Part 1: Obama Fly Swat - the Incident

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Disclaimer: The following post depicts real incident(s) in a sarcastic & sardonic manner. While some extracts of the post refer to real incident(s), most extracts are fictionalized/parodied accounts.

Washington D.C.

16 June, 2009

It was another Tuesday morning at the White House and things were going right on schedule, pretty much as planned - no security breaches or threats, no scandalous disclosures and no shoes being thrown (Ah wait! All these had become non-issues since quite some while ago, ever since the arrival of a charismatic, idealistic, dynamic leader, but I digress). Somewhere deep within the confines of the pristine white monolith, President Obama was being interviewed by a C.N.B.C. anchor-man on various issues ranging from Wall-Street to Health-Reform. Though the President was facing some thorny questions (asked no doubt by an anchor-man whose pay-cheques were regulated directly or indirectly by crony capitalists & Wall Street fatcats), it didn't seem to perturb him much. And then it happened…

A fly, a rather large one at that, came out of nowhere and launched an audacious assault on the President of the United States, the executive symbol and the living embodiment of America's power in the world. The Secret Service, an institution much glamorized in the country's films & media, portrayed always as adroit at presidential logistics & adept at presidential security, but whose track-record in the real-world contradictorily enough, hasn't been failure-proof (which is no doubt publicly attributed to "nefarious designs of tyrannical men"), stood paralyzed not out of fear but out of "shock and awe", notwithstanding their alleged superior neurological & cognitive abilities, supposed split-reaction-times and an abundant supply of technological gizmos.

As they watched awe-struck as mute spectators, the President himself seemed to be mildly amused at this half-hearted attempt that the minuscule fly made. He did admit that the fly perturbed him - apparently much more than some of the gravest issues facing the planet. He even verbally articulated his displeasure, instructing the assaulting fly to "get outta here", (which some opined also doubled up as a battle-cry), while simultaneously waving his hand in intimidation & defense. The C.N.B.C. crew in the meanwhile gleefully captured an audio-video feed of this inter-species combat that would no doubt hit America's air-waves as a contentious issue for pundits/analysts to belabor upon and also find a lot of takers in educational documentaries of how two different species with radically different sizes battle for the attention of the community.

Ideally, at this stage, several secret service agents , after having whispered complicated permutations & combination of laborious abbreviations (representing situational protocols & heuristic behavioral algorithms) to each other over super-encrypted secure digital channels, should have formed an ad-hoc tactical-response unit, moving in formation towards the President (source: Hollywood). It was assured (by Hollywood portrayals) that the end result would be a bloody execution of the assailant (in S.S. euphemistic parlance, "swift neutralization") while simultaneously securing the safety of the President. Alas, this failed to happen.

As the President was fighting a lone battle against the fly, the C.N.B.C. anchor-man opined rather intellectually that the fly was indeed one of the most persistent ones he had seen - there was a tacit admiration in his voice & an implicit suggestion that the fly possessed perseverance and fortitude - qualities that all Americans (and the World) need to emulate. The fierce battle had gathered enthralled spectators from amongst the C.N.B.C. crew, all of them egging on the President to go for the kill by chanting jingoistic slogans and juvenile cheers. After a prolonged arm-wrestling battle, the fly decided a time-out was in order. The President too was relieved that he wouldn't have to continue to keep up with this macho charade and tried to resume bilateral talks with C.N.B.C. Little did he realize that in the short time-span of a fly's life-cycle, a second was more than sufficient to rejuvenate for the next round of the fight. For in a second, the fly dramatically landed on the President's left-hand, as if to offer a hand of friendship announcing peace & reconciliation, all the while looking insidiously for a sign of complacency in the opponents demeanor, a sign of his opponent letting down his guards. President Obama saw through the fly's flimsy farce and decided to end the confrontation once and for all.

With measured movements, he raised his right-hand in a position that quite resembled the one he had used to take his oath. For a fleeting moment, it appeared that the President, apparently rendered insecure by a desperate opposition (with an odd-sounding moniker 'GOP') wanted no stone unturned or no oath un-uttered, and so not convinced about having taken oath twice under two independent/competent authorities, he had decided to re-take the oath to be apparently administered by the assailant-fly. But as he brought down his right hand in one continuous sweeping motion, it became clear, both from the angular velocity and the directional trajectory of the President's right-arm, that this was no proud oath-taking moment, but a hostile action whose intended consequence was the immediate termination of the said assailant. With one swift motion, the long-fought truculent battle was over - the preceding seconds of tension, mistrust, war and misery eclipsed by the sweet taste of a just victory. The victor brushed off the vanquished and saw it succumb to the force of gravity, only to be later swept by the victor's long wispy legs. The President seemed content with himself, having just realized the patriotic symbolism of the moment, also deciding to parade his kill for the cameras. He invoked a profound existential rhetorical question: "That was impressive, wasn't it?", following it up with a vehement articulation of victory: "I got the sucker".

The President then continued to discuss policy issues (non-interesting matters) with C.N.B.C. in his trademark composure and suave sophistication, quite as if to deny the occurrence of the epic battle that had unfolded a few seconds ago. As the interview concluded, the President, perhaps out of a mark of respect for the dead or admiration for the persistent assailant or esoteric curiosity (or simply perhaps out of a strict adherence to the Geneva conventions), decided to give the assailant-fly a dignified disposal. President Obama undertook a presidential parade in somber remembrance of the slain assailant, carrying the tender, lifeless body of the beast wrapped in tissue in his own bare hands. In doing this, he proved once again very visibly, that he is the humane warrior - providing a dexterous, pain-free execution to those who cross him needlessly while also ensuring dignified treatment in the immediate aftermath of these spars.

The President, unbeknownst to him, has seemed to kick off a storming pot of controversies on everything from Foreign Policy to Economic Policy to controversial domestic issues to backburner animal-rights issues. It has gotten everyone worked up – right from an (in)famous dead-pan comedy-show host to a yesteryear actor (who incidentally played a fly) to tyrannous dictators and evil men wearing pirate eye-patches. The impact of the actions that the President undertook during his armed encounters of the fly kind, shall no doubt shape public policy for years, if not decades to come. This shall be the subject of an investigative report (read: conspiracy theory/burning satire) put out by our hard-working reporters to be tabled very soon (as soon as we are able to concoct more lies and/or sensationalize trivialities for public dissemination) and you can then make an independent (but moronic & entirely misinformed) decision about whether the President has opened the Pandora’s Box.

LINKS & REFERENCES:

• Obama Fly - HuffPo Link 1
• SHOCK & AWE @ Wikipedia
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind @ Wikipedia
• Infamous Comedy Host & Yesteryear Actor

Random Thoughts 1

This is the first of hopefully a long series of short PJ's and amused musings, most of which have originated from the depths of an idle, devious mind. This series is "inspired" from the series of posts of the same name on Crucifire's Blog. So credit to him for "inspiring" me :P


Also, I just want to mention the fact that brevity is not my cup of tea - my skill and my interest lies in the complicating the simple, restating the obvious, expanding the brief and inflating the smallest into one humongous blog post - my archives will bear testimony to this!! That and the fact that 8 semesters, 45 exams later, I have mastered the art of putting random words together!! So, this series is all the more challenging for a person devoid of any succinctness. Here's to brevity!!

Oh! And please do gimme feedback (positive or negative)!


Here goes ....

Q. "What do Shahrukh Khan and Adam Sandler have in common??"

A. They are both wedding singers!!

Links:
The Wedding Singer (1998 movie) @ Wikipedia
Deccan Herald Report of SRK paid as a wedding guest

Testimonial Categorization!

Having been on Orkut now for (the better part of) a year & a half now, I have noticed the spate of the rather meaningful testimonials that give a stunning insight into of the concerned person (all the sarcasm intended).

Some authors are poetic in their expression, preferring to write poems & sometimes songs in praise of the fellow. The colourful, sometimes-cryptic-sometimes-descriptive words sewn together to form lines & then stanzas ring out so rythmically & with such rhyming, that the heart soars when it reads! :P

Other authors prefer a more philosophically engaging way of expressing themselves, as they choose a recursive mode of writing. A generic example of such a recursion would be : "this is a blog post" OR " this is a testimonial" - a careful scrutiny of the statement reveals such hidden information & philosophical implications that you will be stunned by how so much can be implied in so little! :P .... Truly, brevity & recursion is the soul of a testimonial! :P .... The authors of such testimonials are usually philosophers, sears or computer programmers who understand the philosophical dichotomy of recursion!

Be it in poetry or prose, both testimonials have one thing in common - they are mass manufactured & copy-pasted/submitted/accepted in bulk - quite like that Archies card you gift some-one. Even that is a tad more original & authentic! This is not to say that the authors mean anything less than a sincere friendly testimonial - but many unfortunately haven't been blessed with the gift of the pen ;)

Then we have authors, who not satisfied with a mass-propagated material, make sincere attempts to be original & creative. While their efforts are valiant & appreciable, the result unfortunately is hardly flattering. But, atleast these guys make an effort to write something unique & different - its not just the end-result, but the gesture that counts.

And then, there's a category of committed love-birds, who choose to let out their feelings for each other via multiple testimonials, each of which read out like a Mills & Boons novel :P - okay mebbe not that bad! But its bad enough! Some of them divulge in such great detail the small nuances/idiosyncrasies and incidents that established their relationship, that would satisfy the apetite of even the most voyeuristic amongst us.

And finally, there are authors like me, who use a dozen adjectives & so-called "hi-funda" words (I like to think of them as illustrations of my linguistic mastery - yea, call me pompous & grandiloquent :P) .... Of course, it comes at a price - such testimonials are beyond the comprehension of the general orkutting masses and defy the very purpose of having a testimonial! People get more pissed when they receive such testimonials than when they have none - the reason? they don't understand half of it!

In the end, there are two ways of looking at it - that testimonials are tools for self-gratification and peer-approval on the internet in a manner that is as frivolous as it is dangerous/delusional OR testimonials are just a funny, light-hearted (and often copy-pasted/badly written) perspective on near friends/family that is meant NOT to be taken too seriously. Which one is the case, I leave it to you guys to decide.

Jeepers Creepers! Lord save us!

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Himesh Reshammiya Song! :P
"India's First & Only Rockstar" - Truth is stranger than fiction! :P

At the time of writing this post, my hands are shaking, my legs are tapping the floor with such enthusiasm & frequency so as to match the fundamental frequency of vibration of my building, hence bringing about resonance ..... my mind is numbed in awe & my heart fluttering with eagerness .... all this in nervous anticipation of the 'bonanza' that is going to take place on 31st December, 2006 .... my informant - an ad in the movies section of Bombay Times

Yes ladies & gentlemen .... Himeshji will be lending his soulful voice & sing his melodious tunes to usher in the new year and he has invited all of us to join him in his nasal renditions of his most melodious tunes :P

And what better venue than a 5-star premium hotel like Renaissance, Powai? Really, I admire Himeshji's tastes! Its another thing, that I disapprove of Renaissance's taste! :P

To remind us of his apparent (yet thoroughly undeserved) greatness, the ad stresses on the fact that Himeshji is afterall India's first & only true rockstar .... such is his apparent greatness that the ad proclaims this as "THE MOST PHENOMENAL NEW YEAR'S EVE" ..... And like the central-attraction in a circus, Himeshji is being touted as "SPECIAL ATTRACTION" .... Ofcourse with his unshaven, unkempt appearance coupled with a wardrobe that consists of all things animalistic - Himeshji could well perform in a circus as well :P


I am not at all surprised that brands such as Provogue are sponsoring such an event .... after all Himeshji is the GREATEST singer/composer to have graced the earth :P .... Mozart pales in comparision & Beethoven is like a piss-in-a-bucket when compared to our Himeshji :P .... and ofcourse, Provogue seems to have found a great ambassador in Himeshji to sell their products - most of which will now come equipped with those great caps Himeshji keeps sporting. See, Himeshji is now India's first & only fashion icon!! :P

Now I am one among the Anti-Himesh brigade - one among those who give hope to the rest of the tormented mankind .... why would I be waiting in anticipation for this event u ask? well simple - I forgot to mention that I plan to place a whole-sale order for 200kg of tomatoes which I plan use as projectiles against Himeshji & co .... Now, THAT surely would be "THE MOST PHENOMENAL NEW YEAR'S EVE"! Don't u agree? :P


PS:
Somebody please hack this site!!
Himeshji_performing_in_Mumbai - From THE Himeshji's very own nasal Blog

So much furore over a song!

This past week was rather unusually eventful - with once again murder, corruption, sleaze and vote-bank politics dominating headlines. Ho hum, NEWS has become so damn boring, with the exception of Avantika Singh ofcourse! :P .... But as I said, never before have I seen so much of votebank politics (Vande Mataram controversy), murder-cases(Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Matoo, Prof Sabharwaal), etc within the span of a week.

Anyways, coming to the point, the one issue which really did bother me was the Vande Mataram controversy. Read these artciles from Mumbai Mirror - Report1 and Report2. Also read Times of India's Page on the controversy - its a great read.

Now, there seems to be a furore over this song, that to the average man seems completely unjustified. I mean, what is going on people?! Here we are - a supposedly independant and democratic country, a supposedly future "super-power" - and we are fighting on whether Savarkar's portrait must be given place in Govt buildings and on whether we make recitatioon of Vande Mataram compulsory for all citizens!!


I mean, to the politicians, a couple of points -
1. We are short of more than 1,00,000MW of power
2. We are rated 127th in the 2005 U.N. Human Development Index (below Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, etc - but thankfully for our politicians above Pakistan - thats the only thing that seems to matter to our netas)
So you see, dearest Netas, we have some REAL issues on which to discuss and debate!!


The BJP, however, seems to have found an amazing consensus over the song, so much so that the song could prove to be the saving grace for a party that has become the laughing stock of the country - they call it the 'baniyan' party. Obviously, it wants to milch the cow when its giving all the milk. But just imagine when more than one BJP MP was asked by CNN IBN and TimesNOW and NDTV to recite the song and they floundered! They couldnt even get past the 1st line! Ditto with the Congress ke netas! :D

But what really was the nail in the coffin was when BJP MP and former I&B minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was asked to recite the song, his response was so evasive that it transgressed the limits of hypocrisy. Another "sample" among our politicians is the Muslim BJP MP Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who conjured up a word or two of his own while reciting the 1st stanza of the song, all this with lots of prodding by the journo - what was absolutely hilarious was the journo prompting Naqvi to recite words/phrases which were manufactured and totally out of context. What a great nation we live in! Our netas make mountains out of molehills - thats tolerable - but when they dont know a f**k about what they are making an issue of! Then well, what can I say!


Then there are the Mullahs from the Darool Uloom of Deoband and many other associated Madrassas - they object to recitation of the song because it "goes against Islam". They say that Muslims are allowed to consider only Allah as worth worshipping, that they can only sing praises for Allah - I mean no offense to anyone, but how in God's name (or Allah's name) is the recitation of a beautiful song that praises the motherland be in violation of Islam?! But I am not singing BJP's tune of enforcing it upon anyone (coz they dont know the damn song in the 1st place!), but to offer an excuse by saying "it violates Islam" is not something I can fathom.


But I am indulging in meaningless ranting .... See, I should be coming up with concrete solutions - Infact I have. You know what - Chuck Vande Mataram! Thats right - chuck it - throw Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's beautiful creation out of the window!

Instead of Chatterjee, you know what - we must pick a song from our own Himesh bhai! His songs have an uncanny and hidden reference to our motherland. And besides, Bankim Chatterjee with a beard and a baseball cap can pass of as the great Himeshji! :P


So, here are some suggestions for prospective Himesh tunes that could be adopted as an anthem:
1. Aashiq Banaya Aapne - Himesh bhai is praising the motherland for arousing the Romeo within him! :P

2. All day All Night, Teri Yaad Sataye - Himesh bhai recites his 24/7 brand of Patriotism! :P

3. Zara Jhoom Jhoom - Himesh bhai is calling upon all Indians (be it BJP/Arjun Singh or Congress/YFE :P) to unite and 'Jhoom' in the glory of India

4. Yeh Meri Meri Zohrajhabi - Himesh bhai refers to India as "Zohrajhabi" and then uses words like 'furkat' with his melodious (nasal) voice to confess his love for his motherland :P

5. Naam hai Tera Tera - Himesh bhai confesses that 'India' resides in his heart and sole :P


Just imagine these songs being sung by 10year old school-children in schools across the country, as they recount their love for their motherland! Just imagine these songs being played in Theatres accompanying a fluttering tricolour on the screen! Just imagine Kajol's son singing these songs Phirangi style in K3G!! :P .... I sure have made the national song either a lot 'kooler' or very corny! :P

I am sure that passions and tempers will once again rise in the country. And the BJP and Congress will make Himesh the ringside joker, who gets all the bouquets and brickbats, as they indulge in a political slug-fest that aims at achieving nothing in particular. And the Mullahs will be quite happy to sing along Himeshji's wonderful tunes. Ofcourse, there will be an open war between Himeshji's loyal fans and the Anti-Himesh brigade, which will threaten peace and stability within the country (quite literally by the playing of his songs). But atleast that way, we dont make a mockery out of a beautiful song called "Vande Mataram".

See, now thats a solution!! Here's looking forward to Himeshji's wonderful compositions as our nation's anthems!! :P

PS: I am not a Himesh fan. Infact quite the opposite - I belong to the "Anti-Himesh Brigade". I chose to satirize Himesh(ji) by offering him my"respects".

PS2: I have provided Himesh fan link so that we (the United Alliance of Anti-Himesh Associatons) can bring it down :P