Hit each player with slippers 100 times and then send them to play on field].
I heard M repeat these statements everywhere in every possible scenario; If the movie is bad, shoes should be thrown at director/actor (not the actress, no way!), If there is a traffic jam, shoes should be thrown at the head of Police dept., If kid in the neighborhood was bitten by stray dog, shoes should be thrown at the dog and Maneka Gandhi. While watching the movie, he even thought that throwing shoes at King Kong was going to work.
[PS: While writing this post, I had assumed that he would be the happiest guy after all this shoe throwing thing catching up big times in protest circles, but while talking to my cousin (M’s son), I came to know his reaction on the famous/infamous Iraqi journlist Muntather Zaidi, and here is the twister in tale, he said, “Saale ko chappal maro! Amerikkan rashtrapati pe joota penkh raha hain!” (Hit him(Zaidi) with slippers, (how dare) he is throwing shoes at American President)]
Pied Piper of Politics
“Shitty stuff, Man! This whole politics business. Everybody is so $%#$%^& corrupt! What are we goin’ to do? Clean it like movie style, like some guy walks up and drags corrupt politician in the street. That should happen. I am telling you, somebody should do it man.”
Okay, first of all, I was extremely surprised -how many times does man sitting next to you on a train berth, use this as an ice breaker. Quite often, I agree, but it would have been fine had the guy been reading some newspaper or magazine, he was doing none of this, he was just pondering, and I was watching him ponder, and then he starts blasting off. All of sudden. And then, just to be polite, I decide to offer the guy some ideas.
“You are absolutely right, Sir. But, I think, instead of one hero dragging one corrupt politician, we should have more of a high thorough-put method to this political cleansing thing. We need a Pied Piper, who can lure all the corrupt ones and then make them jump off the cliff. Cool method, huh?”
“Hmm”, the guy looks up at me, with a look that you have when you see a mentally retarded kid for the first time. Seriously, he even offered me candy after like 5 minutes.
…Of Hate Speech, Coffee and a Genius…
[politics]
‘Free hugs’ videos that are freely available on net are one of those very few things that are acting as a detriment to me falling in social dungeons, where nihilism and philistinism are the entrenched thought and belief. I woke up this morning with a terrible disappointment in my own bitterness towards this world, a shaken belief in the ritual of good, a sunken feeling that threads of community are either falling apart or getting laced with lead. But then I saw this video of a stranger guy giving free hugs to people and I was ‘back and running’.
Talking about bitterness, what’s up with ‘Hate Speeches’? It seems to be the new shortcut to political stardom. Everybody seems to be doing it, Raj Thackeray did it, Varun Gandhi is doing it, Limbaugh does it very often, and our media that is always hungry for anything that can be remotely called a story, is generous enough to devote prime time coverage to such people. Can somebody please explain the TV news channels, that I would not go crazy if I wake up at 3.00 AM in night and there is no news on TV channel. It is okay, even if they are not 24 X 7, and even if they are so dedicated to provide us news, I would prefer a story on a New Hampshire grandma, who made a big cookie in shape of pit bull, instead of watching a madmen delivering a meaningless ‘hate speech’.
I was talking to my brother yesterday, and I dropped in a question about the ongoing elections, “Heyy, so whats going on with the elections?”
“Nobody is interested in them, IPL is on, right?” [IPL: Indian Premier League]
*****
[quotation]
“I am a genius at making coffee…ehm..its like…like, my last name should be friggin’ Starbucks or something”
*****
[fiction]
{excerpts from BIOGRAPHY OF AN UNUSUAL GENIUS}
…
Realization of your own genius self is an unusual, slightly disturbing, but in most parts, an ornately pleasant feeling. But more than the feeling itself, the act that leads to that realization is more intricate, seemingly perplexing, but an invariably simple experience. Later in your life, when the reluctant society has accepted your abilities, talents, or actions as a work of genius, you are always asked this question, “How did you realize that you are a genius?”
….
I was taking down notes in my class that day and my pen slipped out of my fingers, started falling from my desk, and that’s when it happened, my thighs closed in on the pen and caught it in mid air, before it could touch the ground, before it could fall and establish that I am a normal person just like everybody else in the room. That’s when I realized that I am genius, I can do what none of you can, I can catch pens in my thighs. That year I dropped out of school and went to organize the State Thigh Catching festival, which I won, and have invariably won for last thirty years now.
….
My third gold in the double trap Olymipic ‘Catch falling objects with your thighs’ was a tense one, that stupid son-of-a-gun Papua New Guinean, came really close to defeating me on a day when my response time was more due to an onslaught of flu on my immune system.
…
Till this day, as I rest on my hospital bed, I replay that event of first realization in class, in my head, in slow motion, as the pen falls, my thighs move in, and then…
*****
