Rakhi weds Ramdev

It’s wedding bells yet again in tinsel town. Another celebrity marriage on the cards. Rakhi Sawant is marrying Baba Ramdev. And guess who's the busiest of the lot? Nah! not Rakhi, not Ramdev. It's the media!!

While newspapers and news channels are busy getting bites and quotes one juicier than the other, NDTV Imagine is busy with the wedding preparations. Work has been allotted to various teams suited to their profiles.

One bunch is out arranging a mom for Rakhi. The production team is assigned this job as they can judge who’ll suit the best for the role. The editorial team is scripting a sob past of her and her family. The channel’s security is being trained to ensure Z security measures in case Rakhi's ex-husband Elesh Parujanwala attacks spears and daggers. No not to get back Rakhi but to get back his yoga guru Ramdev.

Ah! Elesh secretly enrolled with Ramdev’s Yogpeeth to get a life after being kicked out of his short marriage by the then wife Rakhi. He paid stinking amounts to get Ramdev as his personal trainer for Yoga. Now he may be insecure of loosing an efficient yoga guru as he will have to sever all ties with him once he marries his estranged wife...extranged on a bitter note to be precise.

And this is not all. NDTV Imagine has a bigger job at hand. That of searching for Ramdev. We hear that Babaji has gone underground along with his close aide Acharya Balkrishna after hearing about Rakhi’s desire to tie the knot with him. No that’s not because he hates Rakhi or he’s scared of Elesh. It’s because he’s scared of spouse rivalry after marriage. He feels he’s no match for Rakhi’s ‘gift of gab’.

According to the undercover correspondents reporting from Ramdev’s underground hideout somewhere in the basements in his very own The Little Cumbrae Island, off the fishing town of Largs in Scotland, Ramdev was last spotted watching the Amitabh starrer Abhimaan which is based on the story of an ambitious and famous husband who is unable to save his happy marriage because of his jealousy for his talented wife when she professionally overtakes him.

But Babaji Rakhi Sawant is not in your industry. How can she be competition to you? He says he fears that she is capable of attracting the media much better than he can. Anyway, we believe NDTV Imagine has the skill set to persuade Babaji. Once they begin talks, he’ll be head over heels in love with Rakhi err or is it heels over head? Whatever, all that matters is he’ll be in love.

Everything else is in place. The venue of the marriage reception is Ramlila Maidan in Delhi and Ramdev’s wedding costume: drag.

Living In a Crazy World

So Suresh Kalmadi has done what no other Indian could! He's now in the league of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D Roosevelt, Hitler and Stalin. And what's common? Dementia.

For those who can't recall their biology lessons, here's the definition of dementia. It is a loss of brain function that occurs with Parkinson's disease affecting memory, thinking, language, judgement, and behaviour. Uh! don't worry if you forgot your biology lesson. You don't have dementia. Yours is just a natural and universal case of short memory where we may just not remember some of our unpleasant past.

Coming back to Kalmadi's achievement, I would say all Indians should thank their stars for the Commonwealth Games scam and Kalmadi's subsequent arrest. It's only after all these developments, that he thought of seeing a psychiatrist and hence his dementia could be diagnosed. We've been saved of bigger troubles which could've been of the intensity of World War if psychiatrists of international acclaim are to be believed.

They've said that WW-II could have been avoided if Woodrow Wilson had bowed to his dementia. They also say that millions of Russians would have been saved if Stalin had seen a psychiatrist. They've figured out that the Yalta negotiations between Franklin D Roosevelt and Stalin at the end of WW-II in 1945 may have been influenced by Roosevelt's dementia. Imagine who all were at the negotiating table? Two world leaders and their respective dementias! No wonder all the devastating consequences of WW-II.

That makes me wonder if the Indian and Pakistani premiers need to spend some time with their psychiatrists. Had we thought of it earlier, we could have avoided all the continuing disturbances between the two countries. Mr Kalmadi is a whole six decades late in enlightening us. But nonetheless.

Now that we've picked up the topic, it occurs to me that the US government officials must have brought in added dementia each time they intervened in peace talks between the two countries. They have better chances of being affected, as they have a history of the disease in their top most leaders  like Wilson and Roosevelt. Could federal debt crisis have anything to do with the US' dementia history? I mean maybe George Bush and now President Barack Obama may want to see their shrinks.

Moving away, if shrinks say that dementia of the then world leaders led to WW-II, shall we say that all terrorists at present may have dementia. We can do little about curing all of them, but the Indian government can begin with Ajmal Kasab, the Norwegian administration can begin with Andres Behring Breivik, and the FBI can begin with David Headley. It may give some leads.

Also, the governments concerned should try and make it soon because dementia causes memory loss. What if Kasab, Headley and Breivik were to forget all details about their misdeeds? They should hurry up in case of Kalmadi too. If it's too late, he may not recall in his most natural sanities that there exists in this world something like 'sports' leave alone CWG. 

On the other hand, Kasab must be secretly wishing that all Indian officials and leaders get dementia, Breivik and Headley would be wishing the same for the Norwegian and the US officials. Ousted IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn is praying that Nafissatou Diallo gets the disease. And President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner maybe wishing dementia for each other even as they exchange 'pleasantries' over the fed debt crisis while I write this piece.

What next? We wake up to the uneasy reality that we are living in a world full of crazy people. Thank God dementia is not contagious.

So Harry Potter, What Next?

So what next after all the farewell parties and interviews are over? Does Harry Potter plan to tour the world? Or just bask in the glory of all the success he got when kids of his age were learning how to spell success? Well, from what I know, he wouldn't be doing either! He's got some serious work. He has his hands full. So says Mugsy my messenger.

Mugsy - My Messenger

Here's the list of assignments Harry Potter has been proposed:

Indian premier Manmohan Singh has connected with Albus Dumbledore, the founder and leader of the Order of the Phoenix. Now that Voldemort is dead, they may not need Potter for a while. So the Indian government can bring him on board. Scams, blasts, "foreign looking objects" on minsters' tables and much more is happening here which needs a wizard's touch to get sorted.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has also written to Dumbledore. Too much of chaos. After the assassination of Karzai's half-brother and the bombing during his service at the mosque, the Taliban have now released a tape which shows them killing Pakitani policemen, "the enemies of Allah" as the Taliban calls them in the tapes. That's supposed to mean that the Taliban is the friend of Allah.

The third in the list is our immediate neighbour Pakistan. They want Harry to use his wizardry to tell them what's up. Who's who and what everybody in their country wants. Dumbledore is known to have told the Paki administration to come up with a more detailed and specific report. The country's leaders are confused about who should be assigned the tedious task of preparing an organised report about a messed up state. They have understood to have told Dumbledore that they would need Harry's assistance to do this job as well. Well, Dumbledore is walking around and humming to himself, keeping up to his name which means 'bumblebee' in early modern English.

Last but not the least, Mugsy tells me someone desperately wants Harry back home in Britain. Any guesses? Well, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is looking for a more effective paparazzi. Phone tapping landed him foam-pied in the House of Commons. Wizardry is a guaranteed fool proof technique. Atleast when the master wizard Harry Potter is at work, you can bet no one will get caught even if you published previous night's pictures straight from Prince William's bedroom.

Meanwhile, Gillette and all other shaving foam makers are already at work trying to find out the brand of the foam which a man "lobbed into Murdoch's face at point-blank range." Why this brand hunt now? Remember Bush being shoed at a press conference in Baghdad in Dec 2008?

The Turkish shoe company, Ramazan Baydan, that made the shoe, experienced an immediate surge in sales. It received 30,000 orders in the very first week after the incident!! Taking lead from this, foam-makers are now out to make a killing out of the pie in Murdoch's face. Let's see who hits the jackpot. Who knows even they may be thinking of hiring Harry Potter for the job.

Mugsy's out already to get the news.
Cartoon courtesy: Coghill

Abundant Enough

India's police force is short of cops. Whatever number of cops there are, are short of sophisticated weapons. The Indian defence forces are short of officers. Young graduates are short of jobs even as companies cry hoarse over manpower crunch. And what's the reason for this yawning gap between jobs and young grads? Career experts say it's the shortage of talent.

Taps are short of water. Power and oil are in short supply. The season monsoon is getting shorter by the year. Distances are reducing, between cities that is to say. I'm not too sure about the distances between hearts though which seem to be getting wider.

Then the more dangerous of all shortages known yet, our tempers are getting shorter by the moment. Happiness is evaporating faster than acetone from the surface of this earth. And ofcourse we are all always running short of time. So, we live a short life so full of shortages.

Anyway, I still see some hope and lots of abundance too. To begin with, we just saw shortage itself is so much in abundance. We, the human beings, are becoming abundant as a force at a speed faster than that of any meteorite. The number of religions are growing. And ofcourse Gods have always been in abundance. If you can't please one God, you turn to another. Besides, we are getting more Godmen these days. If one can't please you, get pleased by another.

Human beings growing in abundance

Pollution is in abundance. Frowns are all over in loads. Crimes come in lots. Frequency of earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes that have recently rocked the world has increased. Number of divorces are on a rise. Broken hearts are strewn all over. Wars are in huge numbers and counting.

Abundant pollution

Ok moving away from this grim scenario, the economy is on an all time high. The swelling queues at cash counters in malls and outside eateries are evident of this growing prosperity. 

And as if all this abundance couldn't match the amount of shortages, the number of people pouring shit on their heads is growing rapidly. Kangana Ranaut did it just yesterday. I wonder if she drew some inspiration from Malinga. Anyway, even this wasn't abundant enough, it seems, that along came Bipasha with her implants. And we are told like Mukesh Ambani, Bips isn't shy of flaunting her abundance. Well with this latest open show of abundance, I bet many shortages must have been forgotten. I would suggest enjoy this abundance while it lasts.

On another note, if you've been expecting the government will do something to bring abundance to your equity returns and salary packages, simply forget it for now. They are busy cracking the growing abundance of bombs and the bombers. Just when they begin to believe that they have abundant intelligence and evidences about the previous blasts, the hi-tech miscreants strike back very abundantly each time.

Besides, the glittering abundance at Padmanabhaswamy and the limelight abundance at Tihar is also keeping the government engaged. Well don't you think it's abundance galore? Quite a few stuff is in abundance including shortages. What say?

"Spirit of Mumbai" Decoded

What's with this "Spirit of Mumbai"? What's that 'Spirit' they keep talking about each time after a blast or attack on Mumbai? One says they are talking about a special kind of spirit that they make only in Mumbai. It's applied on the bruises and burns of the injured to give them immediate relief so that they are up and kicking to get on with life. It also heals broken hearts and injured souls of the friends and families of victims. And this is not enough. This special spirit has another utility.

High on the 'Spirit of Mumbai'

The kins and friends of victims and all others alive in any part of the city are inebriated with this spirit to help them come out of the grief as soon as possible and get back on track. Soon here means within hours after the tragedy. The municipal corporation water-works department is assigned this job of feeding this 'elixir of life' to people. So the water that you get in your taps after the blast, is actually this 'water of life'. No you needn't worry for its purity.

This water is not contaminated. It is gotten straight from the depths of Arabian Sea after samudra manthan. Urgh!! Someone popped with a face as blue as Krishna's himself, "Do you mean I have been drinking all the junk that MV Wisdom and its likes have been shedding into the Arabian sea?" Ah! no no no. How can that be? Don't you worship Lord Shiva's son, Ganapathi Bappa, as a true devotee? If yes then why do you worry? He has persuaded his father to take care of all the poison that surfaces from the manthan or churning of the sea as he did light years ago at the legendary samudra manthan.

This is one. Then there's another group of believers who say that this 'Spirit' refers to incorporeal consciousness, The Atma or the higher self which lives on even as the worldly outwardness perishes in the sands of time. So, the PMO connected with all the Godmen available to summon this metaphysical being which goes into hibernation once the city comes to its own after the previous attack. (Ah! now we know why we haven't heard from the PM even once after the blasts. Otherwise he can't wait to show up and run his mouth.)

They didn't contact Baba Ramdev this time though he was keen as always to join in. Make no mistakes. It's not because of the recent face-off that the government chose to ignore him. We are mature. We don't nurture enmities. It's because Babaji is not an expert at Ouija boards. Some less popular and less experienced Godmen have been put to work since last evening. No wonder with all their inexperience then that they have not been able to call the 'Spirit of Mumbai' yet in its patent youthful charm and glory!!

So a communication released from the home minster's office has appealed to the masses that till the time the Godmen succeed, you may keep yourself going with the 'elixir of life' made available in your taps throughout the day. But yes if you feel nauseated at any point after drinking this water, rush to the nearest hospital. After all it's rainy season and swine flu, jaundice and what not are in the air...and water. With municipal corporation's mediation, elixir of life also can't be guaranteed. Why take unnecessary risk? We have to survive to prove to terrorists that we are made of alloys with heavy percentages of iron in it. Nothing really affects us...not any number of blasts or bullets.
(Illustration: Mario Miranda)

Why Mumbai Rocked...Yet Again?

How could 13 July get notoriously tagged on our calendars when we had an efficient lieutenant heading the internal security system? Socrates, our thinker, is figuring this out. Meanwhile, here's what we could gather.

Well it happened because this lieutenant, home minister P Chidambaram was made busy by his colleague finance minister Pranab Mukherjee with identifying a "foreign-looking object" found on the latter's desk recently. The FM's over-developed septuagenarian senses interpreted the object to be a bug leading him to allege that the Intelligence Bureau was trying to tap his office (IB falls under the jurisdiction if home ministry).

Socrates - Our Thinker

I wonder if Mukherjee needs help. He reminds me of our glam doll of yesteryears, Parveen Babi, who had started getting illusions as she got older and lonelier, that the KGB and the Taliban are after her life! I'm not saying that the FM is lonely. But old he is and he did get illusions that his office is being tapped. So...

However, when Chiddu (as they affectionately call Chidambaran) heard this, he got busy proving to the FM that it was not a bug but a button which broke off from the latter's black bandhgala when he pulled off the laundry tag from it during their meeting the other day. No chuckles please. We all forget to remove laundry tags and we only realise it when at the end of the day the colleague sitting right next to you throughout the day, points it out.

And then it's more annoyance than embarrassment that you feel. That's because first no one wants to be pointed at for any folly. But if you say you are cool with that part, then the anger would be because your colleague woke up from his snooze when you had already strutted around the world flaunting the humble tag on your not so humble Versace.

Now, getting back to the ministers, ofcourse Mukherjee wouldn't agree with Chiddu's interpretations as he was irked that his folly had not gone unnoticed. So, this button err the bug kept the country's most significant bosses occupied. Meanwhile the janta got busy looking for Chiddu as he could be seen around very rarely. The "foreign-looking object" on FM's desk was such a diversion for everybody that they missed the three foreign-looking objects planted right next to them in busy markets last evening.

It was only when they went boom, that they realised that foreign-looking objects don't always look like buttons. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes as stuffed bags also. This makes me feel there's an immediate need to educate people on identifying foreign-looking objects. That shouldn't be very difficult.

Our very own phoren-returned Shashi Tharoor would be obliged to fill in as the teacher. He's not very busy these days. This will give some focus to his confused state nowadays where he's found talking about anything ranging from CWG, temple treasures and Afghanistan. Ergh! Like our now quietened Baba Ramdevji who could earlier declare homosexuality a disease with as much ease as he could try an escape in drag. But nah, Tharoor  in no rustic Baba Ramdev, he's a suave NRI. No drag for him please. He would use his girlfriend as a cover to make an escape.

So, the tuitions are set. Now all we need is cooperation from Mukherjee and Chiddu. They will be required to attend the classes along with the janta every weekend. We expect that they shouldn't register a single bunk in the 5-year course.

Meanwhile, a little birdie tells me, Bigg Boss has decided to bring Ajmal Kasab on board. His credentials? Does he have any history of abusive relationships or has he been involved in any kind of controversy as of late? Yes ofcourse!! The controversy regarding his birth date. People saw 13 July which coincided with the blasts today. But before we could gather to sing "Happy Budday to dear Ajmal...", his birth date was 'postponed' to 13 September. Scary!!

I say it's a good idea to bring him on Bigg Boss considering that he'll have Navjot Singh Siddhu for company. Siddhu's jabbering would work better than any anesthesia to get Kasab into talking...the truth. Maybe then we are saved another round of fatal fireworks to mark his 'birthday celebrations' on 13 September.

Socry, nickname for our thinker Socrates, could you guess yet? Well the thing is he only thinks and takes long while he does that.
Cartoon courtesy: Picturesofcats.org

To Be or Not To Be

My FB pal Vaishali is confused as to why do we have so many worship places, and feel the need to visit them,when God is everywhere???
Someone said....air is everywhere, but we still need a fan to feel it!!! Isn't it???

hhhhhhmmmm Vaishali!! God and air are doing a Jack Griffin here. They are invisible as was Griffin who in desperation clothes and bandages himself to become visible to be able to earn a living. You see life's hard upon the invisible being doesn't matter if it's God or the devil. So they have to find something to present their identities. Likewise, God found temples and air found the fan.


Now Vaishali just look towards your right. I'm right there. But you won't see me. So I found Facebook to make myself visible and acquainted to the big huge world. Nah! don't mistake me. Am not doing a Griffin here. I'm doing a God!! I always knew about my divine traits. But I don't believe in concrete structures of worship and devotees. Facebook & friends work just fine for me.
Howzzat!!

Unfriending / Unchatting

Among other miracles or worldly deeds of awe that I'm waiting for, one that recently happened was the evolution of Facebook chat. Ah! ok now these days FB is my world. So you'll find me talking a lot about it. Some have even called this addiction. Uh! But I don't mind. I feel I get better ideas on Facebook than I would on the morning pot.

Now when I expressed my joy about this on FB, my friend Onkar said there were other ways to censor earlier. Ah! yes there were. But it was only 'unfriend' or 'block'. And I feel there's lots between a day in the lockup and capital punishment. Some sticky nuts may not be seasoned criminals so as to attract beheading. Puncturing their vacuum pads may just work fine to scrape them off the wall.

Broken Hearts & Spoken Words

A friend's wall post on Facebook read: "Words & hearts should be handled with care, for words when spoken and hearts when broken are the hardest things to repair"

Well I feel these days they make that special kinda stuff called Move-On with which broken hearts can be easily repaired. So we are just left with spoken words to be repaired. Well, I think for that also something called 'Do I care' is becoming popular.


So while these two are taken care of, I so strongly feel we are moving towards a mobile and carefree world. What more could we ask for?

Time Vs Money

As if there's dearth of debates, here's another one. But debates should go on. They keep your brain functional. Ok anyway, rather than debating about debates, let's see what debate do we have waiting here for us. Well we are debating what's more precious - time or money?

Well yeah this is a debate as old and mysterious as the ghosts on the hills. And just like them, it keeps on striking every now and then the way it has struck now with a wall post on Facebook.

My immediate reaction, "O! What a waste...of time ...and money too." However, if unfortunately I'm destined to squander both, here's my take. I stick to my stance that time is more precious because though the structure and technology for manufacturing time is ready, the setting up of the manufacturing plant in a sleepy village in West Bengal has been repeatedly interrupted by land-owners' agitations.

The owners, the Digiclock brothers, were then suggested they could turn to the futuristic Gujarat. But they refused saying, "We are true-blue modern Indians and since the modern history of the country began on the soil of Bengal with the East India Company setting up office here in 1600, the new era in the world's history can't begin anywhere. Uumm if that's the case then US should be honoured as the "New World" rose with the discovery of the Americas by Columbus.

Anyway Digiclocks don't buy this. Well, boss is always right. Personally, I take their decision with some suspicion. I hope they aren't some US sleuths here to revenge insults hurled at them by Bengal's commerades. Uh! thoughts you see they can fly anywhere. Ofcourse I didn't mean it (lest the sleuths turn against me).

Ok so now that it appears that we won't start manufacturing time any time soon, let's handle it with immense care. As for money, they are making it in abundance...all sorts...even fake. Check out some small 'money manufacturing plants' in the dingy lanes of Azamgarh (Ah! yeah you got it, the birth place of nabbed underworld don Abu Salem), you'll know how rich we are with money. All you is to get your tricks right for getting money on your side.

Murder Galore

Today when they spoke about the Neeraj-Maria-Jerome love triangle, what crossed my mind was this channel V filler http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aH1nwNWldI in which Simpu Singh asks his students if the geometrical figure on the board is an isosceles triangle.

And I wondered if the latest most talked about love triangle is isosceles in some way. And I figured out it most definitely is. Ah! for those who don't know an isosceles triangle, it's a triangle which has two arms of equal length.

From what I see, this love triangle gone awry is a perfect isosceles. But I still can't be too sure about which two arms are the same length.

In the first instance I feel Maria Monica Susairaj and her fiance Jerome Mathews were the same length arms of the triangle and Maria's boyfriend Neeraj Grover was on a different trip altogether. Maria and Jerome planned Neeraj's murder through and through and Neeraj obviously had no clue what his girlfriend was up to right beside him.

But on second thought it seems Jerome and Neeraj were similar and Maria was the odd one out. Maria, the small-time Kannada actress with big-time Bollywood dreams, not just planned the murder, she planned it in a way so as to get rid of Jerome and Neeraj both in one go.

Well, did she take cue from the John-Bips betrayal flick Jism? In the movie, Bipasha is shown to hate her old but rich husband but loves his money too much. She charms John and then uses him to kill her husband. Then, later, John kills himself when he is told that he'll be convicted. So Bips gets all the wealth.

In the Neeraj Grover murder case, Maria used her fiance Jerome to kill her lover. Now Jerome is in jail for 10 years, Neeraj is dead, and Maria is free to make it big in Bollywood. Wherever she would go later, I'm sure she's landed a big fat slot in Big Boss next season.