Hit The Road, Jack!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in crisis mode. Our Army Chief recently revealed that our entire military is obsolete, and could be taken down anytime by a bunch of Chinese kids with Beyblades. This is a matter of national security and must be examined thoroughly, which is why I dedicate this column to cribbing about how much I need a goddamn vacation.

That’s right. I’m part of the overworked, exhausted elite – the kind that get paid well enough for its services, but only if those services include handing over control of our entire lives to clients who demand everything except the sacrifice of our first-born sons. And that’s only because we have no time to get into a room and initiate the baby-creation process to begin with.

(The first instance of this can be seen in the Old Testament, wherein a client, who thought he was God, ordered Abraham to sacrifice his first-born son. The idea worked. That book went viral like crazy, and clients have been trying to replicate that success since.)

It doesn’t help that the professional world has completely changed from what it was a generation before mine. Things seemed to be simpler then. The concept of job satisfaction, much like Levis jeans or on-demand tentacle erotica, was unheard of. You got a job at Whatever The Hell Place Hired You Ltd., pretended to look busy from 9 to 5, and were then free to umm, sleep and… err… sleep more? (I’m sorry. I don’t know what socialist India did for fun. Those wild ‘Krishi Darshan’ marathons on TV, maybe?)

Cut to the present, where almost everyone I know is insanely ambitious. I’m talking about writers, comics, actors, designers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketers, corporate hotshots and ladies of the night, all of whom have one thing in common – I hate them for inspiring me towards hard work. There is a stupid fire burning inside all of us, partly because of stress-induced acidity, that makes us want to go the extra mile because we’ve realised that there’s no room for mediocrity in Mumbai (unless you work at the BMC)

Mumbaikars, and Indians in general, lead shackled, vacation-less lives. A 2011 international study called ‘The Vacation Deprivation Study’ pegged Indians as the fifth-most vacation deprived people in the world. This may sound surprising given our tendency to celebrate every little event in the life of bazillions of revered figures – both real and religious – such as a birth anniversary, potty training anniversary, first pimple festival, coitus jayanti etc.

But according to the study, Indians actually forego about 20% of their holidays, for reasons such as guilt, or the more common, ‘My boss is a rabid dementor’. Vacations, much like the girl child, are still viewed as a luxury here. It makes sense, because for the longest time, a vacation meant an annual trip to the ‘native place’, aka ‘a place where your parents took you to meet the same people they bitched about the rest of the year’.

And call me stupid, but come April, it blows my mind that we no longer have summer holidays. No more three-month periods of doing nothing. If I could, I would enforce that rule in the adult world as well, leading to a worldwide vacation, as essential services ground to a halt and the global economy crumbled to a point where we were back to trading tiger testes for rice. (As far as I can tell, this is what investment bankers have planned for us anyway.)

But until then, I must make do with the occasional trip down to my happy place. No, not that, you perverts. I’m talking about the place that defines me, the one place I will tell my kids about, the place where everybody knows my name… my office.

(This is my latest HT column, dated 1st April 2012. Cross-posted from here.)

A Totally Useless Guide to The Budget

This has been an important week for India, what with Mamata Banerjee biting off the Railway Minister’s head for doing his job, followed by Pranab Mukherjee presenting the Union Budget in an accent that can only be described as ‘Bengali man coughing up a hairball’.

As expected, the country was assaulted by a barrage of information as news channels went into hyperdrive, beginning with speculation about the budget that showcased experts with the predictive skills of a roadside fortune-telling parrot, which was followed by a detailed analysis of how the UPA could have done better (Answer: By resigning)

As regular people, I know that you need a real expert to cut through the clutter and the jargon, and tell you in lucid terms, what the budget is all about. I believe that I fit the bill, given that I often stumble upon business channels while surfing, and even watch for a few seconds if the anchors are hot enough. You can’t go wrong with credentials like that. So let’s begin with a simple Q & A format:

Q. What is in the briefcase that the finance minister brandishes about in Parliament on Budget Day?

A. Antacids, porn films for Karnataka politicians, and a signature cologne distilled from the tears of the middle class.

Q. Ooh, porn. Tell me more.

A. The titles include ‘Fiscal Fantasy’, ‘Subsidy Studs’ and the classic, ‘Plug My Deficit’.

Q. What is the history behind the budget?

A. The practise started in 1728, when the King of England asked his financial adviser to tell him what the Crown’s money would be spent on. “Silly wigs”, said the adviser, and there was much rejoicing.

Q. I can’t watch the budget. Parliament sessions are boring as hell.

A. Not if you play the Meira Kumar Drinking Game.

Q. What’s that?

A. Do a shot every time Meira Kumar says ‘Baith Jaaiye’. Very soon, you’ll find yourself stumbling about, shouting inanities and basically making a Digvijay Singh of yourself.

Q. What are the key economic issues that India needs to focus on?

A. From an economic point of view, it is imperative to uncover the origins of that thing growing on Lord Meghnad Desai’s head.

Q. I am a 22-year-old man from a respectable family. I like to touch myself while watching Baba Sehgal videos. Will this affect my married life?

A. Dude. Wrong column.

Q. What do you make of the FDI debate?

A. It’s no surprise that Congress leaders are gung-ho about FDI. Always have been. They chose Sonia, didn’t they?

Q. What are the long-term measures taken by the Congress to protect Indian farmers?

A. The long-term idea is to let them die, and then hope they’re reborn as something whose existence is less wretched, like lepers, or the guys in charge of waxing Shekhar Suman’s chest.

Q. That’s disgusting.

A. Wait till you hear his jokes.

Q. What about the BJP? They claim to be fighting for farmers.

A. Yes, but their strongest idea involves leasing out Nitin Gadkari as a scarecrow.

Q. Is it true that Rakhi Sawant visited the Parliament on the first day of the budget session?

A. Yes, this actually happened. Next up, Poonam Pandey to strip at the Supreme Court.

Q. THIS BUDGET SUCKS! YOUR MOM IS A TRAMP! I WILL SET FIRE TO EVERY HAPPY MEMORY YOU HAVE AND TAKE A DUMP ALL OVER YOUR SOUL!

A. Go away, Mamata.

(This is my HT column dated 18th Mar, 2012. You can check out the e-paper link here.)

The Unbearable Cheapness of Being

The past few weeks have seen a fair bit of activity from the freak newsmakers of the world, be it the emergence of Bharatiya Janata Porn in the Karnataka Assembly, or the Congress slamming Mayawati for poor governance and corruption, which is a bit like Kim Sharma judging Aarti Chhabria for being absolutely pointless.

But what really tickled my cockles (yes, that’s what I call them) was a recent global survey by something called the Economist Intelligence Unit, which stated that when it came to the ‘cost of living’, Mumbai was the second cheapest city in the world. Sadly, the report did not say what the economists were smoking, or where one could acquire the same.

The survey may technically be correct, in the sense that Arjun Rampal is technically a National Award-winning actor, but it does throw up a lot of questions. For example, who were the respondents who said that Mumbai was cheap to live in? I mean where did the economists conduct this survey – in the bathroom at Aurus? The Antilla rooftop? Sharad Pawar’s back-pocket?

Barring the jokes in this column, there’s nothing in the city that I can consider cheap. Take, for example, the three basic necessities of life – beer, rum and other alcohol. Along with its garbage-strewn streets and Jackky Bhagnani’s career, the alcohol price hike is something that Mumbai should be ashamed of. The city stopped being the ‘second cheapest in the world’ when we were forced to start choosing between house parties and house payments.

And that brings me to my next point – midget Hitler. Ok no, I mean housing. I would like to see you walk up to the average Mumbaikar who’s paying about half of Nigeria’s GDP to enjoy beautiful views of his neighbour’s wet laundry, while simultaneously trying to not step on the 372 people sharing the little pencil box that he calls home, and tell him how lucky he is to be living in the second cheapest city in the world. You’d be destroyed quicker than a disputed structure at a rath yatra.

According to the survey, the four cheapest cities in the world are (in order) Karachi, Mumbai, Teheran and New Delhi. I don’t know what it’s like to live in Delhi, but I’m sure it’s cheaper than Bombay, unless you’re getting married. Then you’d have to sell your Bombay home just to be able to afford bartenders (cost not inclusive of their bullet-proof vests)

Also, I don’t know about Karachi, but if it’s so cheap to live there, people would stop joining terror camps and stick to more traditional occupations, like match-fixing.

We like to delude ourselves into believing that we can change things, which is why we voted in the BMC elections. Of course, by ‘we’, I mean 46% of the city, aka one local train compartment. And of course, the Sena-BJP alliance won, thanks to their ace strategy of not being the Congress. Seriously, people are so pissed off these days that a dead sewer rat would win more votes than the Congress. (Mind you, I’m not equating the two. At least rats are industrious.)

So what can one expect now? With the incumbents back at the helm of the BMC, Mumbaikars can look forward to great innovations and efficiency in the field of ugly political posters. And as for the city being cheap, let’s face it – the only being that has a cushy existence in this city is the idol at Siddhivinayak.

There is one thing that’s really cheap here though – the life of the citizen reading this column. Then again, things could be worse. You could be in Karachi.

(This is my HT column dated 26th Feb 2012. You can read it on the HT site here.)

And the Award For The Most Surreal Experience Goes To…

The past few weeks have been pretty ordinary for me. You know how it is. Sometimes you hit that humdrum phase in life, when all you do is wake up, go to work and hang out with Shah Rukh Khan at Mannat.

Alright, I’m kidding. I meant Shah Rukh Khan and Ranbir Kapoor.

This happened because I was part of the writing team that scripted a recent Bollywood award function, hosted by the two stars. I must refer to these as the Slimfare Awards, because we in the media hate to acknowledge the existence of rival companies, unless we beat them in sales.

Anyway, I was pretty kicked about this, because as an ardent Bollywood fan, I’ve always wanted to have a bunch of stars gather under one roof so that I can make fun of them. My other Bollywood ambitions include something with Katrina and a bubble bath, but let’s not go there.

The brief was pretty straightforward: be witty, crack jokes at stars, but without offending anyone – not an easy task in an industry where most egos are as fragile as Pakistani democracy.

Bad things happen when celebrities get offended. For example, the last person to get offended at an award show was Ashutosh Gowariker (this also took him about six hours) who famously asked host Sajid Khan to shut up. This offended Sajid Khan so much that in order to prove his awesomeness, he went and scored himself a Jacqueline Fernandez. We can all agree that this was one of the lowest points in human history and must never be allowed to happen again.

Another problem was that with 562392 film awards happening at the same time, we had to make sure our script stood out. On the plus side, we made Ra.One jokes in front of SRK, which he took very sportingly, probably because we are not Farah Khan’s obnoxious wife.

As a writer and fan, it was great to be working with SRK. Sure, we sat through marathon meetings wherein he and Ranbir dissected every word of the script, made us rework it, and then rework it some more, and then again, and again, until 15 minutes before the show. (I have a feeling that less work went into the Constitution of India. This explains the appalling lack of anatomy-related puns.)

But the best part came after the meetings, around 1 a.m. or so, when SRK called for drinks. So there we were, a bunch of nobody writers, sitting by the Mannat pool, getting drunk while Shah Rukh regaled us with some of the funniest Bollywood anecdotes ever. It is at times like these that you pause and look back at everything in your life that has led to this moment, trying to remember if you did any hallucinogens recently, because that can be the only explanation for the fact that it is now 5 a.m and the biggest superstar on the planet is giving you a guided tour of his mansion.

And then came the day of the awards. We were squeezed into a little space backstage, watching SRK and Ranbir own the room with their charisma. The laughs were coming thick and fast and that’s when it happened.

Time stood still. Rainbows appeared out of nowhere, while flying unicorns sailed across the room, farting out bursts of summer-scented sunshine, all of which paled in comparison to the ethereal aura that had gently swept across the room.

Madhuri Dixit was on stage.

As you can tell, I’m gay for Madhuri. I don’t usually get star-struck, but when she did an impromptu dhak-dhak bit ten feet away, I was *this* close to rushing on stage and asking her to marry me. I didn’t, only because Dr. Nene seems like a nice man and I don’t want him to be alone.

Later that night, Ranbir won the Best Actor award, which was presented by Rekha, who then won an award for Most Awards Presented By Anybody. Rekha is proof that with the right kind of love and affection, zombies can be a part of regular society too.

We worked hard on the awards, so do check out the telecast on 19^th Feb. We hope you like it. If not, you can mail in your suggestions to Mannat, Bandstand, Bandra.

Your Sentiments Can Go Bleep Themselves

Penis. Vagina. Sex. Crap. Ass. Breast. Beef.

These are just a few of the words that you cannot say on Indian television because they’ve been deemed “obscene” by a bunch of people who can’t even spell the word. We’re constantly told that this is for “protecting sentiments”, which is India’s third favourite pastime after making babies and killing off the female ones.

So yes, with Western programming, words you’d normally find in a Class VI biology textbook are censored, the burnt half of Harvey Dent’s face in ‘The Dark Knight’ is blotted out, while Indian content is mostly just a bunch of ugly, annoying characters going over the top (and that’s just the Lok Sabha channel)

So, if you use TV content and the level of censorship as indicators of progress, it becomes clear that we, as a society, possess all the finesse and erudition of a monkey flinging around its own feces. But hey, at least the sentiments are ok, right?

Well, not really. Our sentiments are like Sania Mirza’s joints – it doesn’t take much to hurt them. You like beef chilli? Nope, you can’t have it, because there are more of us and we’ll beat you to death with lathis – once we’ve dislodged them from our bottoms, that is. You’re gay? Well then, we must raid your private parties because, c’mon, no one ever won an election thanks to the LGBT vote bank. Oh, and what’s that you say? Salman Rushdie is coming to India? Excellent. Here’s my Minority Outrage card. Your move, Congress.

And we all know how that farce played out. Rushdie, one of the biggest draws at the Jaipur Literary Festival, was asked to stay away because of “security concerns”, much to the disappointment of fans who were looking forward to watching him mud-wrestle Chetan Bhagat. (Ok so I haven’t been to many literary fests, but I imagine this is what happens there.)

At the time of writing, Rushdie’s visit was very much on, although both the organisers and the government seemed to be in a tizzy over security arrangements. Last I heard, they had decided to scare away attackers by having Shobhaa De stand at the entrance, minus make-up.

Our leaders know it’s a good idea to hedge their bets on jingoistic non-issues, because it gets results without having to do real work. Consider Madhya Pradesh, a place that boasts of having nothing to boast about. In M.P, the punishment for cow slaughter (and this includes consumption as well) was recently upped to seven years, which incidentally, is the same as the minimum sentence for rape.

See, I didn’t know that eating beef was as bad as raping someone. I never saw a film in which Gulshan Grover sneaks up on a woman, and then commits the heinous crime of eating a steak in front of her.

We’re the ones to blame for this. Of course, when I say ‘we’, I don’t mean myself. I’m talking about people with stupid sentiments.

If your sentiments are based on Magic Overlords In The Sky who will get angry because someone, somewhere might be seen as going against the teachings of books that are clearly the work of generations of shroom-addled storytellers, then yes, your sentiments are stupid.

(Don’t get me wrong – you’re still entitled to believe in magic elephants, winged horses, prophetic teddy bears and what not, but I’m also entitled to call it insane, without the fear of being turned into human seekh kabab. That is how free speech works.)

Before I end, I’d like to apologise if this column has hurt your sentiments in any way. Now stop flinging around your poop. You want a banana?

(Note: This is my HT column dated 22nd Jan 2012. E-paper link here.)

Freedom Means Never Having To Wear Pants

We’re a week into 2012, and I’m proud to announce that so far, I’ve managed to stick to both my New Year resolutions (“Drink More Rum” and “Fall More Sick”) Not just that, I also managed a third, which was “Move Out Of Parents’ Home You Idiot Man-child.”

That’s right – I, for the first time ever, am living in my own apartment. King of the castle. Master of the domain. Walker in the nude. You get the idea.

I’m lucky because I managed to find a place in Bandra (or ‘West Worli’ or ‘North West Cuffe Parade Province’ or whatever the builders are calling it these days) My office is just down the road, which means I no longer have to spend hours in a local, my nose buried in some stranger’s armpit (I prefer the armpits of people I know)

This sudden availability of free time is most welcome, because as it turns out, living on your own involves a lot of work. Contrary to expectation, life is not like an episode of Friends. Or wait… it is like Friends, except that I’m Monica and I have to cook, clean, scrub, decorate, host and to make things worse, my flatmate looks nothing like Jennifer Aniston (although it would be creepy if he did)

Now there are many things in life that I’m good at, like writing, performing, and having serious conversations with women about haircare. But cooking has never been my forte. However, I braved it out in the kitchen recently, learning to whip up tasty and healthy meals. Hah no, I’m kidding. My body composition is now 80% McGrease and 20% Crippling Fattie Shame.

And there is a very good reason for my lack of real-world skills; it’s called The Indian Mother.

That’s right, because we Indian boys are the most mollycoddled and dependent species on the planet, possibly ahead of Norman Bates. In all my time at home, I never lifted a finger – not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t have to. Indian mothers will pamper their sons all the way into adulthood, resting only once they’ve made them Prime Minister.

On the upside, things like storage and decoration become a lot easier if you’re a man. For example, I don’t have a cupboard, but using only my masculine skills and bare hands, I’ve managed to create a fantastic garment-storage structure, technically known as ‘a pile of clothes’. Over time, this pile has evolved into an entire ecosystem and although I cannot be sure, I think some Bangladeshis have sneaked in and set up home there.

As far as decor goes, we’ve used a minimalistic theme for the drawing room, because we have no money to buy furniture. It’s completely bare, like a dinner table at the Hazare house. This emptiness inspires two very different reactions, described below.

Female Friends: Ooh, big empty room. We can decorate it with fairy lights, and new cushions and curtains and carpets and sofas and fabric – OHMYGOD I AM SO TURNED ON RIGHT NOW!

Guy Friends: Ooh, big empty room. We can play underarm cricket here. And this floor will be great for that spin thing I learnt in the 3^rd standard – OHMYGOD I AM SO TURNED ON RIGHT NOW!

The next step is to develop my ‘Guy Network’. This is a common Bombay thing, wherein you have a bunch of guys to do everything you’re too busy to do – finish the laundry, buy groceries, repair stuff, please the wife – everything. As of now, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows other guys, so it’s all good. And if things get a bit too overwhelming, I’m calling Mommy.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 8th Jan 2012. E-paper link here)

So long 2011, and thanks for all the laughs

It’s that time again, when we must take a deep, hard look at the year gone by and think to ourselves, “Where will I be throwing up this New Year’s Eve?” So while you go ahead and take a second to do that, I’d like to talk about some of my favourite (read: comedy-friendly) moments of 2011.

The year began on a sedate note, until Advani, Swaraj and Co. decided it would be a good idea to have a ‘Flag Yatra’ in Jammu and Kashmir. Because, y’know, nothing ever goes wrong during a BJP yatra in a communally sensitive region. Of course, this was nothing compared to Advani’s mega road trip later in the year, which, despite all the brickbats, revealed one vital fact: Advani is so old, he was once friends with the people whose bodies decomposed and eventually turned into the fuel powering his bus.

Then of course, there was that random insignificant day when WE WON THE GODDAMN WORLD CUP! WOOOHOOO! DHONI CLINCHED IT WITH A SIX, CAUSING MILLIONS OF INDIANS TO GOOSEBUMP IN PLACES THAT EVEN THEIR LOVERS AREN’T LEGALLY ALLOWED TO TOUCH!

Then the year got even more interesting when news about Pakistan’s most famous resident caused millions to break out in broad smiles. But enough about Veena Malik’s nude picture.

Osama Bin Laden was finally shot dead, or as the average Pakistani puts it, ‘Sheikh reached the VIP lounge in Heaven and is now chilling with 72 virgins, some of whom may be goats.’

Of course, Osama wasn’t the only one who suffered a horrific fate this year. I speak for millions of innocent Indian citizens, whose hopes and dreams were dealt a cruel blow that they’ll never recover from. That’s right – liquor prices were hiked by 60% across Maharashtra, making this the only growth the state will see in a long, long time.

In other alcohol-related bias, Anna Hazare announced on television that drinkers should be flogged in public, ironically displaying the same level of logic and tact you’d associate with someone who’s twelve pegs down. However, despite these extreme, violent views, Anna is still very much a Gandhian. Varun Gandhian.

The year then hit festive mode, with citizens gearing up to celebrate one of India’s biggest and flashiest festivals, the release of Ra.One. As an SRK fan, let me just say, without any prejudice, that Ra.One was an SFX-laden load of horse poop. To top it off, the Ra.One marketing campaign was about as subtle as a shotgun wound. It basically featured SRK’s face staring at you from practically every hoarding on every signal at every road. Who the hell does he think he is – Rahul Gandhi?

Now let’s move on to slightly more recent events. Mayawati declared that she wanted to split U.P into four parts, i.e. savings account, fixed deposit, pension plan and statue fund.

Then of course, came the whopper, as Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal announced that he wanted to prescreen user-generated content on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This is like standing in a downpour, trying to collect and examine every drop of water before it hits the ground.

Unexpectedly, Narendra Modi disagreed with Sibal’s views, saying that free speech was of utmost importance and that everyone in Gujarat – be it man, woman, rich, poor, Hindu, Muslim – everyone had the freedom to say good things about Modi.

So there you have it – a round-up of the subjects I enjoyed observing and writing about the most this year. This is my last column of 2011, so I’ll see you on the flipside. In the meantime, you can write in at thecongressisawesome@becausesibalsaidso.com.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 18th Dec, 2011)