Kim Jong-un's Six news ways to kill Traitors

Pyongyang: After having his Defence chief executed for treason because he dozed off in a high profile meeting titled ‘Dealing with Traitors’, eternal leader and Dictator par excellence Kim Jong-un sent a memo to the Pointless Killings Committee elaborating on six innovative ways to execute future sleeping beauties.

Sources deep inside the North Korean government indicate that Kim formulated this memo on the way to the classified nuclear missile silo where he was scheduled to oversee the execution of the chief scientist for making missiles with rounded heads. These pointers are meant to be taken as an express command of the benevolent leader and are to be inducted into the formal execution methods for all time (and beyond it).

Here is a copy of the memo that an anonymous source sent out to Faking News before mysteriously disappearing two days back. The document contains illustrative photographs to help the committee better grasp what the leader has in mind.

This dude!

Top Secret Document

Six New ways to annilate anihilatte destroy Traitors

#1 Running them over with Monster Trucks

Technique: Two monster trucks gifted to me, your leader, your God, your everything, by my best friend Putin will be used to run traitors over in the garden of my palace.

Priority status: Slaves bonded labourers.

#2 Tying them to Test Missiles

Technique: Any traitor who happens to be convicted on the day of a test launch of our missiles shall be tied naked to the missile and then launched. Sex appeal will get more attention from the world press.

Priority status: All military personnel, my family members.

#3 Air-dropping them over South Korea

Technique: Traitors attempting to cross over to the prosperous hated nation south of our borders shall be air dropped without parachutes in their territory.

Priority status: Civilians looking for a better life.

#4 Making them eat Radioactive Vegetables

Technique: Defectors working in sensitive national security fields shall be made to eat vegetables stored in uranium 238 contaminated storage.

Priority status:  Scientists, researchers, historians.

#5 Feeding them to the Sharks

Technique: Enemy citizens captured within and beyond the boundaries of our glorious nation shall be sent to sleep with the fishes. I have waited to use this line from a long, very long time.

Priority status: Spies, prisoners of war.

#6 Injecting them with the Ebola virus

Technique: Old people and the sick are of no use to the economy (thus becoming traitors) and must be disposed off. However, this must be done with compassion. To give them a natural death, they must be injected with the Ebola virus which our outsourcing partner Boko Haram has sent us.

Priority status: Old, sick, unemployed

Note: This is a Faking News report that I did some time back for MyFaking News. It is to be taken with the humour with which it was written.

This Seat is Reserved - Five ways to grab seats in a public bus

In India, public transport is cheap as it is want to be and there is a lot of public to use this transportation as is evident from the population of this country. There is always a mad rush to get into these buses, especially by people who travel to other cities to work. Added to this force are irregulars who just want to go to the other city. The resulting crowd goes so berserk at the site of a us that the people are pushed aside, pushed, pulled, shoved and crammed into a vehicle 10 years past its decommissioning date.

Almost... there... aaahhh...
Image Courtesy: theembarrassment.wordpress.com

So we Indians, as usual, have a jugaad for this not-getting-seat problem too. Our ingenuity truly is visible only in such times of desperation. Here are things people do to get a seat on public transport:

The Bag Throwers

People going to work tend to carry bags but people here sometimes carry bags just to throw them through the windows into empty seats. These people then take their own time climbing into the bus since they’ve assured their seat on it. They will then ascend as the bus starts to move, push past the other bewildered and mumbling passengers to pick up their bag and enjoy the seat they reserved not by being first in the queue but first to an empty window seat.

It looks so innocent... just lying there
Image Courtesy: langyaw.com

The Handkerchief People

Now that you know about the ‘Baggies’, we now move on to the ‘Hankies’. These people are too lazy to carry a bag so they use what is essentially a necessary product for everyday life – a handkerchief – to reserve their seats. The technique is the same as above but instead of big and marginally heavy bags; they use a piece of cotton cloth that passes as a ticket in public transport. And, it is completely valid as long s the conductor doesn’t interfere.

The ‘Taken’ Neighbours

No, these are not people whom Liam Neeson has saved from foreign gangsters. These are people who ask other to reserve their seats for them if they manage to climb up before them. The regular travellers develop a kind of bonding that happens when you spend a lot of time smelling each other’s armpits and borrowing newspapers to read on the commute. This, in turn helps them save places for each other so they can discuss which character did what horrible thing to another character on some television show.

Sorry, Occupado!
Image Courtesy: thestar.com

The Regulars

As mentioned earlier, the people who commute are the majority on these buses and over time, they sort of start respecting each other’s places like what usually happens in school or college. But even then, there is always some smartass newbie who thinks he/she can sit wherever they want. These people are scorned and the seats reclaimed even if that person get up to adjust their bag in the overhead holding deck. And the others, they just nod their approval in sadistic satisfaction.

Get off my seat... NOW!
Image Courtesy: worldnomads.com

The Legitimates

Well, these people don’t bother with the rush and the long lines and the pushing and shoving; they already have a ticket. For those who don’t know, people in public transport buses can buy tickets before or after climbing into buses. The ‘Legitimates’ are the only group of people who seem to have mastered the art of being wholly cool and buying their ticket at the counter. They stand round, saunter in and take their place reserved with an ‘X’. If there is an unreserved passenger sitting there, they will be reprimanded for their transgression with the show of a ticket. Fights often erupt because of their cocky nature.

Yeah, that's right. Yes, I do have a ticket.
Image Courtesy: wricities.org

The Beef in Pakistan and the Ministerial Menu

The beef ban has become one big case of political posturing – deity worshiping – non vegetarian atrocity that has taken not one but two countries by storm. Sorry, three, you’ve got to count Nepal too.

The latest controversy in this cow murdering tale of dark comedy is Kiren Rjiju, Minister of State for home Affairs taking a pot shot at fellow Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs, Mukhtar Abaas Naqvi, for a comment that went basically like, “Want beef? Go to Pakistan. It’s awesome there!”

Now one might easily be confused as to whether the Naqvi is an Indian Minister in the Union government or the Minister of Tourism for Pakistan but the Indian Secretariat website calmly assures us that the Pakistan tourism thing is just a side job that’s totally legal because hey, why not?

I'm delicious & you know it!
Image Courtesy: says.com

Now Rijiju said that we shouldn’t be touchy about people’s food habits and when the PM (and I’m just guessing here) called and reminded him that he was also part of the government, Rijiju promptly blamed the media for misquoting him because that’s the most plausible answer given the circumstances.

Well, he then said that what he meant was actually not what he said and what he said was not what the media interpreted correctly but now what he was saying was not what he said earlier but something different to the effect that the Hindu religious population was a majority in some places and a minority in other places and that Arunachal Pradesh was better at cooking beef than Pakistan.

Got all that? Good. (Hahaha, I didn’t either)

So basically, by his logic, if all the Hindus in all the states got together to ban beef, the whole country would have cows jamming traffic in the middle of busy intersections? Damn.

Note: I'm not trying to hurt anyone's religious feelings but in case you're hurt, don't say the title didn't warn you.

Prince Harry is King of the Kangaroos!

[Reports of a coup by a member of the British royal household are coming to light from Australia suggesting that Prince Harry, the younger son of the heir-apparent, Prince Charles, and the grandson of the monarch has seized control of the Commonwealth nation of Australia and apparently declared himself King.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

In an official communiqué to the world media, the ‘Royal Rebel’ as he is being called, has issued his official title after snatching power from under his grandmother’s nose. He has asked to be addressed as His Majesty King Henry of the Land Down Under, Lord of New Zealand, Overseer of the general Oceania vicinity, Protector of Kangaroos and Great Commander of the Australian Defence Forces.

This surprise move by the Prince is being heralded as a rebellion against Queen and country and there are calls to declare the Prince a traitor to the British Empire. Both houses of the British Parliament and PM David Cameron are up in arms about this coup and have declared his actions as not being jolly good at all.

Various reports have disclosed that James Bond, Johnny English, Magneto, Superman, the Amazing Spiderman and even Harry Potter who are of British origin have refused to side with their Queen, instead opting for Australian citizenship under the ‘Royal Rebel’.

The entire Australian Defence Force has thrown its support behind the ‘Lieutenant’ as they fondly refer to their upstart leader. The Governor-General, who represents the Queen in Australia has been in hiding and is presumed to be gathering loyalists to resist the hostile takeover till the British army arrives, which probably won’t, because Parliament is still debating how the gentle, kind and loving second son who was never going to get the throne managed to ridicule the empire by claiming two whole countries without firing a single shot.

After claiming a complete and utter victory over an old lady, the ‘Royal Rebel’ now plans to seize another commonwealth nation from his family in the letter of intent that he issued soon after his coronation ceremony. The letter reads: ‘Next stop: Canada.’]

[This is my article for the Faking News website. You can and probably should read it here: Prince Harry seizes Australian Throne, declares himself King Down Under]

Note: This post has been written for Faking news. Did you notice the ‘Faking’ before the word news? That’s because this is a parody of mainstream news and is supposed to be taken in jest and humour.

OMG! Sex on Indian Television?

[The Indian adaptation of the hit HBO television series Game of Thrones, slated to be produced by Balaji Telefilms and Sony Entertainment, will feature loads of sex, gratuitous nudity and decapitations (along with limb-severing), our reporter was told by an anonymous source. Speaking about the plot of the Indian version, Ekta Kapoor says, “We are in talks with Aamir Khan Productions to acquire the film rights of Lagaan.”

Sakshi Tanwar, bahu of the highest order-the ideal Indian wife-reason mothers-in-law hate their daughters-in-law, says, “I’m so excited to be playing the ‘Mother of Dragons’ character. My husband gets killed, I get an army and just for Indian audiences, I get to stab my mother-in-law with a Dothraki blade.” Asked about the question of nudity, she says, “I’m tired of being the goody –two-shoes of Indian television. People will see me in a whole new avatar now.”

Although the cast has been hush-hush, here is the grapevine about the possible cast of the show:

Sakshi Tanwar to play Daenerys ‘Mother of Dragons’ Targaryen

Come my baby Dragons, come to me...

Salman Khan to play (the bodyguard) Jaime Lannister

Kingsguard Captain Chulbul Pandey

Mallika Sherawat to play Margery Tyrell

Seducing Kings who are Kids

ACP Pradyuman (because nobody knows his real name) to play Tywin Lannister

I always pay my debts... to Daya!

And many more…

It is believed by a majority of television analysts in the nation that CID will no longer be aired after this show makes its debut. Karan Johar has tweeted that he will cast all of in his next flick ‘Kal toh hai hi nahi’ with the hash tag #DayaJustChill.]

[To know more about the cast of the cheap copy of the Game of Thrones that might also see Rakhi Sawant featured in it, you might want to the Faking News website. You can view the article here: Indian television all setto start a cheap copy of Game of Thrones]

Note: This post has been written for Faking news. Did you notice the ‘Faking’ before the word news? That’s because this is a parody of mainstream news and is supposed to be taken in jest and humour.

All Images Courtesy: Google Images.

NASA looking for Jadoo on Mars

[US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Korneinko have blasted off in a Soyuz spacecraft to spend a full year at the International Space Station. They are attempting to create a record of the amount of time spent at this guinea lab to see what happens to these two lab rats after 12 months in zero-gravity, drinking recycled piss, hurling around the planet (wheee) and no sex… at all; a vacation that Valery Polyakov has scoffed at after spending 437 days in an older version of above mentioned space lab, in 1994.

Image Courtesy: Google Images/NASA.

Disgruntled astronauts who were passed over for this glorious mission, including Tom Hanks, who apparently didn’t learn anything from his Apollo 13 near-death experience, have alleged that this mission is a front to actually send humans to Mars from where a signal has been received in a single monosyllable repetition sequence that goes Om- Om- Om- Om- Om in different pitches. Tom Hanks is so getting fired for this.

Rakesh Roshan, Indian film director and the father of a Greek Demigod, seems to have strong views on the subject. Bruce Willis, who became head of NASA after blowing up that asteroid aiming for Earth and having a habit of generally Dying Hard for over a decade is also stoked.

Russia and the United States, the two nations whose astronauts are on this mission have vehemently denied these accusations of a world-wide conspiracy, calling them wild and misleading theories to create panic and bring down the credibility of their governments. They further denied building space weapons, continuing research on Skynet, the existence of Area 51 and that Will Smith had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour for bringing down a space plane in Independence Day.

Note: ISRO made the bolts for the garbage chute on this vehicle.]

[This is my article for the Faking News website. You can and probably should read it here: NASA’s ‘Year in Space’ is a conspiracy to find Jadoo]

Note: This post has been written for Faking news. Did you notice the ‘Faking’ before the word news? That’s because this is a parody of mainstream news and is supposed to be taken in jest and humour.

When Castro invited Kom to Cuba

[The retired and gravely ill former dictator ruler of Cuba, Fidel Castro, has reportedly invited the much celebrated Indian Olympian boxer Mary Kom to move to Havana, accept Cuban citizenship and represent the nation as its first woman sportsperson in the sport. This has purportedly been the result of Namibia Flores, Cuba’s only woman boxer, leaving the nation to pursue career prospects in the United States.

Will you come?

Do you think so?

In March 2014, the Cuban Sports Minister was reported saying, “What are you talking about? Women’s boxing? Women cannot do boxing! Women can run and play tennis. Boxing is a man’s game. All this is just US propaganda.” They now seem to have changed their tune.

The Indian Boxing Association is outraged and up in arms against this request by a friendly nation. Vijender Singh, eminent sportsperson, Olympic Boxer and judge-of-a-bunch-of-illiterates-on-a-crappy-television-show says, “Cuba is country? Really? They want Mary Kom? I have in pen drive. They want boxer Mary Kom? This is wrong. Bhai aisa thodi chalta hai? How can they just say they want Mary Kom? We want Mary Kom. We want medal. No, no, no, this is not possible.”

Sarbananda Sonowal, Indian Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports (Independent charge) has expressed concern over the matter. Mary Kom is an icon for the little girls of the nation. And I believe that she is very patriotic even if she is from an Eastern state. I have contacted Mr. Bhagwat to convince her to join the organization too. After that, let’s see how she goes.”]

[This is my article for the Faking News website. You can and probably should read it here: Fidel Castro invites Indian boxer Mary Kom to represent Cuba]

Note: This post has been written for Faking news. Did you notice the ‘Faking’ before the word news? That’s because this is a parody of mainstream news and is supposed to be taken in jest and humour.

Images courtesy of: Google Images.

When Terrorists ask nicely… you give them Nukes!

Senior Taliban leaders who gathered at Pakistan’s Republic Day celebrations on March 23 submitted a petition requesting Prime Minister Sharif to hand over 10 nuclear warheads with complimentary missiles to them to aid in their latest plot against India. This petition was signed by leaders of major terrorist organizations from around the world in return for a certain share of warheads to each of them.

Commanders of self-proclaimed ‘Jihadist’ organizations like Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Nusra Front and Hezbollah have claimed signing the petition on their social media profiles, pages and handles using hash tags like #NuclearBoom #KafirsGoneDead #WMDism #LolObama #IronDomeDown #WeWantKashmir

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

Indian Union Minister for Defence, who was on his way to board his private plane for Goa because in his words “Summer is here”, had this to say on the matter, “Our boys are doing a good job at the border so no need to worry. If you need more details, go to Singh, he just had a chat with the people over at BSF.”

The Indian Armed Forces staff had just three words to say and sang it in such unison that could possibly be the envy of the cast of Glee. They said, “Bring it on!”

The Pakistani PM has declined to comment on the matter and his spokesperson assured the media that the parliament was deliberating on the subject and a decision would only be made after discussing all aspects of the nuclear request.

[This is my article for the Faking News website. You can and probably should read it here: Terrorist organizations sign petition for Pakistan to give them some nukes]

Note: This post has been written for Faking news. Did you notice the ‘Faking’ before the word news? That’s because this is a parody of mainstream news and is supposed to be taken in jest and humour.

Japan fears attack from Kaiju, builds BIG wall

Tokyo: The Japanese government has approved a plan to build a massive 400 kilometre Kaiju resistant wall along its coastline after the movie Pacific Rim made a delayed release in the island nation. This has been attributed to the Censor Board of Film Certification in Japan being headed by an eminent member of the Indian community.

Believing the movie to be a foreboding of things to come and after watching the aliens in Avengers come down from the sky, the government decided that between the two movies and the possibility of a world-wide Zombie threat as portrayed in World War Z, building a wall around their nation was not half a bad idea.

The Japanese Union Minister for Infrastructure and Development had this to say about the matter, “If the Chinese can build a big wall, why can’t we?”

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

The Department of Robots has also been ordered by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to build robots like those in Pacific Rim but which can also turn into cars like the Transformers so he can drive one around. Another different aspect to this demand is that the robots look like Manga characters so that they instil not fear but patriotism and high spirits among the citizens of the nation and they don’t wonder whether this awesome idea of his was just a waste of their money.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, known for supporting big construction tycoons has claimed to have almost familial relations with an Indian political party which supports energy tycoons. They have since sought their help in powering the construction of the wall and building a free floating port that doesn’t hinder the wall and help everyone’s friends make a huge profit in the bargain. This will also be seen as an active measure in boosting trade relations between the two South-Asian nations.

PM Abe says, “This Kaiju wall will not only be a protective umbrella for Japan, it will also usher in a new era of business co-operation between our two nations. #Abenomics”

[This is my article for the Faking News website. You can and probably should read the entire article here: Japan builds 400 km sea wall to fend off Kaiju attack]

Note: This post has been written for Faking news. Did you notice the ‘Faking’ before the word news? That’s because this is a parody of mainstream news and is supposed to be taken in jest and humour.

Summer is Coming… to Indian Parliament

Reports of the fire that broke out in the Indian Parliament premises being under control are coming in at this moment. Phew! Thank God no politicians were hurt! It must be the good deeds that they’ve been doing for so many years that saved them.

The fire department says that the fire started during the routine maintenance check of the air conditioning unit. But an unconfirmed inside source claims otherwise.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

The source claims that the afternoon session of Parliament got so many tempers heated that it caused the air conditioning system to flame out and set fire to its main unit. Even the sprinkler system couldn’t manage to put out the flames because water going to its pipes had been diverted and sold off by a company allegedly owned by a man named by the source only as the ‘son-in-law’.

Military experts have claimed that this incident was a terrorist plan by the ISI who tried to spread poison gas in parliament through the air conditioning system…

[This is my article for the Faking News website. You can and probably should read the entire article here: Revealed: Why did fire break out in the Parliament premises]

Note: This post has been written for Faking news. Did you notice the ‘Faking’ before the word news? That’s because this is a parody of mainstream news and is supposed to be taken in jest and humour.

The Ten Rupee Tantrum

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

Have you seen people go nuts when their money goes missing? It is obvious that large sums of money end to cause problems when they disappear but it is absolutely hilarious when people raise a hue and cry for meagre amounts of money that they don’t care about any way. My mind, in its infinite wisdom scoffs at such people and I’m sure you too might have had such an occasion yourself.

I’m writing this post from the state transport ‘super deluxe’ bus because this is the scene of the event and I’m bringing it live to you ‘on the way’ to Ahmedabad. Now, we have these intercity ‘superfast’ buses that have a driver but no conductor (job cuts affect the public sector too). Before, one could just sit in the bus and buy the ticket on the way to the destination but not now! Now, you’ve got to buy the ticket before the bus leaves because the conductor gets off the bus.

Enter: The Woman.

The bus is about to leave and she is the last one to climb aboard just as the bus is about to leave.. the conductor climbs aboard for her and gives her a ticket. Since the bus is already late, the driver and conductor are both in a hurry. The conductor gives her ten rupees less in the change he hands back and leaves the bus as it it rolls on to the highway.

The Woman realizes ten seconds too late that she got ten rupees less and muttered round about ten swearwords at ten generations of the conductor’s family before asking the driver to stop the bus and get back her money. As if that was going to happen…

So halfway into the journey at the rest stop, she again asked the driver about her ten rupees and what he was going to do about it. The driver said he was going to do nothing about it, wore his killer shades and put the bus into first as we started for Ahmedabad again.

However, one or two other passengers either took an interest in her story or were making a fool out of her; they asked her about the issue. She, the poor victim, recited the whole story as it happened but very conveniently keeping the amount of money ambiguous so as not to give her new found sympathizers a chance to scoff at her ridiculousness like the driver and this funky guy with the laptop were doing. So, when her sympathizers thought that the conductor didn’t return fifty rupees, she didn’t even correct them, instead going with the flow and playing the hapless victim to perfection. By the end of the hour, she had lamented so much that she herself must have believed that she had been conned out of fifty rupees instead of ten.

But it isn’t nice to make fun of this woman. She probably needs attention from people around her.

Oh wait! A development!

The sympathizer turned out to be a driver himself and actually called up a conductor or two and found the ‘guilty one’. He made him aware of his mistake and actually reprimanded him on the phone. He then paid the woman fifty rupees that he believed she was owed and the woman took it! 

No reluctance, no shame, only forgiveness in her eyes as she looked right into sympathizer’s eyes and took the money.

I feel like clapping at her brilliant performance but I think silence is of more benefit since it offers a better view of the stage in this play.

Driver! That's my stop!

Parliamentary Humour

It seems that our Members of Parliament and especially one from the acting community can’t handle radio humour. They really can’t tolerate the filthy jokes and mimicry of radio jockeys that they so blatantly broadcast to the people of the country. They want the respect they think they deserve just by sitting within the annals of power, in the capital of the country.

It was actually hilarious to see the honourable member beg the government to do something about the abominable jokes cracked by media persons about her honourable colleagues and her honourable self of the honourable house. Oh, and as usual, other honourable members who hadn't received any honourable mention for some time jumped onto the honourable bandwagon and gave their honourable comments to the dishonourable media who are always poking fun at them. How honourable indeed!

It is very curious, this case of the member of the house feeling bad about all the jokes and tomfoolery that is produced at the cost of the house because she this begs the question of whether she is ever present in the house to see the antics of the chosen ones and if she is present, if she remains awake long enough to see the kind of things the people watching the Lok Sabha channel have to put up with.

I wonder how RJs and other ‘media people’ are supposed to describe what happens in the house except for mimicking the members. The people obviously can’t see the RJs over the radio so they can’t watch them enjoying a porn clip on their phone or wave bundles of money or throw microphones or climb on the speaker’s desk, so they have to content themselves by listening to them poke fun at the honourable MPs through sound. Oh, oh I forgot, they can’t even see the RJs pepper spraying the shit out of each other with ‘Rang barse, bheege chunarwaali, rang barse’ playing on the mixer.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

The media has the right to portray whatever it likes as long as it is not defamation. If the media cannot show the people what need to be shown or what the people want to see and hear, then the very existence of the media is for naught. The media recently also came under fire in Uganda for showing the President of the country among other members of Parliament sleeping mid-session.

What the honourable members need to do is improve their own behaviour rather than slam radio jockeys and other media persons for showing what they are really up to.

Blowing in the Wind…

So yesterday, Ahmedabad experienced one of its worst rainstorms since the year 2010 and I know that not because I read it in the news, but because I was stuck slam bam in the middle of it and had to walk back to my college hostel in water up to my waist. Wish I’d gotten that motorboat then! Sigh!

But that was all alright because it happened in monsoon and because it was predicted. The swimming in waist deep water wasn’t, but I just chalk it up to the awesome drainage system management in this fair city of mine. Mohenjo-Daro seemed to be more developed to me right then. But these rains? Whoa! These were really something.

So here I was, minding my own business in the sweltering heat, in my sweltering outhouse, in my sweltering body and scalp when it got all cloudy and the weather turned into what my Dad just likes to call ‘sexy.’ So I like out the window and wonder how long the weather would hold before the sun scorched the clouds out of the stratosphere. I was even going to call my friends and take bets on this but before I knew it, it began drizzling and was that heaven!

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

Within moments, the drizzling had turned into a torrent and before I could step out onto the terrace to receive Zeus’ blessings, my windows and doors were flapping like gulls in high tide. I looked out my door to see a rain storm in full gale, blowing sheet upon sheet of rain into the setting sun, which was still hidden by the way.

All that was good since I could just close everything and sit in the comfortable dryness of my room, but no, that wasn’t to be allowed. The aluminum roof of my room started shivering and the wooden panels started creaking so loudly that I thought they would give away any moment. And three of them actually did so, peeling away from their joints and going down the five floors onto the street below my building.

This storm escalated so fast that I hardly had time to pack up my essentials and scram into the apartment before the whole enchilada actually blew off the roof over or on my head. Fortunately, my friend was kind enough to take me in for the night and so ended my night of sudden horror. I now realize somewhat how it must be to lose one’s everything in a hurricane or typhoon, even though I lost nothing.

Well played global warming, well played.

Religion as a Brand

It was at a recent summit which I attended that I had a speaker mentioning that religion was rather like a ‘brand’ of the company God Ltd. He elaborated a little, not to inform or influence or hurt the public’s sentiments in any way, but to get us thinking about the same.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

I admit, I for one was stumped when he first mentioned this metaphorical example but when I pondered over the subject, I did indeed realize that his words might have been true in a way. The various religions indeed are all different paths to the Almighty, the power in the heavens, Bhagwaan, Allah, the All Father, the Everlasting Flame and so on and so forth. That power may have different names but I like to believe that everything humankind worships is one single entity morphed into different forms by human imagination through time and culture.

Hence, by that logic of mine, different religions do seem to be the brands of a single corporation operating at different places according to one’s folklore and collective histories.

As I gave more thought to this theory, the more intrigued I got, even more so when I actually managed to pinpoint some things that had been said at the summit. There are parts of brands that are irrevocably linked with it, and the same seemed to be the pattern with religions. Here are some of them:

Logo:

Each religion seems to have its own logo. If the religion does not have a definitive one, individual deities certainly seem to do. In case of a monotheistic religion, the one deity also seems to be represented by a certain symbol that can, in my view, be considered a logo.

Jingles:

Each religion has its set of jingles if not one. These jingles may vary over time and language and across cultures if the religion is widespread, however, they do exist. They are also known as hymns and bhajans. It sometimes happen that these jingles may closely resemble those from other religions but that only seems to happen if two or more religions are interspersed within a common population.

Colour Schemes:

Each religion also does seem to have its own colour scheme, the colour worn by those who serve the deity. Of course, these are also bound to variation over time, space and cultural orientation. But still, a common colour scheme is usually apparent in organized religions, may they be large or small. It would be partial to name the colours of only a few religions, so abstaining would be the best option.

Brand Ambassadors:

Almost all religions have brand ambassadors in the form of prophets; the messenger who interprets the works of their deity and pushes everyone along to promote their religion as one does a brand. They have usually traveled places, helped people and persuaded people to follow their brand of God in the past, that’s where I draw my reference from.

Hence, I’ve come to accept the fact that religions are in fact different brands enticing people to choose their particular road to eternal salvation. That does not of course mean that any brand is better than the others. This post has not been written to hurt the religious sentiments of people of any religion. It’s also not to offend the Lord, obviously. It is just a harmless observation on situations presented in and around us. This post is a work of fiction and is supposed to be treated in the humorous way in which it was written.

Just for you, my Friend.

When one engages in classroom politics, one should be very careful in choosing one’s friends and supporters. Well, once you have persuasive friends, support is garnered automatically. But yes, one does have the responsibility to choose the correct set of friends to stand fast as columns in case the structure collapses.

There is one such friend whose recent actions have prompted me to write this post. This friend is one of the foremost intellectuals I've met in my age group and he stands tall as the greatest strategist I've seen in the past three years since I entered the field rather by accident.

They say that engineers are the toughest of the population because going through an engineering college in India is much like how they train the Marines in the US. They have probably seen everything, done a lot of it first hand and still come out of that hell hole. So politics seems to be nothing new to them.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

I have no idea what kind of voodoo goes on in these colleges except for the stories some of my engineer friends tell me, but I can safely say that they turn out to be some of the most paranoid people I've come across.

However, coming back to the point, my friend is kind of very aware of tactics that can be played and between the both of us; we manage to counter them long before they’re implemented in the opposite camp. But now and again, it so happens that there is a surprise volley and to everyone’s great surprise, the calm and composed engineer lost his cool and stood between me and the offender with such vehemence that the ungodly attack died out before anybody could realize.

This has happened not once but twice now and everyone has now realized that if push comes to shove, the strategist Athena can also don the armour and defend friends with as much brutality as Ares, the god of WAR.

The Art of Professional Begging

Though I have nothing but empathy and a few tears for the poor, I can’t help but be intrigued by the recent trends in begging that have quite changed since I first started observing the methods and techniques used in the profession. Yes, that’s quite right. I wrote and I meant ‘trends’ in begging. The 21^st century has, I've observed, brought a number of changes in the styles with which begging is carried out. I talk not of those who are forced to do so because of circumstances one well understands, but I talk of those who are capable and still opt to beg. I’m writing about the Professional Beggar.

There are a number of marked changes in the way this profession is carried out by these professionals in modern times and after intense research (roaming around and chilling), I've come to the conclusion that these beggars are developing a system to systematically get money from those who are sympathetic to the plight of the people who are really in need. This, in turn makes them cons and not beggars. But since there seems to be no differentiation at the current time, I've made up the term, ‘Professional Beggars.’ Oh, I can make up terms because I have poetic licence. Hope Arnie doesn't ask me to defend my statement against the poor of the nation because the country wants to know what the hell Poetic Licence is, just because he doesn't.

Well, now getting to the point. The first change in trend can be seen at the financial level, which is the whole point of begging in the first place. These professionals do not accept small change anymore. If you give them anything less than a ten rupee note, they will not accept it. Yes, crazy, I know. But that seems to be the truth. One rupee, two rupees and five rupees hold no value for them anymore. Inflation you see!

Then there is the language. These professionals have started picking up English and in a big city like Ahmedabad, one can routinely find these professionals begging in English and that too not very politely. Moving on with the times, you see.

Even the attitude of these professionals is noteworthy. They apparently seem to think that it is their fundamental right to receive alms from society. They believe that they are entitled to the hard-earned money of the people who really work for it. And as mentioned above, nothing less than a ten rupees note. I've actually seen one of these professional throw a couple of coins in the face of the gullible youth who gave it to him. Poor guy was aghast! Oh, and yeah, they sometimes keep talking to someone else when somebody is reaching out to give them money. Talk about lack of professional courtesy.

Another trend that is fascinating is that when a kind soul offers them food instead of money, they flatly refuse. Now, I guess they haven’t heard the adage, ‘Something is better than nothing.’ They also want the right of choice. Firstly, they have no intention to work. Secondly, they should not be even getting the food that is being offered. And still they are stony-faced when offered food. They just up and turn away muttering swearwords at the person who is feeling sorry for them.

Last, but not the least, I come to the point of the religion-mongers who attempt to sell their God to anyone and everyone in the middle of the road. Now one might say that this is not a new trend. Agreed. But what is new is that these people then mutter curses and invoke the wrath of the Gods upon those who refuse them alms. Now that is novel! That didn't used to happen before.

Now, as mentioned above, these patterns have been carefully studied by yours truly and I hope that one day, with society getting smarter to this nonsense, this profession will delve into insignificance.

The Man & his Mop

I’m sure you know how the whole week passes by with not a moment to spare for yourself? At least for me it’s work – work – work with no time for the hair I’m trying to grow once again. I’m aiming for shoulder length but let’s see till when I can manage to hang on to them with this hectic schedule and the inherent heat that has seeped into the atmosphere here in Ahmedabad.

I cannot fathom how women with long hair manage to take care of that mop but I put it down to years of practice and struggle with the mass of black snakes the Gods thought fit to put on various parts of the body. Well, I’m pretty new to the experience since this is only the second time that I've tried to grow my hair, the first being when I completed school and moved on to college. I was in the place which you’d probably call a ‘hair phase’. Wanted to be the cool dude with the hair but ended up chopping the locks within just four months partly due to frustration, partly due to the heat and partly due to the fact that my parents were horrified at what I’d done to my hair and refused to acknowledge me as their son in public. Yeah, that bad.

Well, this time I've managed to cross the four-month barrier and it’s looking pretty good so far. The heat has abated and I do not plan to have my hair chopped down due to any pressure this time, parental or otherwise. But then there is another problem of finding time to groom this hair. I admit that even this time around I've had a pretty hard time managing all this volume upon my head and I've considered more than once about walking the path to the barber’s shop but I've maintained my resolve till now only because of the compliments I keep receiving now and then from friends and that’s what keeps me going.

Let’s see how long it lasts…

Note: I've not put up a photograph of myself in the fear that somebody will break my illusion of this hair looking totally awesome.

Of Trial and (T)error

Everyone in India and possibly half the world knows of the most controversial Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014 General elections in this fair country of ours, thanks to the numerous news channels who have nothing else to report. And everyone certainly knows what he has done, what he is doing and what he will most definitely keep doing in the future and I’m not going to insinuate anything about the same, least I be arrested and thrown in jail for voicing an opinion.

Image Courtesy: Facebook.com.

It is well documented that that there have been several attempts on his life, both allegedly as well as allegedly proven, supposedly in retaliation to his (mis)deeds of the past. Now, the state police have tried a lot to thwart these “terrorist” attacks on his life but everyone keeps blaming them for wrongly shooting up people all over the place. I respectfully disagree.

How are the security forces supposed to protect their leader without killing people and branding them terrorists?

How are they supposed to bring about an air of mystery around their leader without creating controversy and then blaming the other political parties for doing it?

 How in the world are they going to propel him from CM to PM without having him on the front page of every newspaper and on every second sentence spoken by Mr. Goswami?

Isn't it obvious then that the latest spate of bombings in his rally were by those ‘terrorists’ who just wanted to kill him using small explosives and bombs without timers? In fact I’m surprised that no alleged terrorists were shot up and instead a couple of them were caught by one of the security agencies. Well, you know what happens when you cry “wolf” all the time, nobody is going to believe you when it really comes. But I believe them (please don’t send me to jail).

That being said, the irony that I’m writing about the unnecessary publicity of the man I’m writing about, hasn't escaped me. But then, somebody had to and today, the truth really is that you might love him, you might hate him, you might not care about him, you might have not yet formed an opinion about him, but you sure as hell can’t ignore him.

Note: This post has it's roots firmly planted in sarcasm and is meant to be taken in good humour (if you like it that way). These views are the author's alone and just to be on the safe side (not to be thrown in jail), all characters mentioned herein are fictional and bear no resemblance to any person dead or alive.

The Wall of Gold

When I glance at the news nowadays, all I can see is GOLD. Everywhere. God-men dreaming up gold, The Archaeological Survey of India seeking gold, Australian scientists finding gold in Eucalyptus tress and religious places with basements full of gold.

And well, what do you know, one of my friends’ cousins also found gold in the walls of his house when it was being demolished! Wow, I mean how lucky is the guy? He dares to break up a house that has been in his family for generations and instead of being struck down by the wrath of his ancestors, he becomes a millionaire! He found gold in almost every wall of his house and by the time he was done breaking up his house personally (presumably with a sledgehammer made of gold), he was also scratching the porcelain toilet seats to make sure they weren't made of gold too. It seems that every wall had a couple of random bricks moulded out of gold and nobody knew about this secret since his great-great-great granddaddy took it to his grave. Whoever said that you leave this world empty-handed hadn't met Mr. Goldmason here. I mean, if you want to leave something for your descendants, you might want to mention it to them before dying; that might be a good idea.

However, I was intrigued at the idea of this guy finding gold in his house and so upon inquiry, I found out that it was a particular tradition in that part of India to bury gold in either the walls or under the floor, so in times of need, the family found never die of hunger. Just make a hole in the wall and Voila! It’s raining money again.

Now my father has this weird obsession of bettering his house. He keeps renovating his home every year and so his friends have started joking that he’s actually hiding money in the walls of the house, especially the washroom, since we have this perpetual leak in one of them that refuses to get repaired. Now, after hearing the above-mentioned stories, I've found myself often wondering if I might eventually find money stashed in the walls one day. It’s a hope against hope and a pretty hopeless one at that or so my father has told me and I must unfortunately agree. It’s just bricks and mortar.

Alas!

The Perilous Day-dreaming Syndrome

A very dangerous habit, this day-dreaming syndrome, as I came to realize through the horrible experience of an unfortunate friend. Well, I used to day-dream too, and still do, but I exercise it with a bit of caution – now that I know how it can come back to bite your bottom later.

So, this is what happened. My friend is an artist of sorts. He keeps drawing people’s caricatures in an attempt to improve his artistic skills. I think he knows that he is hardly any good at it, but I give him a lot of credit for trying and trying and trying again. When he started his college year, he quickly made friends around because of his open nature, yet brooding nature. But a month hence, people started withdrawing from him, keeping their distance, even avoiding him at some stage. This, a couple of people found very strange because among the people avoiding him, were mostly women. When asked, a couple of them accused him of being a pervert because he kept staring at their breasts sometimes. Many people just shook their heads and muttered intelligibly. The matter almost reached the ears of the Director of the Institute. Things continued going downhill for him until one guy decided to check things out for himself. So he started observing this fellow minutely till he discovered that my friend had absolutely no fascination for breasts and that he as staring into space, thinking out his caricatures. It happened more than once that he was pulled out of his own world by this amateur detective while seemingly staring at nobody in particular. It was only then that people started realizing that he was merely going off into his artistic world and not fantasizing about every woman in the college.

One can imagine how such an apparently harmless thing as day-dreaming can lead to such serious consequences, especially for someone who is not even aware of what is happening around him/her. But, there is also another thing to take out of this story – How we judge people immediately and brutally upon the comments or observations of others. How we are so easily mislead by our own brains or others because we are too lazy to find things out for ourselves. It is almost horrendous to think of the number of times we have judged others based on others’ opinions. Given a moment of reflection, I’m sure a lot of people will recollect at least one incident where they judged a person before even talking to them.

I believe in this matter, we are rather like a flock of sheep. The one who is at the head will turn in a particular direction and the rest will blindly follow the bleater in front. There is hardly any sense of wait – take a breath – talk – find out for yourself. All we want is everything to be fast but how about taking a moment to review those decisions. To really see and not just glance at what passes for unimportant, because that review will mean the difference between a good friend and a scorned pervert.

Moral of the Story: Day-dreaming makes you a pervert.