An Open Letter From The Pakistan Foreign Office To India

(Note: This is my Hindustan Times column dated 9th Aug 2015.)

From

Qazi Khalilullah

Spokesman

Pakistan Foreign Office

To

The citizens of India

Subject: It Wasn’t Me

Dear Indians

On behalf of the Pakistani government, I’d like to condemn the recent attack on an Indian BSF convoy in the Udhampur district of North-Eastern Pakistan Jammu and Kashmir. It is exactly the kind of attack that aims to undo all the trust and goodwill generated by Bajrangi Bhaijaan. So please put all your logic and common sense aside and for once, trust me when I say that Pakistan isn’t responsible for this attack, just as it wasn’t responsible for the 3463874979 attacks preceding it. Contrary to what the facts would have you believe, Pakistan is not the designated fluffer for the LeT.

Sure, I can see what it looks like. You apprehended one of the “terrorists” who claims he’s Pakistani, and it doesn’t help that he looks like Kasab on day six of a juice cleanse. (By the way, Kasab wasn’t Pakistani either, but like the case against Hafiz Saeed, I’m going to let that one slide.)

There’s a very simple explanation for this. The suspect, Mohammad Naveed, is trying to defame Pakistan and you’re falling for it. Have you even considered other options, such as the fact that his entire video confession was morphed? Surely a country that produced Shaktimaan and Captain Vyom has the VFX muscle to do this.

Or maybe Naveed is a cybernetic organism – living tissue over a metal endoskeleton – created by a brand for the purposes of internet virality? The kids are really into all that Youtube stuff these days. (Psst… Superwoman, if you’re reading this, I ❤ you. Please make a video on #ShitDesiGovernmentsSay?)

Hey, maybe the guy is Chinese? They’re trying to sneak into your country too, you know. Plus if a Chinese kid trains really hard, he can grow up to look Pakistani. Who knows what these mystical Orientals are capable of?

Anyway, the point is that much like Dawood ‘Goggal Mein Kya Mast Lag Rela Hai Bhai’ Ibrahim, Pakistan has nothing to do with this guy. I understand that this very newspaper got hold of a number disclosed by Naveed and called up one Mohammad Yakub in Faisalabad, Pakistan who – picture me making air quotes as I say the next word – confirmed that he was Naveed’s father.

It’s a classic trick. I mean if an Indian chap gave you my number and I answered and said, “Hello, Michael Jackson speaking” will you show up outside my house for a concert? Nahin na? Phir why you’re doing like this?

This just brings back memories of 2008 when Indian security forces went back in time, crossed over to Pakistan, ensured the hookup and subsequent consummation of the marriage of a random couple in Faridkot, just so that after 26/11, that couple could be paraded around as the parents of Ajmal Kasab.

Your jihadi Marty McFly act was so good, even Geo News fell for it, thus giving the world an “irrefutable” Pakistani link to 26/11. There are claims that the ISI has since tried to kill Geo’s senior staff, including executive editor Hamid Mir, but that’s just how we celebrate a free press.

I urge you to not let this little hiccup derail the talks between the national security advisers of both countries scheduled for later this month. In fact, if you happen to bring up terrorism, our man will be forced to raise his hand and say “Same to you no returns.” We’d appreciate it if you stuck to the most pressing issue at hand, i.e. supporting our claim to the Pakistani half of Nargis Fakhri.

At the time of writing this, there were reports of yet another attack in Udhampur. I’d like to make it abundantly clear once again that Pakistan has nothing to do with this and the whole thing is a holographic sequence projected onto Kashmir by aliens. Please consider this reason binding for any attacks that may occur in the future.

Yours sincerely

<Insert signature that looks like a middle finger>

(Chief Bovine Excreta Deliverer)

I Went To Iraq And All I Got Was Arrested

You’d think that there’s nothing funny about ISIS and you’d be right. ISIS is a cancer feeding off a militant belief in a fairytale and is as joke-friendly as cancer can be. But even so, there’s something to be said about a group that the Al-Qaeda formally dissociated with almost a year ago on the grounds that they were too batshit insane. And let’s be honest – cancer is kinda funny when it happens to a**holes.

Take, for example, the 24-year-old Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the Bangalore-based engineer who was arrested this week for running @ShamiWitness, described as one of the most influential ISIS propaganda accounts in the world. His tweets, seen over two million times, exhorted jihadists from all over to give up their lives and move to Iraq to fight for ISIS. All this while he sat around in a comfy MNC, sipping on Starbucks and fantasising about that one useless but hot chick in HR who exists in every office.

I cannot think of something more Indian than that level of laziness. It must take a spectacular sense of entitlement to have the following Twitter conversation:

@ShamiWitness: 

Go to Iraq and fight, young soldier! Screw logic! Logic is Satan’s roofie!

@IdiotJihadist:

YEAHHH! DEATH TO KUFFARS! \m/

@ShamiWitness:

Go get ‘em!

@IdiotJihadist:

I’LL SEE YOU ON THE BATTLEFIELD BROTHER!!!

@ShamiWitness:

Uhh, actually I’m just going to hang here.

@IdiotJihadist:

Wut.

@ShamiWitness:

Sorry yaa, I signed up for Bangalore marathon. And new Modern Family episode after that. And then office dinner at TGI Friday, so can’t ditch for obvious reasons.

@IdiotJihadist:

????

@ShamiWitness:

But you have a fun death! 😀 😀 #kthxbai

Mehdi apparently said that he would’ve gone to Iraq, if not for his family who were financially dependent on him. It’s sweet that he protected them by staying put and serving as a Naukri.com-meets-Shiv Khera for terrorists. I’m sure there was a point at which he even packed his bags for Iraq, but gave up after he realised that Banglore airport was six light years away from Bangalore city.

If ISIS wants a good online presence, it shouldn’t be looking at India. Most Indian brand managers look at social media the same way toddlers looks at laptops – it’s new and shiny and they really want to use it, but you know they’re probably just going to poop all over it. I can picture this guy saying things like, “If this tweet gets 10000 RTs, God will ban alcohol and schools.” And don’t even get me started on #Qurfies.

On the bright side, as a journalist friend pointed out, techies getting arrested for terror is a boon for parents’ views on liberal arts. It makes sense. If you want to study arts but your parents insist on engineering, tell them that you’d be recruit-proof as a philosophy major. (Also, salary-proof, but that’s a different story. ) Seriously, why would ISIS need you? What can you do – bludgeon the enemy with your 1500-page thesis on The Nihilism In Nietzsche’s Nipples?

Another bit of hilarity came from Areeb Majeed, the 23-year-old from Kalyan – one of four friends – who’d sneaked off to Iraq to cut people’s heads off, thus proving that Indians will go anywhere for foreign placement. Just how rubbish is Kalyan that Iraq seems like a better option?

Majeed returned this month, complaining about the fact that he was made to clean toilets there. I, for one, am shocked to know that a bunch of Arabs would make an Indian carry out menial tasks for no pay. But I get his indignance. I totally do. Beheadings, bombings and general psychotic behaviour is okay, but you can’t just ask an Indian guy to do some chores. He’s not used to it. No matter how poor they are, Indian men are used to always having a servant around. She’s called Mom.

Another one of Majeed’s friends is on his way back, maybe because he didn’t get to sleep with the goat that he fancied. Just like Majeed, he’ll be arrested as soon as he lands. So without meaning to, these guys actually did end up cleaning some shit off our streets.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 14th Dec 2014.)

Waiter, There’s A Skeleton In My Closet

This was an embarrassing week for Pakistan, making it totally different from the 28437 weeks before this. A spate of revelations about Osama Bin Laden’s life in Pakistan became public, bringing much shame to a nation that is already under international pressure to explain the existence of Taher Shah. (If you don’t know who he is, just imagine the love child of Ram Kapoor with a toad, who then grew up to dress like an 80s Bollywood smuggler trapped in the prison of his acid-soaked mind.)

The report is the work of the Abbottabad Commission which was set up by the Pakistani government after Osama’s assassination to study the reasons behind the mess and fix loopholes so that in the future, no terrorist would have to die a senseless death. The judge-led report states that Osama had been in Pakistan since mid-2002, causing much shock and bewilderment among Pakistanis who cannot believe that the judge is still alive.

This means that while Bush was bombing everything in Afghanistan, including civilians and rocks that had a higher IQ than him, Laden was holed up in Pakistan, probably watching the coverage on TV and thinking, “Dammit, the camera does add ten pounds. Stupid decadent western camera.” So before the war, when Bush said, “We’ll smoke ’em out”, I guess he was referring to American jobs.

(This would never have happened in India. We’d never let murderers go undetected for this long. No, we would find them, drag them out and send them straight to public office.)

It was also learnt that the search for OBL could’ve ended in 2002, when a traffic cop stopped his car for speeding in a Swat bazaar. The cop didn’t recognise the then clean-shaven Laden and let the car go in what has to be the goofiest slip-up since Herschelle Gibbs “dropped the World Cup” in ’99. Now had Laden actually been captured, tried and executed, all because of that minor traffic violation, he would’ve had a pretty awkward time in hell. Imagine the inmates hanging around, talking about how they got there:

Hitler: I popped a million different pills and then shot myself in the head. They never caught me. Hey Laden, tell us again na how you got here.

Osama: Sigh. It was a traffic viola- AIDS. Fine. I got AIDS. You happy now??

Hitler: LOL.

Osama: Whatevs, Lance Armstrong.

During all those years in hiding, Osama had also managed to father four kids. Now that’s dedication. Despite being hunted by the world’s largest military, Osama took the time off to badonkadonkadonk, which is more than you can say about the average man in his 50s. I wonder if he got so used to the danger that after a point, he couldn’t function without it. This must have led to some odd exchanges between him and certain experts:

Dear Dr. Watsup 

I am man from respectable business family. I can get in mood with my wife only if I make my other wives stand outside room and make assault rifle noises. What to do?

Yours sincerely

Not-Osama

Dear Not-Osama

Wow. I didn’t know goats could even make assault rifle noises.

Earlier this year, it was announced that to boost tourism, Pakistan would develop an amusement park at Abbottabad. Apparently they have a roller coaster that goes straight into a building.

In other terror news, the Indian Mujahideen issued a threat on Twitter this week, which begs the obvious question: What are terrorists doing on Twitter? If you guys want virgins, go to Orkut. The IM said that Mumbai would be hit next week, provided their guys don’t face flooding at Juhu Circle.

Security has been stepped up, and that’s because India isn’t lax with terror threats. No siree, we keep an eye out for everything, as proven by the crackdown on anti-national Delhi couples who unleashed lethal hormone bombs all over the Metro. It’s really weird. CCTV footage of couples kissing and making out on the Delhi metro recently began surfacing on porn sites. Only Indians would be desperate enough to get on a porn site to watch people kiss. Going online to watch people kiss is like paying a hooker to high-five you. (Yes, I get that voyeurism is part of the appeal, but if you’re such a peeping Tom, you should just join the telecom ministry.)

I hope that the latest terror threats amount to nothing, and that we find the scum behind them. I’m sure the authorities will get to it once they’re done interrogating all the suspects on hotdesicctvitemlog.com.

(Note: This is my HT column dated 14th July 2013. )