Case filed against 7UP

Muthukumar, a college student from Chennai has filed a complaint against soft drink company 7UP. He claims the 7UP advertisements screened during IPL on Set MAX are misleading, and that the company should immediately be booked for false claims.

Says Muthukumar - "My Tata Photon connection busted up right when I was watching porn. I guess it can't handle heavy stuff. So I decided to catch up on some soft porn atleast, and went out to buy a Times of India newspaper. Thats when a crow flew right up my head and shitted on me. I remembered this ad featuring Sharman Joshi, in which he says you become all cool about crow shit in 7 seconds, once you drink 7UP. "

"But damn! I got even angrier! Those 7 seconds I spent in drinking 7UP, the shit dried up and formed a patch on my shirt. People all around were laughing at me! Next time, I first cleaned up the shit, looked up and drank 7UP, and this time, right at the end of the 7th second, the same crow shitted right on my face, just when I was about to form the 'cool' expression on my face. I have filed a complaint to the Consumer court of India, and I'm confident justice will be served."

Meanwhile, 7UP has denied any allegations of misleading its consumers. Says its Marketing Chief - "The concerned person has failed to notice the star (*) and the "terms and conditions" apply tags. If one looks closely at the ad, one would notice that 7UP 7 second formula works only when the crow shits on the left shoulder, and when the concerned person is a brand ambassador of our company. We never hold any information from our consumers."

Anna Hazare, Sharad Pawar, and others

The indefinite hunger strike called on by Anna Hazare has stirred up the different reactions from different people. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who also heads the ICC (read BCCI) has said that the Anna Hazare fasting at Jantar Mantar is a fake one, and people should not get carried away by his antics. "The real Anna Hazare is locked up in T3 Terminal. What has been presented to the people of India is a fake one." Mr. Pawar remained silent for sometime and let journalists photograph him, to arrive at a suitable #SharadPawarFace.

Asked if the government would react to the demands of Anna Hazare, Mr. Pawar gave a candid answer. "The government shall give two hoots to his demands, whatever they are." He took out a small trumpet from his pocket, usually reserved for the signature IPL tune, to give two hoots. "See? The government is serious about whatever it says." Meanwhile, PepsiCo, which had a successful world cup campaign, has decided to sponsor Hazare's fast-unto-death with its Kurkure brand of snacks. Coca-Cola, not willing to be left out, has gone the social-media way, engaging consumers with a "Click to feed Anna Hazare with two drops of Coke" Facebook application.

Communications Minister Kapil Sibal, who famously said that there was zero-loss to the exchequer in the 2G scam, maintained that there was zero-corruption in the government, and that Anna Hazare was not fasting, but dieting, to burn some extra calories. The anti-corruption issue has however found enormous support from Indians worldwide.People across the world are working hard to come up with "Sharad Pawar, Kapil Sibal, Manmohan, Lokpal Bill and Anna Hazare" anagrams. Said a regular wanna-be anagram tweeter. " Manmohan, 'Anna Hazare' ke upar 'Nazar hae na'?.....I'm hoping my anagram makes sense and gets re-tweeted by @rameshsrivats."

Poonam Pandey, who was in the limelight for her strip offer to the victorious Indian team, has also offered to do her 'bit' for the nation. "I love my country. I shall strip naked till corruption is abolished in India. I am doing it out of love for the nation. I have written a letter to the Prime Minister's Office seeking permission to strip naked. If the laws of the land don't permit stripping, I shall definitely strip against corruption in Cayman Islands or Switzerland."

President of India, Mrs. Pratibha Patil has said that she would host a tea party to Anna Hazare if he was victorious. "I shall also use my previous cooking experience to cook some food and serve it to Hazare ji if he decides to end his fast."

Another WikiLeak: Afridi-Gilani cable hacked

WikiLeaks has gone the multinational corporation way by investing heavily in Asian markets. The trick seems to have worked for the whistle-blower website, with most humor bloggers and the not-so-humorous bloggers using the "(Famous Person) does the (infamous thing) - latest WikiLeaks revelations" template for their posts, when desperately out of ideas. Here's the latest WikiLeaks revelation.

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called up U.S. President Barack Obama and asked for immediate financial assistance in wake of the India VS Pakistan semi-finals cricket encounter. Mr. Gilani is alleged to have promised President Obama that the money given would be used strictly for development of internet centers, buying millions of computers, and training Pakistanis on how to use Facebook. The reason behind this was found from another WikiLeaks cable-hack between Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi and PM Yousuf Gilani.

Afridi is believed to told a shocked PM Gilani about Pakistan's exit from the semi-finals on basis of polls on popular social networking site Facebook. He further urged Mr. Gilani to ensure that all the Pakistanis in the world participated in the poll and ensure that Pakistan came head-to-head with India in the polls. When Gilani asked Afridi to walk the talk and immediately vote for Pakistan in the poll, Afridi irritated the PM by saying that he was just 12 years old, and was legally not allowed to use websites.

Meanwhile, US has rubbished the reports. A White House spokesman went on to say that, from their sources in India, they had learnt that Afridi never used Facebook. "Afridi WAS using the internet, but for other reasons. The FBI hacked his computer and submitted to us a list of key words he was using on Google search, which include, but are not limited to 'Hot Girls in Mohali', 'Hot women who love bearded men who lie about their ages', etc". In New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, now accustomed to being answerable for everything, held a press conference and spoke the following words: "Inflation is worrying, corruption is bad, WikiLeaks is wrong."

BCCI, after figuring out that the Facebook polls have been very beneficial to Indians, has pushed the ICC to use Facebook Polls instead of the hugely unpopular UDRS. N. Srinivasan, Board President has also hinted that the team management might soon use Polls to decide between Ashish Nehra and Piyush Chawla for water-boy role.

BCCI to rename Power-plays

After repeated failures by the batsmen in Power-plays, and subsequent criticism by media and public, the BCCI has finally acted, and come to the rescue of its cricketers. "We have put forth a request to the ICC, which is essentially BCCI, to cancel the concept of Power-play. Henceforth, all Indian batting overs shall be called Fore-plays. This is to ensure that the batsmen enjoy themselves when out there in the middle, and not throw away wickets." - a pleased looking spokesperson said.

"We are also doing what we can from our side to ensure that batsmen don't return to the crease faster than ShastriBot's tracer bullet. We've requested Sachin to personally go and ask for appreciations from the next 3 batsmen after he's dismissed. All batsmen seem to be in some sense of urgency to rush back to dressing room and congratulate Sachin."

Meanwhile, sources close to the Indian team say a Psychologist has been appointed to help batsmen break inhibitions and perform better during Power-plays. The psychologist is rumored to have advised batsmen to imagine bowlers during Power-plays to be Ashish Nehra. Also, Munaf Patel and Nehra were told to visualize each other as bowler and self as fielder when they were batting.

In related news, BCCI has refused Walt Disney rights to make comedy movies based on Ravi Shastri-MS Dhoni post match presentation ceremonies.

World Cup and Census of India in trouble

The World Cup organizers are in trouble. So is the World Cup, and quite possibly, the Census Commissioner of India. Mahipaleshwaran, from Karur district in Tamilnadu, demanded the school teacher who came home for survey, the World Cup. "Where is the Cup that counts?", he asked. The bewildered teacher tried explaining to him that she was there to take the head count on behalf of the Government of India, but that only enraged Mahipaleshwaran.

"Nothing in India does what it claims to do! Last week I had constipation, and the doctor prescribed me some pills. Since it was the first time I was using those pills, I decided to eat a few Cadbury Diary Milks for a 'Shubh Aarambh'. The constipation multiplied exponentially! Now even government agencies have started advertising tall claims! Why aren't these census officials coming with the cup which they claimed can count?" Mahipaleshwaran has demanded the Census Commission and ICC World Cup committee to declare public their activities using the RTI act.

In a bid to avoid fuss, the ICC sent a replica of the World Cup and a ventriloquist to Karur to convince Mahi that the Cup could indeed count. The move, however failed when Mahi snatched the Cup, went to a crowded bar and asked the Cup to count the number of people. "Blatant lie! They should've clearly mentioned in the advertisements that the Cup can count only one person!" His neighbor, Ponnambalam, had similar concerns. "I was playing Need for Speed on my computer. I wanted to switch to Prince of Persia. Hence I drank Pepsi. But the bloody game never changed! I even painted my body and did all those silly things that the cricketers did in the advertisement, but alas, PEPSI DID NOT CHANGE THE GAME!!" Mahipaleshwaran and Ponnambalam have jointly filed a Public Interest Litigation regarding the issue.

Veteran lawyers predict that the court might issue directives to the companies to add a few lines in the advertisements. "It could be something like: 'The Cup that counts, but not people or anything physical or quantifiable, and most definitely can't take a census.' Yes, that would mean few extra seconds in terms of ad length and a lot more money. But corporates must have a responsibility of being honest and clear with the people, which in the long run could bring loyal customers."

Meanwhile Opposition Party leaders have blamed the UPA government for poor planning. "How can you have a Cup that counts and the Census of India in the same year? It is obviously bound to confuse aam admi. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi should personally take full responsibility for this."

2G SCAM MOVES TO CRICKET!

Protests by public, media and politicians to arrest "All" those involved in the 2G issue has now backfired, and has only escalated tensions between law enforcement agencies and general public. The Chennai wing of CBI has arrested several thousand gully cricketers across the city, and the exercise is expected to be followed in the rest of the country too.

Says Vicky, friend of Karthi, an arrested in the 2G scam - " We were playing in the apartment terrace. Karthi needed 2 to win off one ball. I bowled a full toss, and Karthi hit the ball hard on Ground Floor Maami's saree, which was drying on the clothes line and started shouting "DAI 2G 2G 2G winnu winnu winnu WINNERS FIRSTU". Out of nowhere, a helicopter landed, police mama came out, handcuffed Karthi and put him inside the chopper. They also made me bowl for around 10 overs, all police played. But they didn't bowl back and flew off in the chopper. Gaajadi pasanga!!"

Gully lawmakers of the game are now thinking of ways to implement the 'Granted' (G) runs system without attracting attention of CBI. "One option is to run the first run, and grant the batsman 1G. We're still thinking of innovative ways - to either rename that 2* shot, or come up with other alternatives."

With most of the city's cricketers arrested in the 2G scam, schools in Chennai now face a gender inequality problem. The Mayor has put forth a proposal to import boys from non-cricketing states like Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim at subsidized rates. The few remaining boys are also being forced to turn mahipals, with most of them being forced to play 'O pillar *tak-tak-tak* Cater-Pillar *tak-tak-tak* ' with the girls. "The future looks bright for us" said a smiling Gokulakrishnan, a veteran mahipal.

Meanwhile Shahnaz, a leading dietitian, who never sees patients but gives the diet angle for all newspaper-reported issues said 2G must be abolished since it makes kids lazy, doesn't make them run, and would lead to obesity at a later stage. Vijay Dahiya, a former cricketer from the city, however feels that 2G must be brought into mainstream cricket to facilitate the likes of Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel.

Shah Rukh responsible for Eden Gardens cancellation

Here's the latest twist in the Eden Gardens fiasco: CAB has squarely blamed Kolkata Knight Riders owner Shah Rukh Khan for the World Cup venue cancellation. Says CAB chief Jagmohan Dalmiya - "Ever since SRK didn't retain Saurav Ganguly in Kolkata IPL team, there's been growing dissent in West Bengal, more particularly among the construction workers in Eden Gardens. They have stopped working, and are threatening to blow up completed portions of the stadium, if Saurav isn't offered a place in KKR. They have taken up jobs in hartals and strikes elsewhere in the country, and won't return till they hear a positive result about Dada."

Says Bhattacharya, a worker - "This is atrocious! Dada underperformed in the IPLs deliberately, out of concern for Bengalis. He didn't want us to see the gory sight of Shah Rukh Khan dancing naked on the field. Dada was even under tremendous pressure from Karan Johar to win the IPL for KKR. But being the true Bengali that he is, he dropped catches and scored ducks to save the nation from obscene embarrasments. Saurav Ganguly must be awarded the Bharath Rathna for what he did!"

When mediapersons questioned about Ganguly's omission from KKR, here's what SRK had to say. " I really cannot comment on why the other teams haven't chosen Dada. Everyone has their own plans, and its upto the owners to choose or not to choose a player. All I can say is that Saurav is a fantastic player and a sportsman." When irritated mediapersons again questioned SRK about why HE didn't pick Saurav, they got the same answer. Apparently, Shah Rukh's PR hasn't returned yet from Christmas holidays.

Meanwhile, the bottling industry in West Bengal has hit an all time low. Anticipating a huge turnout for world cup, several bottles were being manufactured for throwing on players' heads. With the match being cancelled, orders have been withdrawn and severe losses have been reported. Reports have it that an attempt to loot all bottles by Tamilnadu CM Karunanidhi, for free distribution in his state, have been thwarted.

Interestingly, Yuvraj Singh seemed very happy at the cancellation of Eden Gardens venue. He has even suggested alternate venues like Dharmasala and Goa. Says Yuvraj - "Its a nightmare for any cricketer to be called 'waterboy' by an 80,000 odd crowd. Hence I've suggested alternate venues with lesser crowd capacity, where a collective 'waterboy' chant will sound like a hymn, rather than a boo." As the saying goes, one's loss is one's gain.

Ten Sports speaks. "Between overs ad" issue heatens up!

Ten Sports has replied to the show-cause notice issued against it for violating advertising laws. A briefing by Ten Sports lawyer Haridas revealed shocking insights into the root cause of ad-menace affecting millions of Indian cricket lovers. Excerpts of Mr. Haridas's briefing are presented below.

"ISI! Pakistan's ISI is responsible for diluting viewer's frame and congesting it with nonsensical ads. The ISI sends stealth planes across the border and above our stadiums. These planes come fitted with projectors, which project the static ads that one sees in the wicketkeepers end. These ads make a mockery out of Indian brands. Deliberately, the ISI chooses under-performing brands, screens it in prime overs, and influences Indian viewers' buying decisions. For example, a lot of people went ahead with choosing Tata DoCoMo after they saw DoCoMo ads appearing suddenly on either side of Dhoni's butt. But unfortunately, their networks don't seem to have coverage. By encouraging viewers to buy shit products, ISI forces other companies to manufacture similar shits, and thus is trying to make India a land of shit products and shit companies."

Indian skipper MS Dhoni, who was also present during the briefing, nodded furiously. "Well off course I dropped catches because of Sangeetha mobiles! I lost visibility of the ball due to overlapping colors. If the ISI wants to continue similar gimmicks, it must atleast make sure the ads don't have color shades that match the cricket ball's color."

Meanwhile, ISI had denied any sort of involvement in the matter. "Well their own people don't like to see Ashish Nehra or Ravindra Jadeja playing. So they try those Seagram on-the-pitch explosion type ads to try and kill their own cricketers. Must be the work of some expert hacker. Their CBI must try and find out who the hacker is from the Kill Ravindra Jadeja Facebook community."

Aakash Karat, a Communist party member said - "Technology of all sorts must be abolished. Its the people who matter. Broadcasters must stop showing the score, overs and batsmen-bowler details too. Nothing other than core cricket must be shown. This way, a lot of employment can be created by appointing freelance scorers for every home. The government must issue free blackboard and chalk pieces to these scorers so that they earn a decent living."

IIM-CAT's new quota from 2012

While the rest of the country is analyzing toppers and trends of CAT 2011, IIM has announced some major changes in its admissions policy, which will be implemented next year. A visibly excited IIM-A Director Samir Baruah spoke to media persons.

"The Cabinet has Kapil Sibal. Cricket has Ravindra Jadeja. Bollywood has Shahid Kapoor and India has Arindham Chaudri. Incompetency is everywhere. It is the very foundation on which Indian work culture lies. Every business unit has incompetency, and every organization has incompetent managers. To facilitate the smooth gelling of IIM graduates with incompetent peers, we have decided to bring in diversity into our classrooms by admitting incompetent students."

Mr. Baruah continued explaining to a shocked gathering. "From next year onwards, we will have a separate quota for those under 1 percentile. There will be separate GD and PI for these people, and those who manage not to talk inspite of heavy persuasions shall be admitted. The emphasis will be on sleeping and burping, two qualities that define an incompetent manager in boardroom meetings."

When we raised the issue about someone who would know all the answers but deliberately mark the wrong answers to get into the incompetent quota, Mr. Baruah smiled satisfactorily to himself. "Ahh... There's the IIM touch. We're not just looking at wrong answers, we're considering the wrong approach too. Students will have to type their methodology with which they derive answers. We're looking for candidates who can apply Pythagoras theorem on Profit & Loss problems to arrive at a choice."

Kumar, an incompetent aspirant spoke to us. "This is great news. I will play Minesweeper during next CAT. Or Pinball maybe. Prometric should ask applicants their choice of games while filling out the application!" Meanwhile, several corporates have shown interest in sending their managers for the Executive Incompetent degrees. The ideology behind this is to keep incompetent professionals away for sometime while devising ways to improve company performances.

Why Ravindra Jadeja was bought for $950000

Kochi IPL franchisee has defended its $950000 bid to buy Ravindra Jadeja. After an exciting auction, Vivek Venugopal, one of the owners of the consortium spoke to reporters from near the BCCI notice board. Asked about the odd location for an interview, Vivek said he checked the notice board every evening to see if his franchisee had been forwarded any show-cause by BCCI.

“Sreesanth has been the longest serving Kerala cricketer. Our brand value would be greatly increased with Sreesanth as our captain. Having said that, we needed someone miserable on the field to make Sreesanth look like Wisden Cricketer of the Year. The obvious choice was Ravindra Jadeja, and we went all out to buy him.” Mr. Venugopal’s lips tweaked at odd angles every time he mentioned Jadeja’s name.

“The rest of the auction room obviously didn’t know of our strategy, and we were met with hostility after winning Jadeja. The waiters in the hotel stopped replacing our water bottles. The auctioneer stood paralyzed, and we had to inject steroids on him to hit the hammer one final time to confirm Jadeja’s bid. We even received condolence messages from Kochi and other parts of Kerala like Dubai and Bahrain.”

Ravindra Jadeja, buoyed by his auction prices, has reportedly negotiated a deal with Manchester United. Sources have confirmed that IPL new boss Chirayu Amin has already slapped a show-cause notice to Manchester United, and is considering extending Jadeja’s IPL ban to one more year.

Meanwhile, corporates and general public who searched for IPL Kochi’s website on Google were met with dismay. Said Omanakuttan from Allepey – “This is atrocious! First, Sashi Tharoor disappears from Twitter. Next, we find no website for our IPL team. This must be a collaborative work of Lalit Modi and Pakistani hackers!” Others, who managed to find sites kochiipl.com and kochiteam.com were confused which was the official site, though they maintained that both sites looked equally awful and comparable to bcci.tv.

Moving on to other related news, Sony Max has confirmed that it has got premium sponsors for the Pune vs Kochi match tosses. With Smith’s name being on the rounds for Pune IPL captaincy, and Sreesanth almost having been confirmed as Kochi captain, the match tosses should be more interesting than the matches themselves. Sreesanth is expected to invite Graeme Smith’s family for the toss.

Mark Zuckerberg's "Facebook - Vision 2011"

Facebook has begun 2011 with a boardroom discussion on breathtaking innovations that could change the way netizens socialize. While the rest of the world was busy boozing, biking and bursting crackers on new year eve, Mark Zuckerberg called all his employees for an urgent meeting to discuss Facebook's innovations. The irritated employees are rumoured to have reported abuse against Zuckerberg on his Facebook account. The following are excerpts from the high-level innovation brainstorming.

With several internet users choosing to Tweet, advertisers have also started migrating to Twitter. Zuckerberg proposed a novel strategy to retain users and get them closer to Facebook - further reduce font size. He suggested an apt font size of 8, which would ensure that a user literally kissed his monitor to be able to read clearly. "Nothing can come in between Facebook and its user!", declared Zuckerberg, filmy style.

Keeping in view the changing relationships and dynamic emotions between people, apart from the Poke button, several add-on features like Pinch, Punch, Kick, Slap and Strangle The Neck are to be introduced. Thus, a variety of hellos, starting from a 'simple' hello to 'I know you aren't busy why the hell haven't you been in touch' hello would be covered.

Apart from the Friends Suggestion option ( which, Zuckerberg conceded was paranoid, since Fb once suggested Sashi Tharoor under 'Friends you may know' ), there will be an 'Urgently Unfriend' option. People who update weather details, digestive system details, stolen love quotes and crap that they themselves wouldn't have understood would be suggested for unfriending. Facebook also seemed to have solved its smiley problem, wherein users have had to click external links to view smileys. ('I've added smileys to this status update. Wanna see them?? Visit....) From now on, all smileys would be delivered separately to email accounts as attachments, thus reducing spam risks.

Several long term Facebook users quit in recent months, when people 'liked' their "I'm down with fever", "Paul the Octopus is dead" updates. To stop people from randomly liking updates that would infuriate the poster, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND" button has been added for the mentally challenged users. In another first, Predictive Analytics would be used to automatically generate 'like' to all posts and photos from women. The rationale behind this is to save time and energy for men, whose sole purpose of existance on Facebook is to 'like' all abstract updates from women.

Mr. Zuckerberg promised there would be more interesting and captivating innovations. With Facebook reportedly having the 3rd largest population after China and India, he said he would definitely demand a place for it in the United Nations Security Council. Before calling off the meeting, Zuckerberg created separate pages for 'Happy','New','Year' and '2011' and urged his employees to like and share all pages.

How Nira Radia made 300 crores in 9 years

Retired CBI cop Subbiah, who heads the secret committee formed by the government to probe into how Nira Radia amassed 300 crores in 9 years, has submitted a simple, one paragraph report to the Prime Minister's Office. As is usual, journalists read the report even before the PM did. Writes Subbiah - "It is astounding and a matter of utmost shame that the CBI couldn't crack such a simple case. Nira Radia had been using a Virgin Mobile SIM, and she had been getting paid for incoming. Considering that her clientele include Ratan Tata, Anil Ambani and other top-shots, it is no surprise that she received incoming calls of long durations. It was just a matter of applying logic. I would strongly advice the PMO to look into the falling standards of CBI officers." Subbiah, a 1970 batch IPS officer, is also an alumni of the first batch of "Vendan All Pass Tutorials".

Meanwhile, several entrepreneurs, taking a cue from Nira Radia, have started making crores of money. Their strategy involves sticking "Earn 1 lakh per month. No investment required. Call 9001002010" posters in trains and buses. When called, they simply respond by asking the caller to purchase Virgin Mobile and stick similar posters all over the city. It is being rumored that the wallpaper of all Tamilnadu State Transport Corporation employees has been changed to such posters.

In business news, Airtel has announced that it will rename its "Call your loved ones @ 10 paise per minute" plan to "Nira Radia-Ratan Tata" night time calls plan". The move is expected to offer customers more clarity and connect with the rate-cutter plan.

How do satirists impress girls??

Every man has a constant urge to impress his opposite sex. Every man has his own unique way of impressing women, using skill sets that he was either born with, or arts that he was forced to learn as a child because his parent's colleague's children were learning them too. Such skills or arts include music, dancing, karate, swimming, abacus, etc etc.

Now here is my question. How can a person, devoid of any of the above mentioned type of skills, impress girls? Well, I've been having problems impressing girls right from a very young age. Like from when I was 5 years old or so. The 10 to 15 years-older-than-me girls never found me cute. I mean, I was no match for Vignesh who would run around my apartment naked, chanting all countries-and-their-capitals, getting hair-ruffles or kisses from the gorgeous girls. Out of ambition, I remember I once removed all my clothes and ran around, but I couldn't really get the capitals right. After New Delhi, I could only say Chennai, and then Mambalam, Chromepet, Saidapet. Of course none noticed my antics except Giri, another poor boy who didn't know countries and capitals. Giri appointed me conductor, and himself driver and offered to play driver-conductor with me.

Relatively speaking, I can safely say I was born with a decent sense of humor and sarcasm. Yes, girls did laugh at some of the jokes, but I couldn't really get a move on. So satire or humor as an art for impressing chicks didn't work for me.

There was this fancy dress competition in school. On stage was Prabhu, dressed up as Lord Ganesha, left hand in mouth, right hand in 'blessing' posture as his parents had taught him, reciting "Gajananam bhootha ganaathi...", elongating every word for like 10 seconds. When he finally did finish, all the 10th to 12th standard 'akkas' ran to him and pinched his cheeks, with 'soooo cute' comments. I found him totally stupid! I mean, if he was Lord Ganesha, why was he reciting "Gajanam" and seeking his own blessings for himself?? It was my turn next. I was pretty confident I would get more cheek-pinches than Prabhu. I went on stage, forgot my lines, mistook the mike for a cone ice-cream, bit it, made everyone laugh, but well, no cheek-pinches. I realized my incompetency at that very young age.

Years passed by. While my friends were impressing girls dropping catches, singing the same song every annual day, writing the same "Is technology a boon or bane" essay every year, here I was, making fun of them, but unable to meet their popularity. One sudden day, I realized I have a talent too - satire. I remembered an artist friend of mine, passing on his album to girls, impressing every single one of them. I decided to follow suit. I planned to write a satire about Suresh Kalmadi, print it on flyers, and distribute it to every good looking girl I saw. But next day, there was some A.Raja and I realized people wouldn't really be able to connect with my satire about Kalmadi. I thought I'd become an artist too, atleast to impress girls. But beyond a point, I couldn't really innovate the two-mountains-orange sun-in-between-two crows art of mine.

So I really don't have another option other than satire. But hell, many girls don't even know what satire is!! Yeah, I do get positive comments from Tweeters and bloggers occasionally. But girls?? No-no. Unless Zulquarnin Haider disappears or re-appears on my annual day or culturals, and I'm allowed to live-stream my blog article on stage, I don't think I stand a chance.

Nira Radia, Ratan Tata, A. Raja and more

Sting operation journalists have finally cracked open the mystery as to why Mr. Ratan Tata, head of the Tata conglomerate, is so uncomfortable with his Nira Radia telephonic converstions going public. It has been learnt that, all these days, Mr. Tata had never ever called Nira Radia. Rather, he'd only been giving her missed calls, and it was Miss Radia who kept calling Mr. Tata back. Despite several protests, requests, warnings and profanities from Radia, Mr. Tata had simply refused to recharge his mobile account, and continued to irritate Miss Radia with his missed call antics.

It was in this backdrop that Nira Radia had lobbied with former Telecom Minister A. Raja. Together, the Radia-Raja duo had siphoned off funds from the Telecom Department Exchequer to frequently top up Ratan Tata's Docomo SIM, often Rs.10 denominations. This has infuriated a number of law officials. Said an official under anonymity - "Under the UPA government norms, we have a lower cap or minimum amount that can be robbed off common man's tax money. This lower cap is determined and increased every financial quarter. For this quarter, the cap is Rs. 1 crore. By not being able to siphon off Rs. 1 crore, Ratan Tata has brazenly violated the law of the land. The government will take appropriate action on him."

Meanwhile, Mr. Kapil Sibal, present Telecom Minister, said the issue was too sensitive a one to be realeased for public disclosure. Says Mr. Sibal - "If the public learns about Mr. Ratan Tata's 'missed call' culture, it may prompt several people to follow suit. Soon, people will stop recharging their mobile accounts. Telecom operators will lose a lot of money, and this will reflect on the stock performances. Ultimately, this 'missed call' gate will affect the nation's economy and accrue inflation."

In another shocking relevation, Nira Radia has said that her meet up with A. Raja was never a planned one. She maintained that she got introduced to Raja by accident. A message intercept between the corporate lobbyist and Raja confirms the same. The intercepts have been given below.
Nira Radia (NR): Hey what doing?
Raja: Vetti. Pocketing money.
NR: Oops sorry wrongly sent.
Raja: Its k... ur name??
NR: Nira Radia.
Raja: Boy or gal??
NR: Girl. Lady rather.
Raja: :-) :-) hai will u b my frend????? :-D :-)
Further intercepts of Raja's mobile showed he corresponded with his DMK comrades about his new found friend.
TO: Azhagiri, Stalin, Dhayanidhi, Udhayanidhi, Kalanidhi
Message: Machi got a new figure's number machi..... :-) :-) Name s Nira Radia. Nice name noo?? :-)

Mallya's hackers, oil spills & more

The Pakistan Cyber Army(PCA), which recently hacked Dr.Vijay Mallya's website, has decided to diversify & go one step further: lay underground pipelines from Islamabad to Bangalore, and suck 1 crore barrels worth of Kingfisher rum from United Breweries plants. This was brought to light by a TIMES NOW expose, with a special correspondent swimming through the yet to be constructed pipeline with a hidden camera. Dr. Mallya, when contacted, said he wants to take things one at a time, and that his first priority is reviving his website from the hackers.

Meanwhile, the cyber police haven't begun looking for the hackers yet, as they are busy searching for Shashi Tharoor's long lost Twitter account. Down south, Kalaignar Karunanidhi passed a law in the State Legislature to rename all websites in Tamil. Kalaignar cited the unfamiliarity of Pakistani extremists with Tamil as the reason. TIMES NOW informers inside PCA revealed startling informations though: The Pak Cyber Army is working closely with Pakistan based, Tamil fluent Vijaykanth-movie villains to recognize and hack Tamil websites. M.K. Azhagiri is on top of the hit-list. Hearing this, a furious Captain Vijaykanth has stationed his DMDK cadres equipped with machine guns at all major browsing centers.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has surprisingly requested InterPol not to bust the pipelines, as they can be used to form a Pan India petroleum grid, thus reducing the transportation charges on petroleum. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has his own plans though. He says the pipeline can be routed to the Mumbai coast, so that the oil spill can be re-directed to Islamabad. British Petrouleum CEO, hearing of this latest development, has requested participation of BP in this project, to clear spill off the Gulf coast.

The Indian Government wants to pursue this matter tactically and diplomatically. New Delhi is pushing hard on Pakistan to award the pipeline contract to Suresh Kalmadi. This has two advantages, sources close to the matter say. There would be a steady revenue from the contracts, but at the same time the pipeline won't cross the borders of Islamabad. Very clever indeed!

Indian skipper M.S. Dhoni meanwhile has said that Dr. Mallya's web hack has deeply affected the morale of the team and that the boys are mentally tired. This, he says was the reason the team got 88 all out. (When confronted with the question that the match happened before the hack, a miffed Dhoni said: "Well if it had happened after the hack, the team would have been 8 all out". None understood the logic, of course! )

After a lot of goading, Dr. Mallya chose to speak on this matter. But what he spoke remains unclear because Arnob Goswarmi "Mr Mallya I'm asking a direct question I want a direct answer"ed even before Mallya opened his mouth. A frustrated Mallya shouted Oo La La Le Lo before splashing Whyte & Mackay on the camera.

Greetings to all on our 64th Independence Day. While so many articles have been written about our proud history, here is my attempt at giving you a glimpse of our near future.

Very soon, all keyboards in the world will have the ` symbol. Every apparel shop across the globe will have I ♥ ND (I love New Delhi) T-shirts. The filthy rich American kid will pester his parents for Siyaram's Jeans and Manish Malhotra jerseys, and will wear his jean low & bend down at every opportunity to show off his original, imported-from-Tiruppur Anand underwear.

Very soon, HPS© (Hindi Prachar Sabha) will be conducting Test of Hindi as Foreign Language exams worldwide. The Washington Post will have a full page ad, a testimonial from James Bloom (rank 456, IIT-JEE), thanking Brilliant Tutorials for its part in his success. The brightest minds will get into ISB or IIMs. (and the ones content with just an India MBA shall join IIPMs)

Not far from today, a mother will be withdrawing cash from Manappuram Money Transfer, Melbourne, sent by her son, working as a specialty chef in Muniyandi Vilas Group of Hotels, Kumbakonam.

There might be uproars in our Parliament, to limit the number of work permits to Europeans & Americans. And you won't realize that the Airtel customer care executive you are talking to is actually from a call center in Buffallo! (They speak so fluently, its difficult to differentiate between Indian Hindi & American Hindi!)

Will Smith and Pamela Anderson won't mind dancing for an item number to promote their latest movie to their Non Resident American fans in Mumbai. (Of course, we won't stop by to watch, we won't have time to bother about petty issues.)

Soon, Canada might ban its CEOs from using Micromax smart phones, owing to security reasons. And SUN mobiles (yes, of the Sun TV Network family) will make the most out of this opportunity and shall make customized sets for Canadians.

Vikatan Naanayam will publish the list of world's top earning sportsmen. Tiger Woods will be ranked a distant 156 and Kobe Byrant 92, just 2 ranks away from Ravindra Jadeja's rank 90. French and German football fans might get into a brawl in one of our TASMAC outlets and their embassies will plead with the Indian government to let them off without charges.

Those days aren't far off. No country is perfect. It has to be made perfect. Proud to be born an Indian =)

[P.S.: This is my first attempt at writing. Feedbacks will be greatly appreciated]