Tobacco May Kill Common Sense

WARNING: The following column contains references to smoking, which is injurious to health and also makes you smell like an ashtray. Developing embryos are advised to stop reading right now.

Cigarettes have always been the most stylish way of getting lung cancer. You know this, I know this and the dumbest dungbeetle on the planet knows this. But recently, a few BJP MPs stunned the scientific establishment by saying that we maybe kinda need more studies to establish a clear link between tobacco and cancer, in the same way that we need more evidence to find a link between gravity and falling off a building.

The gentlemen in question were Dilip Gandhi and Shyama Charan Gupta, members of a parliamentary panel whose job, among other things, was to decide whether or not to increase the size of pictorial warnings on tobacco products from 40% to 85%. Another logical argument that came up during this process was, “I can show you so many chain smokers who do not have cancer”, which is like saying “I saw that one dude on TV who eats tubelights and he seems fine, so maybe swallowing crushed glass is okay for you.”

Fun Fact: Mr. Gupta owns Shyam Bidi Works, one of the largest bidi manufacturers in the country, but I’m sure that’s a total coincidence. Sanjay Jha, aka the Congress’s version of Suhel Seth, weighed in on this coincidence, saying that one did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to see the vested interests at play. At this point, a lesser man would have retired to the mountains, filled with loathing about the fact that he made Sanjay Jha appear sensible.

Thankfully, the government rebutted all of Gupta and Gandhi’s arguments with an official statement saying “Bhai, tu rehn de”, and said that they would go ahead with the plan to increase the size of pictorial warnings. This is great news for all those who believe that smokers actually care about such things. You could sell the damn things with a warning that says ‘THIS IS POISON. IT WILL ROT YOU FROM THE INSIDE AND TURN YOU INTO A HUMAN TUMOUR WITH A VOICE THAT SOUNDS LIKE RANI MUKHERJEE AND FARHAN AKHTAR GARGLING TOGETHER’ and it wouldn’t matter.

By all means, double the size of the images of the mouth sores and lesions and tumours, because that’s just more real-estate for smokers to ignore. Heck, you could sell cigarettes encased inside an actual diseased lung – have them fish out a pack from inside a blackened, slimy slab of cancerous tissue – and their only reaction would be, “Bro you have a light or what?”

This is the part where I get to be smug and say that I don’t smoke, because I have amazing willpower and I should get a medal for it. But the truth is that I can’t handle it, which is the only good thing about having a rubbish respiratory system. My lungs are so sensitive, they perform slam poetry on weekends.

I know this because like every stupid college kid out there, I tried. For a couple of weeks, I checked out a bunch of options to see what the fuss was about. The reviews ranged from coughing and puking (gold flakey nonsense) to nausea and puking (milds) to expensive nausea and puking (“David Hoff”, as a friend put it) to a double shot of impotence (“girly menthol crap”) and of course, the garams, that were lit ten years ago and are probably still burning.

I didn’t try beedis because you’re only allowed to smoke those if you’re squatting outside a building gate with a muffler wrapped around your head. All in all, it was a daft thing to do, especially because I live in Mumbai and I can get free cancer home-delivered to my body just by breathing.

Whenever this issue comes up, there are always people who wonder why you can’t just ban tobacco outright. It’s a complex issue involving agriculture, finance, trade and science but I’m going to try and break it down for you:

Money good. People like money. People no like if you mess with their money. Mmmmm. Money. *frolics naked in a pool of dollar bills*

What works though, are all the restrictions on advertising, public smoking and of course, not selling to minors, which is really the big one. So if you’re a young person reading this, do not even bother trying to smoke. Those things are super addictive, like heroin or popping bubble wrap, and quitting is going to be a pain. Seriously, you’re better off eating tubelights.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 26th Apr 2015.)

I’m Too Sexist For This Tweet

Old people can be hugely entertaining, as anyone who has ever heard their grandfather casually emit a jackhammer-style burp in public will agree. If they’re extra old, they may even throw in some ‘Thunder from Down Under’ in the middle of a serious conversation and carry on like nothing happened. But those bodily noises are nothing compared to the sounds that sometimes come out of their mouths, causing outrage and embarrassment among people who are still young enough to care about things.

One such incident took place this week when former Press Council chairman and retired Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju tweeted, and I quote, “I regard Shazia Ilmi much more beautiful than Kiran Bedi. If Shazia had been made their C.M. candidate BJP wud have definitely won the Delhi elections. People vote for beautiful faces, as in Croatia. Even a person like me who does not vote wud have voted for Shazia.”

There were two kinds of reactions to his statement. One: “I don’t see the problem. He’s right and now I also want a pretty CM so I’m going to vote for Deepika Padukone.” And two, which was “It is sexist and demeaning to reduce women politicians to their looks, especially when their job is dependent not on beauty but on other skills, like taking U-turns. After all, nobody ever says that about male politicians even though most of their faces look like the underside of my shoe after a trek through Dharavi.”

Mr. Katju later clarified that he’d made the statement “in lighter vein” which is completely believable. I’m not even being sarcastic here. His thoughts echo a sentiment that flows naturally off the whiskey-soaked tongues of Indian uncles. You know the kind of people I’m talking about. They’re the ones who will forward you “hilarious” pati-patni jokes on Whatsapp, where the punchline is about how all a wife does is nag and then suck the life out of her husband’s credit card. Or the thigh-slapper about how all mothers-in-law have Nazgul DNA. Old people would be a great audience for comedy shows that take place in 1950 aka Every Show On Indian TV Right Now.

Despite how good we are at it, sexism isn’t just an Indian thing. It is universally understood that no matter how accomplished or brilliant a woman, she will always be judged on her looks. This is a problem because despite years of conditioning, women stubbornly refuse to morph into item girls with the brain of Stephen Hawking. Instead , they have the audacity to demand equal treatment. I’m sorry, but equality is for men only.

One good thing about this demand is that it sometimes leads to awkward hilarity. Take, for example, the case of Colleen McCullough, a best-selling Australian author who passed away this week at the age of 77. She started off as a neurophysiologist and then, deciding that the human brain was too simple a challenge, went on to write books that sold upwards of 30 million copies.

So naturally, any obituary of hers should include the words “Thanks for making me feel dumb and useless”, except that an Australian paper chose to open with, “Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth.” This is basically a polite way of saying, “Meh, she wasn’t like, hot or anything, but she was okay.”

This caused a fair amount of outrage as well, and understandably so. It’s a bit like writing an obituary for Marie Curie that goes, “An ordinary face, on a boring body that won two Nobel thingies for science, despite being a girl and sucking at math.” Or penning a teary farewell to Sachin Tendulkar that says, “Short of height, with frizzy hair and a mousy voice, he nonetheless managed to hit a ball successfully for many years until he retired and cried in public, that little wuss.”

I’m sure if you tried to explain the nuances of sexism to an Indian uncle, he’d just dismiss it as a ‘first-world problem’ and compare it to his childhood where women weren’t allowed to breathe unless they had a panchnama signed by a male gazetted officer or something. It leads me to wonder about the rubbish I will spout when I’m grey and cranky. Will it be harmless stuff like, “Kids, your music is giving me a nosebleed” or will it be something more insiduous? I have no clue, but whatever it is, I’ll be sure to follow it up with a nice, long belch-a-thon. Because that is real beauty.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 1st Feb 2014.)

I Predict That You Will Read This Title

I hereby announce that I am incredibly proud to be an Indian. Like a Bombay gutter in the monsoon, my pores are overflowing with desi ghee as I type this with my long, straight fingers that coincidentally look like an ‘I’, which stands for ‘India: The Birthplace of the Universe And All Good Things In It, Except Biryani Which Is Invader Food’. I’m just seconds away from spraying on my signature scent – Eau De Chicken Tikka Masala – and being chased down the street by nubile Indian belles who want to tie me a rakhi because culture is best bro.

I wasn’t always like this, but I’ve seen the light thanks to right-wing visionaries whom I didn’t even vote for. I guess that’s the beauty of democracy. Even if I voted against them, I can reap the benefits of being ruled by people like former Uttarakhand CM and BJP MP, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, who claimed in the Lok Sabha this week that an Indian sage had conducted nuclear tests in the 2^nd century BC. He also said that astrology was the topmost science, and that regular science – y’know, with all its stupid experiments and proofs and logic – was a pygmy compared to astrology.

See, that’s the kind of glory that causes my chakras to swell up with joy. Gone are the days when India was only known for giving white people hernias with the Kama Sutra. The world will now worship us as the people who made the first nukes – even before the atom had been discovered – and they will bow before our might. Or they would, if we could locate those old nuke designs. I don’t know what happened to them. Maybe they were stolen by ancient terrorists who, as we all know, were invented by Pakistan.

Nishank was also of the opinion that there must be a proper discussion on astrology in the Lok Sabha, which makes sense because most of our politicians were alive when the planets were formed. Now a lot of you might dismiss astrology as a frivolous, non-science, but it is much more than that. It’s also hugely profitable. It provides employment to hundreds of thousands of wastrels across the country, way more than any silly IIT.

Astrology saves people from the rigours of having to go out and earn an honest living. People may refer to astrologers as hacks, often comparing them to other charlatans like aura-readers or investment bankers. But astrology takes serious skill. You have to train really hard to keep a straight face and not say “LOL dumbass” while accepting a client’s money.

In case you’re still sceptical, let me show you how my predictions this week changed my life. My zodiac sign is Aries, as is Robert Downey Jr.’s, so yeah, I’m basically Iron Man. Here are actual predictions India’s top astrologers made about me today:

“You will desire absolute freedom in whatever you do today.”

Holy pigballs! How did they know?! Yes, this is true. I desire absolute freedom in what I do today, but only today. On every other day, I want to be bound, gagged and slapped around like Rajpal Yadav in a Priyadarshan movie. Also, the genius of this prediction is that it applied to most Indians before 1947, and also to every teenager ever. And speaking of teenagers…

“A lot of entertainment is on the cards for teenagers, like window shopping or going for a movie.”

If by “window shopping or going for a movie” you meant “taking pictures of their junk”, then yes, this prediction works too.

“You shall be eager to complete all your assignments well in time.”

(NOTE FROM ASHISH’S EDITOR: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously, screw this guy. He’s like the Air India of freelance writers.)

“Those in strained relationships shall be able to find a solution, but for that to work you shall have to keep a cool head.”

Now I’m glad I got this information. It’s something I would never have figured out otherwise. But I wish I’d read it sooner, because now there’s a rapidly-spreading blood stain on my carpet and I don’t know what to do. Dammit. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I were a godman.

Once again, I’d like to thank all those who, with their informed decisions, made this current state of affairs possible. And if you’re still sitting on the fence then get down because that sounds painful, and join me in drinking the Kool-Aid. Or as it was called in India, som ras.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 7th Dec 2014.)

Happy Teacher’s Day, Whether You Like It Or Not

It was Teacher’s Day this week, or as I like to call it, “Ashish, get out of the class.” Every year, around this time, I get nostalgic about all the fun I had in school, especially the part where I wasn’t forced to sit around and listen to Prime Minister Modi’s speech about how I was the future of the nation and how I should respect my elders and floss every night and stop doing the awesome thing that I had just discovered because it was against our culture.

Mind you, this has nothing to do with my political beliefs. It’s just that if you make a kid stick around in school for longer than absolutely necessary, he’s bound to hate you with an intensity otherwise reserved for tinday ki sabzi. If Modi wants the students of today to grow up and vote for him, he should save his speechwriters the trouble and just give the brats a free period. (Throw in a Shin Chan catchphrase and you’d have those kids begging their parents for a lotus tattoo.)

In the run-up to 5^th September, there seemed to be a lot of confusion about whether or not it was mandatory for schools to telecast his address. The truth depended on how much coffee the fact-checkers had had, but for me, the most striking image was one that had been going around on social media. It was a photo of a classroom full of kids, say about eight to ten years old, watching Modi’s address, except one boy was standing in the foreground doing the little finger “May I go pee?” gesture, with a teacher pointing at him to sit down while also giving him a death stare, like he’d asked to pee on her foot or something.

I’m not sure if that photo will get shared a lot, but if it becomes big enough, these are the headlines you can expect to see:

NitiCentral: PM SPEECH STRENGTHENS YOUNG BLADDERS ACROSS THE NATION, THEREBY REDUCING THE RISK OF CANCER BY 832%

Sagarika Tweet: The boy’s pained expression proves that he is from the minority community. This is a dangerous precedent!!. Should we start communal fires that our pee can’t extinguish?!!!

Buzzfeed: 16 Hilarious Indian Gestures That Signify Susu

Instagram: <High-saturation Photo Of Lower-Middle Class Man Peeing On A Wall That Says Something Rustic Like ‘Gadhe Ke Poot, Yahaan Mat Moot’>

Firstpost: A 6000-Word Piece On Why Indian Girls Don’t Have The Confidence To Stand Up And Do The Finger Pee Gesture #Misogyny #Patriarchy #NobodyWillReadThis

And finally, Chetan Bhagat would announce his new book: a story about a boy from middle-class India, with a middle-class driver-type name like Sunil or Ramesh, whose English is not very goodly speaking because of full middle-classness only. After having middle-class water from a middle-class hotel (which is what middle-class people call restaurants) the boy would rush to empty his middle-class bladder in the toilet of his MBA college, which he joined to rise above his middle-classness, even though he really wanted to pursue his passion for MMS film-making.

But Sunil-slash-Ramesh would enter the girls loo by mistake, where he’d meet and fall in love with a rich girl, who pees wherever she wants to because she’s rich. The movie rights would be snapped up for a hundred crores, while “real” Indian authors – people who know that Whitbread is not a source of carbs – would sit around weeping tears of blood into their manuscripts featuring a poor brown man contemplating the nature of karma while trapped in a quagmire of Naxalism and also an actual quagmire, because that’s where all poor people live. (This man would be Bengali because, c’mon, when was the last time you saw somebody write stuff like this about Noida guys?)

Overall, the PM’s address appears to have been a success. The Prime Minister said all the right things, like blahblahblahblahblah thank you for listening, go home and chill now. Or at least that’s how the kids must’ve heard it. Jokes aside, I’m sure many of those kids will grow up to vote for the BJP. Years from now, you’ll see them at polling booths, fervently looking for the tinday ki sabzi symbol.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 7th Sep 2014.)

Warning: Sex Education May Be Injurious To Ignorance

Indians have been waging a war on sex for ages, mostly by having lots of it. The latest gladiator to step into the arena is Union Health Minister, Dr. Alok Nath Harsh Vardhan, who wants sex education to be banned in schools, and yoga to be made compulsory. These two points appear together on his agenda, as if the latter would negate the former, which is ridiculous because yoga makes you flexible and toned and that just helps you score better. (Notable exception: Baba Ramdev.)

To be fair, this appears on Harsh Vardhan’s personal website so it’s not like the BJP has specifically advocated it as a party. I, for one, cannot imagine them ever promoting a populist agenda based on some antiquated notion of culture. But it’s also reasonable to think that Dr. Harsh Vardhan should know better, given the professional title attached to his name. He’s an ENT specialist, so now I’m wondering how he treats colds. Does he ban breathing? Or maybe he tells people that they can never, ever, ever, EVER know about the existence of ice cream because it could be bad for their throats.

Here’s the problem with that approach: people, especially youngsters, really like ice cream. They don’t care about the flavor – at that age, they just want to get down and dirty with a tub of the good stuff, and they’d take eight helpings a day if you let them. With chocolate sauce on top. And that’s not a metaphor.

For some reason, conservatives seem to believe that teaching kids about sex is the same as telling them go frolic as if they were extras on Game of Thrones. We’re talking about a species that is 30% acne and 70% crappy EDM, so clearly, they should stay far away from badonkadonkadonk. But they do need to know about the workings of the human body and mind, because should they choose to mess up their childhood with sexual dynamics that adults are barely able to deal with, they’ll at least know enough to not accidentally produce more Pitbull fans.

The first form of sex ed I ever got was from Shabana Azmi on a DD ad, telling us that “AIDS chhoone se nahin phailta”. That was when my generation learnt that you got AIDS when a woman dug her long red fingernails into your back. I also got a lot of sex ed from Ramsay movies, so even at age seven, I knew that if you took your clothes off and got a bump-and-grind massage under a bed sheet, you would get attacked by a vampire. It was a pretty apt metaphor for STDs, so let it never be said that the Ramsays weren’t subtle.

But I want this generation to have a more informed outlook than I did, while also remaining true to their Indian roots. That’s why I put together this little culturally-approved sexplainer, which defines various aspects related to sex, such as:

Safe Sex: Ctrl+Shift+N.

Unsafe Sex: A union that’s frowned upon by Haryanvi elders.

Appropriate sexual position: Anything that results in a male child.

Foreplay: Company offsite to Bangkok.

Sex with strangers: Bad. Wrong. Terrible. Anti-National. Unless the coitus is preceded by a ceremony where the stranger is coated in haldi, as if he were a bhindi, and someone has been paid to tell you that the stars and planets bless your caste-approved rishta because that’s just how significant you are to the universe, and of course, an obscenely bloated party that only reminds you that most of your “relatives” are just freeloading douchenuggets.

BDSM: Acts involving domination and gratification through humiliation. See arranged marriage above.

That should be enough to get youngsters started on the path to knowledge. For everything else, there’s always the Internet which, incidentally, also gets a fair share of ban threats. Maybe things would be better if people just loosened up and got themselves some ice cream.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 29th June 2014.)

It’s All Good. Nothing To See Here. Move On Now.

16th May, 2014 will go down in history as the day India gifted a whopping majority to its new and controversial Prime Minister, Arnab Goswami. If the result wasn’t proof enough of a Modi wave, consider the following true story: A couple in Indore named their twin boys — born on 16th May — ‘Narendra’ and ‘Modi’. (This was a source of great joy for them, but not so much for their older triplets, Lal, Krishna and Advani.)

But the most pressing question here is, do people still name their babies Narendra? On the plus side, that’s one less kid named Aryan, which lowers the douchebag count by one. But on the other hand, you just know that all the other kids are going to call him Uncle all through school, until he graduates and becomes a retired LIC agent.

He’ll still have it better than his brother, whose first name is also a last name. It’s like naming your kid Gupta Sharma. Why would you do that? Also, if the kids start flunking school, do they get renamed to ‘Dammit’ and ‘Rahul’?

The problem is that even though the results are clear, a certain section of alarmist, book-reading liberals are harping on about their concern for free speech. It’s ridiculous. Why would you think that free speech is under threat? Just because Modi’s BJP will rule the roost in huge numbers, while the opposition wields all the influence of a potato? That’s insane, and it’s exactly what the ISI wants you to believe. Let me assure you that dissent and political humour are going to flourish in the years to come. In fact, I’m going to prove it to you with the following anti-establishment jokes:

Q. Why did Modi cross the road?
A. Because Congress is corrupt.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Modi.
Modi who?
Pappu hai hai!

Q. How many Modis does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Sagarika is a Bangladeshi bai.

Modi walks into a bar. And raises it.

You see what I mean? There’s no problem at all. Nope.

And yet, the critics persist. One recent report that got their Fabindia panties in a bunch involved the arts and culture cell of the BJP. Apparently they’re looking to actively develop and support films that showcase traditional Indian values, which, as it turns out, is not just shots of flowers grinding against each other. The film they cited as an example was DDLJ, which promotes the great Indian custom of going halfway across the world to infiltrate the wedding of a girl you once hung out with for a week.

DDLJ also showcases the glorious Indian tradition of fixing a match for your daughter when she’s just a baby, and then uprooting her from a lifetime in suburban London so that she can marry a lecherous stranger and live in a village in India, because people in London are bad and they drink beer.

It also features the classic ‘Hey Simran, I kinda date-raped you when you were drunk lololol this is so funny why aren’t you laughing oh crap I was just kidding’ scene, wherein we learn that Raj Malhotra would never do something like that, not because of the depravity of the act, but because of his (drumrolllll) Indianness.

That, my friends, is the power of culture. So these Lashkar-loving hippies should really stop overthinking the connect between the BJP and the underlying message of DDLJ i.e. your joy is at the mercy of angry old people.

But the report that really sparked off outrage among the Macaulayan parasite class was about how a shipbuilding professional faces serious jail time for allegedly posting an anti-Modi opinion on a Goa-related Facebook group. Thankfully, the cops are checking to see if this is part of a “larger game plan to promote communal and social disharmony [in Goa]”. These Maoist seal-clubbers can whine all they want, but our balanced sense of justice has foiled what would’ve been a devastating communal clash in Goa. It would’ve played out somewhat like this:

Goan Guy 1: Hey, so I disagree with this FB post. In fact, I’m so angry that I’m going to pick up weapons and cause some communal disharmony. Wanna come?

Goan Guy 2: You mad or what men? It’s siesta time.

So clearly, the hysterical jhola agents need to calm down and do a shot of aam ras. They can’t always expect things to go their way and be “fair” or “logical”. You know the old adage: if you want to make an omelette, you have to arrest a few eggs. Or as Raj Malhotra once said, “Bade bade democracies mein aisi chhoti chhoti baatein hoti rehti hain.”

(Note: This is my HT column dated 25th May 2014.)

BREAKING NEWS: There’s Nothing To Report Today

I know it is immature to make the following confession in a respectable newspaper column, which is why I’m going to do it in mine: I’m sick of the elections. I can’t go five minutes without being reminded by the radio, TV and the internet that soon, Modi will cure AIDS while doing dandiya around the sun, and that Rahul will go back to his real birthplace of Mordor to focus on Gollum Empowerment.

It can be difficult to keep up with all the idiocy being generated on an hourly basis, which is why I suggest you throw out your TV, because the following news report should fill you in on everything you need to know. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… <drumrollll> 

EVERY ELECTION NEWS SHOW EVER

Anchor: Good evening and welcome to The Noise Hour, starring I, me, myself as Arnab Sardesai Stormborn Dutt, Bringer of Justice and Mother of Decibels. Tonight, we will spend 72853 minutes dissecting the latest instance of monkeys flinging faeces at each other and calling it a political debate.

The issue we’re discussing tonight is a shocking, stunning, repulsive, disgusting and life-changing issue, mostly because my scriptwriter has a Ph.D in Amazingly Good Adjectives. What we want to know is, how did Digvijay get attacked for his leaked pictures that show Modi referring to Priyanka as a daughter who should stay chaste because Abu Azmi still lives in 643 BC?

Joining us on the show is Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha Tewari, along with his BJP counterpart Meenakshi Lekhiraman –

Sanjay Jha Tewari: (interrupting) Arnab, this is clearly a flawed attempt by the BJP at destabilising the democratic fabric of the nation. This is fascism. Nazism. Exorcism. I LOVE RAJIV GANDHI AUTOMATIC RETORT YOJANA! Sorry, what was the question again?

Lekhiraman: As an immensely accomplished lawyer, let me just say that your face is a suxxx.

Arnab: It’s been six seconds since the audience heard my voice, so now I’m going to cite some facts and numbers while waving about a few sheets of paper that, for all you know, I use to play FLAMES. With myself. I complete me.

Sanjay Jha Tewari: I’m going to counter your facts with a digression. What is 2006 minus 4?

Lekhiraman: According to my party’s calculations, 2006 – 4 = 1979 + 5.

Arnab: Very classy. Now let’s go to an on-ground reporter who’s stuck in some Gaonpur village that we can all pretend to care about for three minutes.

CUT TO: A reporter standing near something that emphasizes the idea of rural life, like a bunch of naked toddlers running around next to a hut, or a man trying to marry his buffalo.

Reporter: I’m going to walk towards the camera while talking about this village, which is the kind of place that gets electricity about three times a year, and that too when it’s struck by lightning. Oh look, now I’m close enough to the camera, which means it’s time to ask the one question that villagers here have been asking for generations, i.e. when will Gaonpur get its own trending hashtag on Twitter?

CUT TO: More shots of rural life; a fly homing in on a snot bubble under a kid’s nose as he stares balefully at the camera, a woman walking while balancing six pots, two chickens and three helicopters on her head, Prakash Jha in a corner, taking notes for his next movie.

Reporter: Now I’m sitting next to an old man who is also wise, because he has a zen-like toothless smile that surely has nothing to do with the herb in his hookah.

Old man: (subtitles) It’s cute how you city folk are huffing and puffing about free speech and pub timings. I’d like to care, but the last meal I had was in 1963, so I’m going to vote for the guy who can change that. But only if he’s from my caste.

Reporter: I’m now going to end this capsule with some vague statement about the future of Gaonpur. Will 2014 bring it much-needed change? Only time will tell. Que sera sera. Bailamos.

BACK TO THE STUDIO:

Arnab: We have with us now expert psephologist, Stats McStatterson, who has some clear predictions about Gaonpur.

Statterson: In my expert opinion, the Congress will win, unless the BJP wins, in which case the Congress will lose. Or the AAP might just pull off an upset, in which case both the BJP and the Congress lose. I get paid to say this all day.

Arnab: There you have it, India. A definitive answer. On tomorrow’s show, we shall solve yet another mystery: Are there anti-national messages encoded in the frequency of Kejriwal’s cough?

Audience: *throws TV out of the window*

(Note: This is my HT column dated 4th May 2014.)    

Now He’s Crazy, Now He’s Not, Now He’s Crazy…

I’m not saying Arvind Kejriwal is honest, but every time he fights corruption, Akhilesh Yadav’s nose grows an inch.  But wait – six seconds have passed since that previous statement, which means that Kejriwal is now a clueless dharna fetishist who’s just one Che T-shirt away from hawking anarchy. This kind of flip-flop pretty much sums every discussion about the Aam Aadmi Party this week, as they stood accused of everything from racism and sexism to water-boarding old ladies for fun.

People aren’t being able to make up their minds about the AAP, as opposed to their rivals who are instantly described as <insert nasty spitting sound here> (Fun fact: When somebody spits in Modi’s Gujarat, the saliva gets recycled and diverted to the Rann of Kutch for rain dances.)

Here’s a quick rundown of the circus that sullied the AAP’s honeymoon period this week. For best results, imagine it being narrated in Yogendra Yadav’s dulcet tones:

The Delhi law minister, Somnath Batman, swooped down on a drug and prostitution racket in South Delhi, and recovered five kilos of incriminating video evidence against himself. Somnath Bharti was accused of leading a mob that allegedly harassed and assaulted four African women, one of whom later identified him in a court of law. In return, Bharti also identified the woman as being Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Will Smith and Vinod Kambli. (Bharti was last seen at a multiplex showing Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, wherein he tried to handcuff the screen whenever Idris Elba came on.)

Kejriwal then launched a dharna to bring the Delhi police under the ambit of the CM’s office, as opposed to its current boss which is a piece of paper with Gandhiji’s photo on it. The Congress and the BJP took the moral high ground by harping on about proper constitutional process. This was followed by a discourse on feminism by Professor Emeritus Yo Yo Honey Singh.

Kejriwal withdrew the protest after an overnight stay outside Rail Bhavan, which was disappointing, because I quite enjoyed that visual of him wrapped up in a blue-yellow blanket, looking like the world’s most colourful bhuna roll.

Senior AAP member and poet Kumar Vishwas also received major hate for some racist and sexist jokes about Malayali nurses that he’d made at a stand-up show in 2009. The jokes said something to the effect of, “Mallu nurses are so dark and cosmetically challenged that I’m happy to call them ‘sister’.” This is funny because it comes from Kumar Vishwas – a guy who looks like Raju Srivastava took a bath. More than offensive, it’s trite and unoriginal, which is really the worst crime a joke can commit. Vishwas did apologise later, and apparently said that he has nothing against dark women and that he’d totally sleep with them as a goodwill gesture.

Then Chetan Bhagat jumped into the fray, describing the AAP as the item girl of Indian politics, a title previously held by Rahul Baba. Ever since he made that comparison, I can’t help but imagine a bunch of swarthy guys showering Kejriwal with notes, and then he stops them and asks for cheques instead, complete with a PAN number and a proof of income attested by Raghuram Rajan.

Sensing that the level of political discourse was slipping, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde stepped in to describe Kejriwal as a “yeda mukhyamantri”. Yes, we’re calling each other ‘yeda’ now. What is this – a David Dhawan film? What next – referring to the telecom minister as Pappu Pager? Of course, David Dhawan films are way more logical than the Indian political scenario. For example, Haseena Maan Jaayegi makes more sense than a Manish Tiwari speech. (Haseena Maan Jaayegi is also the motto of the ruling party.)

But despite this fiasco of a week, there’s still hope for the AAP. All they have to do is uplift the poor, boost investments, support industry, revive the economy, foster communal harmony, root out corruption, usher in police reforms and most importantly,  get Whatsapp to drop the ‘Last Seen At’ feature. It doesn’t sound difficult at all, so let’s hound them about everything until it’s done. And then we can have a party. Just don’t invite Somnath Bharti.

No AAP Puns Were Used In The Making Of This Headline

I like this part of the year, when people have finally shut up about how “Dude I got so wasted on the 31^st that I made out with the shoe rack it was epic bro”. It’s also when we’ve shrugged off the disappointments of the previous year so as to make room for new steaming piles of disappointment.

Having said that, one thing that I’m really looking forward to in 2014 is the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party. Let’s face it – everyone loves a good underdog story, unless their name is Sheila Dixit. Arvind Kejriwal is Daniel-san from Karate Kid (and now I’m picturing Anna as Mr. Miyagi in a corner going, “Fast on, fast off” before melting into a puddle of irrelevance.)

Kejriwal may have been criticised for his populist schemes but damn it all, because he has created history by becoming the first man from Ghaziabad to ever garner positive press. Otherwise all you get are headlines like “Ghaziabad man slits wrist after pet buffalo spurns his advances.” (In case you Bombay people are wondering, Ghaziabad is sort of like the Kurla of U.P – lots of murders, one mall.)

Now while Kejriwal may have an IIT-IRS background, his most important qualification is still ‘Did Not Preside Over A Scam Factory Or Mass Murder’. Another thing that everyone seems to have latched on to is the extreme middle-classness of the man. For example, everyone loves the fact that he still drives a WagonR, which is understandable because other politicians wouldn’t even let their dogs pee on a WagonR. These relatable traits make for great news, so you can expect to see more such middle-class headlines in the future. For example:

Kejriwal haggles with sabziwala, calls him chor; housewives scream in ecstasy.

Mrs. Kejriwal judges neighbour’s daughter for talking to boy, Khap Panchayat offers external support. 

Kejriwal gets new car sticker that looks like puppy peering out from boot, AAP fans say, “No bro, too much tacky.”

Kejriwal also resonates with the elites because now they get to feel good about themselves by outsourcing their humility to him. This is what people said when they found out about Kejriwal taking the metro:

“Wow, that is commendable. He is a man of the people. Such a nice, middle-class uncle type guy. I bet his hobby is telling every kid in his mohalla to stop playing and go study for IIT-JEE. If this were a film, he’d be the family friend played by Satish Shah. Jai Hind.”

And this is what people actually thought:

“Shoot me if I’m still taking public transport in my 40s.”

It’s hugely entertaining to watch AAP navigate the political arena. The festivities kicked off with the swearing-in ceremony at Ramleela Maidan, where Kejriwal actually started singing about honesty in the middle of his speech, much to the delight of Delhiites who responded with “OYE DJ HONEY SINGH BAJA AUNTY PULLSS BULA LEGI!”

Then we saw the emergence of poet and AAP right-hand man, Kumar Vishwas. (Fun Fact: His romantic poetry is widely used to console North Indian engineering students after they get dumped for being, well, North Indian engineering students.)

Vishwas announced his candidature for 2014 from Amethi, and dared both the Gandhi scion and Narendra Modi to take him on. I like this sudden burst of zing that’s come in after the Delhi victory. The AAP is like a Yashraj heroine who is quiet and demure at first, but then has her first ever drink and transforms into a wild and whimsical beast that fears nothing, not even pre-marital sex. This challenge is basically the AAP’s version of “Dum hai toh bahar nikal!” It’s as if their campaign is sponsored by Maa ka Doodh. (Apparently they hired Dharmendra to help spread this message, but he kept referring to Kumar Vishwas as “Chhotu, drink bana.”)

Kejriwal finally zeroed in on his official residence this week, choosing to forego the bungalow he’s entitled to, for a duplex flat on Bhagwan Das Road, which has to be the most middle-class sounding address in the world. The only way it could be more middle-class is if he bought the flat at Big Bazaar.

But even this wasn’t enough for the BJP, who said that a duplex apartment goes against the principles of austerity. And who better to tell you about fiscal prudence than the party that promises to spend millions on a house for an imaginary being?

So that’s the situation just five days into 2014, and it’s only going to get more chaotic. It’s a long road ahead for the AAP, but I’m optimistic, because those Maruti cars are known to go on for ages.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 5th Jan 2014.)

The One Where We Beat The Mayans. Or Not.

I absolutely love this time of the year. It’s when you get to put work aside and make time for the things that really matter, like reading texts that go “NEW YRZZZ DOUCHEBAG-AND-VOMIT THEMED BASH! AT SWEATY COMMODE CLUB WIT DJ DIDDY SNOOP AKA RAJU! UNLIMITED BOOZE AND OSHIWARA REJECTS! PASSES @ Rs. BLACK-MARKET-KIDNEY ONLY! FISTFIGHTS AND STDs FREE!”

That aside, I also get to reflect on the year gone by, and present to you its biggest, weirdest and most bile-inducing newsmakers. (Spoiler alert: Politicians feature in here. A lot.)

One of my favourite stories is the one about the BJP MLAs caught watching porn in the Karnataka and Gujarat state assemblies. In their defence, senior BJP leader and the current Goa CM, Manohar Parrikar was quoted as saying, “At least they were only watching it and not doing it.” That makes sense. I don’t really see a huge market for BJP-themed erotica, not unless they call it Fifty Shades of Saffron. And as far as the Congress is concerned, there’s no such thing as smut – there’s only Rajiv Gandhi Akhil Bharatiya Hormone Vikas Yojana.

This was also the year Mamata Banerjee made significant strides in the field of Slowly Going Insane And Losing The Plot. Her TMC railway minister was sacked for proposing a much-needed fare hike, a Jadavpur University professor was assaulted and arrested for circulating “defamatory” cartoons of Didi, and the Park Street rape case was brushed off as a “political conspiracy.” Mamata is a woman who just needs to be hugged, ideally by a straitjacket.

Speaking of cartoonists, Aseem Trivedi made quite a splash this year. He was slapped with a sedition charge for his cartoon that depicted the Parliament as a toilet. The comparison was unfair, because no matter how dirty a toilet is, it can always be cleaned.

Aseem’s case was just one of many that highlighted the government’s policy towards free speech and online censorship. There was also Shaheen Dhada, who was arrested and harassed for a Facebook post criticising the shutdown of Bombay following the death of He Who Must Not Be Named. It’s weird how the party that wants locals to work more is also the party skilled at shutting down the city, forcing them to sit at home. Following threats, Shaheen and her family had to flee to Surat. Because clearly, when you want to stay away from right-wing fanatics, Gujarat is the place to be.

The centre’s approach towards free speech has been dracon- HAHA, IGNORE ME I WAS JUST KIDDING THE GOVERNMENT IS AMAZING. IN SIBAL WE TRUST. DEEP BENEATH THOSE AMAZONIAN EYEBROWS IS A MAN WHO TRULY WANTS THE BEST FOR CONGRESS US. THIS COLUMN HAS IN NO WAY BEEN TAMPERED WITH. GOOD NIGHT AND KISS TO DEMOCRACY.

2012 will also be remembered as the year Sachin Tendulkar announced his retirement from ODIs. You could see this coming. He’d already taken up the Rajya Sabha offer, which, on the ‘I Am Now Ready To Be Useless’ scale is one step away from hawking Sandhi Sudha. Sachin has done more for the popularity of Marathi than any political party. Every Indian is now familiar with his catchphrases, ‘Aila!’, ‘Aai-guh’ and ‘Aey Vinod, chala gaadi park kara c*****!’

In other sports news, our athletes won six Olympic medals in London, which is six more than the Centre expected them to win. The government honoured the athletes’ grit and determination by reinstating Suresh Kalmadi as Chairman of the IOA. This is like going off to fight at Kargil and returning to find that your mom has married Musharraf, and there’s karela for dinner.

And in this way, 2012 kept moving from idiot to idiot, from the ordinary to the frivolous, just like any other year, until two weeks ago, when a girl got on a bus to go home, and everything went horribly wrong.

I’m sorry, but at this point, I’m going to stop with the jokes and talk about Amanat. The news of her death came in at the time of writing, and I address it here not because I think my words will make a difference, but simply as a way of trying to comprehend the insanity of it all.

It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to shut out the world, curl up in a foetal position and drink yourself senseless, but that won’t do. Not after that one girl showed more courage and resolve than the entire collective leadership of the world’s largest democracy. Not after she made a goddess-worshipping nation confront the horrors that have been, and are being inflicted on its women, day after day, year after year. Not after we failed ourselves, as a society, as a nation and as human beings. No, that won’t do.

I don’t have a solution, but I’m looking for better minds that do. If you know of such people and endeavours –bereft of myopic hysteria – that could use some help, please do let me know here. And on that sombre note, I wish that the coming year brings us hope and sanity. We’re all going to need it.