Andrew Symonds joins Sri Rama Sene

In a rather confusing but curious revelation at Vidhana Soudha today, chairman of the Sri Rama Sene, Mr Pramod Muthalik told the drivers of the MLAs that Australian cricketeer, Andrew Symonds, who is currently unemployed has joined Sri Rama Sene. Mr Muthalik said "Sri Rama Sene andre kOtigaLallvE? he he he" (doesn't Sri Rama Sena mean monkeys? he he he) when contacted by those media persons who had run out of things to publish.

In the meantime, sources revealed to us that Sri Rama Sene had recently distributed pamphlets that they would be screening of the film, "kOthigaLu saar kOthigaLu" (monkeys, sir, monkeys) in Pushpanjali tent, Basaveshwaranagar. However, when a grand total of 6 eager "fans" turned up to see the film, they found activists of SRS standing on the dias. When asked about this, Mr Muthalik said "alla. naavE irbEkaadre cinema yaake? he he he" (see, when we are only there, what for do we need the film? he he he).

Mr Muthalik also told the media later that Symonds would be rechristened Vali, so that he could "get into character". When the press conference was going on, the union external affairs minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee casually walked in and announced that the central government has sent a dossier to Pakistan about their terror related activities and has demanded immediate action from them in this regard. When someone pointed out that his press conference was scheduled for 6 pm whereas it was only 5 pm, he sheepishly grinned, and apologised saying that he had only recently purchased a new CASIO digital watch and he had mistaken the 5 for 6.

When Mr Harbhajan Singh was contacted about this incident, he slapped the journalist and screamed, "**** *** **".

Chennai Autodrivers thwart terror attack

While the Mumbai was reeling under the recent terror attacks, an act of bravery by a Chennai Auto-driver has gone unnoticed. Our correspondent chanced upon this story and we have this saga for you in full detail.

Senthil Muthukrishnan is an auto driver from Saidapet, Chennai. His daily routine begins with a masala tea and a pack of beedi, after which he makes way to Chennai Central railway station, where his modus operandi is to catch visitors to Chennai promising them to ferry them to their destination and then promptly decide to swindle them either by taking them through a long circuitous route to their destination or by exhausting their supply of money and patience, whichever occurs first.

On the 1^st of December 2008, Senthil went to the Central as usual. There, he found Kasab II, an insurgent who had made way to Chennai in the hope of blowing it up, a la the recent Delhi bombings. KII's modus operandi was to proceed to the Chennai Corporation, which is situated very close to the railway station, plant a bomb there and detonate it remotely. However, he had to go to the harbour to obtain his weapons of mass destruction. And he had very little time because his aunt in Hyderabad had promised that she will make extremely tasty mutton curry if he arrives there the next morning. This turned out to be the turning point.

KII had a total supply of Rs 1000 to finish this operation. He got out of the railway station and made way to the auto stand. Whom should he find there but Senthil? He quickly got into the auto and murmured "Take me to the harbour". Senthil replied saying that it will cost him 400 rupees, noticing that KII was not dressed in lungi and banian, the official clothing of The Republic of Tamilnadu. KII, not knowing what he was getting into, agreed. Thereafter, Senthil promptly proceeded to take KII in circles.

After encircling the railway station area for the 321^st time, and with no harbour in sight, KII got a little impatient and asked when they would be reaching there. Senthil promptly entered the thick of the autorickshaws parked outside the railway station and said that he won't be getting out unless KII pays him Rs 700 above the meter. With just 20 minutes left for the train to leave for Hyderabad, KII had no option but to pay whatever he had, and run. Which is what he did.

And that is how we got saved.

PS: This is humour. Yes, this is insensitive. But, it is not irresponsible like this, or the media showing the commando operations like it was some reality tv show, or Barkha Dutt not letting the sensible people talk in We The People and preferring TRPs from the sob stories, or, well, I can go on and on.

Tired, and ashamed.

Enough. We have had enough.

I have watched the news like a madman for the last 35 hours or so, minus the hours that I slept. And, I am pissed, and sad. Not just sad, worried. And worried badly. And it has got me thinking...

I want my kids to grow up in a safe environment, with Indian values, in Indian culture. But is this even possible? I got thinking about this as soon as I watched the news, and here, I am trying to pour out my thoughts over the last 30 hours or so...

1) India has spent a lot on my life. A lot, a damn lot. First of all, my education was subsidised. Secondly, my transportation was. And a lot of other things, the rice that I ate, the shoes that I wore, and what not. And how am I going to give back all the effort which has gone into these perks that I got?

2) How many of us actually know when the last terror attacks were on this country? How many people died there? How many of us really feel bad about this? I mean, really feel bad, not platonically, but really?

3) Who elected these idiots into the parliament? What business did the opposition leader and the home minister have in Mumbai? Weren't the security forces pressed hard enough? What rubbish is this? What was Mr Patil thinking when he announced to the whole world about the NSG's modus operandi?

All in all, I think that it is about time that we stopped warming our rear ends here, and got back. Our country has spent a lot on us. There is something in our passports that we think is important. It ascertains that we are Indian citizens. Our country needs strong surveillance and reconnaissance operations now. It needs people who can contribute with their technical know how. It needs people to run the administrative sector. I urge people to write the UPSC, apply to government jobs and such.

Of course, not many will return unless the jobs are lucrative. So, please stop spending on ridiculous things and start funding jobs, so that we have a secure nation for our descendants. I am sick and tired of the sops which we are dishing out towards religious objectives. Please, stop funding things like the Haj. The rich can go. The poor can pray at home. If your God ignores the poor, then he is no God. Please listen to your reason. Please pour that money towards creating a safer, more educated India.

I am ashamed of the fact that I can think reasonably about these issues, and still feel helpless. I am irritated about the fact that my only choices for governments are between a votebank crazy one and a religiously fundamentalist one. If you, as an Indian, are not feeling bad about this, this is time for checking whether your conscience is alive or not. Until you give back to India, I don't see how you can be practicing Indian values, nor can I see how you can call yourself Indian. Bury all differences and get back.

This is how best I can collect my thoughts right now.

JAI HIND!

Mommy Crazy - III (Mommy gets it, this time)

Mom: what did you have for dinner
me: upuma
with chutney
Mom: who made
me: I made
Mom: coconut is available there
me: no, I just imagined it
so, technically, this is ichutney

Government declares Autodriver slang neo-classical

Union culture minister Ambika Soni declared to a gathering of rabid mongrels and laughter club chairmans in New Delhi today that the language used by Autorickshaw drivers across the country would be honoured with neo-classical status on the forthcoming Valentine's Day. When questioned about the motive behind this unexpected move, Ms Soni said that it is high time that this rather expressive and popular language be recognised. She also said that the central government would allocate special funds for all civil servants to travel by autorickshaws across the length and breadth of the country, which in turn would proliferate autorickshaws, and hence their drivers, thereby enriching the language.

However, unnamed sources from the Congress Party revealed to our special correspondents that this was a move by the party to replicate the success of the "Joe the plumber" campaign run by the Republican Party during the recently concluded presidential elections in the USA. "Soni-ji will be our Palin-ji" said a rather enthusiastic Congress supporter. "Instead of Joe the plumber, we are going to use Ramesh Rahmatullah George Singh Purohit Yadav Pillai Shenoy the autodriver", he / she added. "See, using this approach, we neither miss any of the states where we do not control the state governments, nor do we miss any religion, making us the only truly secular party in the country", said he / she.

"Just to make sure that our campaign is a success, we are going to start a youth-autodriver wing, whose symbol will be, yes, an autodriver", said Capt Obvious and ran away as soon as Ms Sonia Gandhi came around.

Obama declared Zilla Parishat Chairman of Udupi district

In a rather bizarre and confusing development, Senator Barack Hussein Obama of the United States of America has been declared the chairman of the Udupi district Zilla Parishat, a source reports from Manipal Udupi. According to the authorities, there was some misconfiguration in the central server which managed the American elections, and hence all the votes were diverted to Udupi, where Obama has achieved a landslide victory against Mr Ramesh Shetty, the owner of 2 different Udupi hotels and one ice cream parlour in Downtown Udupi. A local, when questioned on this issue just said enthaddu saavu maaraayre, and went away.

RPL

First of all, yayyyy! for two reasons. One, we steam-rolled the Aussies in Mohali and Two, Chandrayaan I is successful.

Talking of cricket, over the past year or so, there's been a huge hullabaloo over the death of Test cricket and the rise of the slam-bang version, the Twenty20. While the purists root for the former, the not-terribly-interested-in-cricket-but-want-some-fun type of junta seem to have their allegiances firmly with the latter form. But few can deny that the latter makes more money and is watched by more and hence is here to stay, whether or not at the cost of Test cricket is something that we have to wait and see.

A lot has been written about the origins of Test cricket, and a lot of people with lots of time (LPWLT) on their hands have spent hours arguing about such literature rather than watch the game itself and enjoy it. But few people know the real origins of Twenty20 (T20 for short). Since I am one of those guys with a lot of time on my hands to be profligated on pointless pursuits, I spent time making up a baseless theory for its origins, which I shall now proceed to present in front of the public who refuses pay in spite of hinting, cajoling, hollering and begging by the author, who is, as you might have guessed, I.

It all started on a rather normal day in Bangalore, now Bengalooru, renamed so to satisfy the whims and fancies of another LPWLT. A motley bunch of boys aged 7 to 12 were playing cricket on 9th Main Road, Rajajinagar and another such group was indulging in identical pleasures in SiddaramadiNNe. For the sake of narration, let us deem the former group's leader one Mr R.V, 4th std B section. The latter group is inconsequential and was mentioned just to mislead the readers.

Well, the reality of the matter is that RV was a prolific swinger of the bat with a penchant to connect every now and then and promptly deposit the ball a fair distance away (Mr V can vouch from his couch for this), sometimes to the chagrin of neighbours, inside their houses' compounds. The inevitable happened, and R.V's group (RVG, for short) was evicted from 9th Main Road (TIH, RVG (RVG, FS) WE 9MR, for short). In the face of such adversity, what else can the kids do but to head to Rammandir Grounds? And so, they did. And the rest as they say, is history.

The primary problem with the Rammandir Grounds was the presence of two very busy thoroughfares on either side of the playground. Hence, with high probability, whenever RV swung and connected well, the ball would blaze away into nothingness (more like another kid just swooping on the ball and running away). This problem aggravated over time because of the pocket money that RVG's members used to get was a measly 4 rupees per week, and this loss of ball event would occur every other day, sometimes thanks to the enthusiasm of another member of RVG inspired by the exploits of RV. After the loss of innumerable (3) rubber balls, the consensus in the group was to either make RV non-playing captain or to modify the rules.

When the poor kids were trying to cope with the task of solving this annoyance, another unforeseen hurdle cropped up in the form of mid-term exams. Parents of the warriors of RVG (WRVG, for short) started forcing them to come back and study for the exams after 5 pm. Fast runs had to be scored often to win the matches, but they had to be done without losing the ball. The solution that was hit upon is stuff of genius and the rest as they say, is History II.

The solution was simple, SHORT PITCH CRICKET (SHORT PITCH CRICKET, for kicks). If the ball hit the walls of the playground on full toss, the batsman was out. To save time, bowling was replaced by chucking, thereby causing people like Shahid, Shoaib and Grant to believe that it is legitimate in all forms of cricket. Such was the appeal of this format to the crowd of 70-somethings who used to loiter there with their grandchildren, that they forced the latter into getting involved, and soon a sizeable number were either playing or claiming to play this form of the game. Soon after, floodlights arrived, jobless 20-somethings calling themselves RMC (Rammandir Cricketeers Club) replaced the 7 to 12 year olds and RMC Cup was born.

The ECB saw this, fudged it, and called it Twenty20.

Thassit, now you mofos, find something better to do, I want to finish homework.

PS: I am RV. If you bother me, I will hit you for a six.

PPS: These are some photos of the aforementioned people playing this form of cricket: