Outrage on Outrage

Wasn’t it depressing?

What?

The whole Nirbhaya thing.

Is that her real name?

No

Then why is everyone calling her Nirbhaya?

The media gave her this name to protect her privacy. Some people are calling her Damini too.

It is interesting that the media can give anyone any fictionalized name they want. How come she is “fearless”? Who gets to assign these names? Is there like one person whose job is to assign random names to various victims and then write (name changed to protect identity) next to it?

I’d love to have a job like that.

Maybe they don’t leave such delicate matters to the whims and fancies of one person. I am guessing there is a Victim Renaming Committee in each media organization that assigns names to victims whose “privacy” they want to “protect”.

I can already imagine the meeting that came up with the name ‘Nirbhaya’. Some corporate looking manager fellow must have said, “Alright guys, Hindi news channels are already calling her Damini. Let us brainstorm a list of appropriate names and then we’ll pick the best out of it. Just throw your ideas around, be creative, and remember: No idea is a bad idea!’’

I am even willing to give you away to another cat just to get a hold of that list.

Woah! You are MY cat. I am NOT your human. Haven’t I made it very clear?

Let’s not get into that. How did Facebook people take the news?

“1 Like = 100 slaps for all rapists” said one and got a hundred likes. “Death for the rapists” cried another to greater applause. Chemical castration, public lynching, cutting off the wiener with a pair of scissors and feeding it to rodents… everyone had their own idea of justice and most of them included invoking vivid imagery ranging from 13th century Sharia style stoning to Garuda Puranam style torture in the afterlife.

*cough* Wahhabi regime *cough*

The Political Correctness police have decreed that she’s a rape SURVIVOR now, not a rape VICTIM because, you know, being a rape victim is a stigma in our society.

I don’t think the word ‘victim’ is the problem here. There is no shame in being referred to as a riot victim or an accident victim. Technically, it is the word ‘rape’ that is taboo. Why not replace that? Let’s go Carlin all the way and refer to her as an unwilling sperm recipient!

Political Correctness only makes the violence seem subtle

It is interesting to see the different forms outrage takes

Yeah, some people take it personally like how the rapist is a sick, perverted psychopath who ought to be punished in colorful ways based on their favorite era of barbarism to show future potential rapists that we mean business!

Just a short tempered reaction…

Yes, and the anger goes away real quickly too. This guy is shouting KILL THEM, HANG THEM, RAPE THEM BACK and all sorts of things and two minutes later he is commenting on his friend’s engagement pictures with a lot of smileys. That’s weird.

Facebook Turing Machines, all of them ;)

The second category is the Outrage Machine. The mainstream media strokes it wonderfully well. They have truly capitalized on this high intensity drama.

They make sure they never pick a side. That is how you maximize profit… by pleasing all the parties involved: the victim’s family, the “market base” they are trying to entertain, and the government which protects and bails them out during tough times.

First, they spin the story into a sob fest giving her names like Nirbhaya, Damini, Amanat and then they come up with the usual neutral, non-threatening, non-inquisitive, ass-kissing narratives like, “HOW UNFORTUNATE… OH! HOW BRUTAL… SHE WANTS TO LIVE… PRAY FOR HER… THE BRAVE ONE… INDIA’S FAVORITE DAUGHTER… LET US SALUTE THIS MARTYR… LIGHT A CANDLE… OBSERVE TWO MINUTES OF SILENCE… and hey, while you are at it… CHRISTMAS SALE!

No wonder they were chasing ambulances carrying rape victims. I am sure it improved their Q3 profits

And as the protests intensified, there was consensus among all the news channels that the people’s anger is not against one rape incident but it is outrage against all rapes, the way women are treated in our society, the apathy of the police, lack of respect for due process, the snail paced courts, the paralysis of our parliament, the state of the world, the chaotic nature of the Universe and humanity’s collective failure to unify the General Theory of Relativity with Electromagnetism into a Unified Field Theory!

It's in their interest to prolong the issue and maintain the confusion as long as possible.

The other thing they passionately did to fuel the Outrage Machine was to fish for misogyny. They have searched the length and breadth of the country to find MLAs, MPs, ministers, policemen, senior bureaucrats, scientists, religious people, film stars and all kinds of people who made insensitive, asshole statements like “DENTED AND PAINTED… SHE WAS ASKING FOR IT… WHAT WAS THE GIRL DOING OUTSIDE HER HOUSE AFTER SUNSET? … SHE SHOULD HAVE RESISTED… SHE SHOULD HAVE SURRENDERED… WESTERN CULTURE… BAD PUNJABI RAP and published them with anguish about the times we live in.

The irony…

Okay, the guy’s “music” is disgusting but what is point of directing all the anger towards one person? He just happens to be on the fringes of an industry that makes its money by objectifying women. You can’t celebrate “Munni badnaam hui” and “Shiela ki Jawani” by giving them Filmfare Awards and then call Honey Singh an asshole!

One standard is enough for everybody, we don’t need a double.

The Outrage Machine consumed all the news and outraged at a scale we haven’t seen in recent times. “If this SON OF A PRESIDENT talks like this… what else do you expect?”; “Did you hear that? She is a SCIENTIST and she is a WOMAN… this is disgusting!” MLAs, MPs, POLICE, TEACHERS, GOD MEN … yes it is not very hard to find assholes in this country. We already know that.

Aren’t people tired of this shit?

People are, but the Outrage Machine never gets tired. The third kind of outraged people get emotional and take themselves too seriously.
The Internet Revolutionaries who are draped in their pajamas, lying on the bed tweeting as if they are part of this new-age secret society on the boundary-less internet and all smug about how they wish they were getting Lathi charged and tear gassed while they are going to light candles and shout slogans at Freedom Park or Jantar Mantar and be part of a “revolution”, you know like Rang De Basanti.

They are like the ones who “woke up this morning in Addis Abeba wishing I was at India Gate, wanting to be tear-gassed, wanting to be lathi-charged, wanting my holiday to end and to be standing with people like me…“

haha... కడుపు నిండిన బేరాలు as they say in Telugu ;)

Clearly, she has never been on the other side of a policeman’s lathi. Else, she would never wish it upon herself.

Louis CK captures this Internet Revolutionary Liberal mood beautifully

The next category has people who belong to The Battalion of The Completely Useless. These are the people who keep saying, “Men get horny all the time… The real problem is human nature… Unless men change their attitude towards women, things will remain like this… We should educate children to treat women well… Mothers should raise their sons to be sensitive towards women… We should look inwards and ask ourselves … is this the world we want our daughters to grow up in?… we should be better role models for our kids starting tomorrow… and for tonight, let us all hug a little extra tight as we sleep… and be thankful for what we have… to keep the spirit alive… hopefully one day, we’ll learn to love each other” or whatever the fuck all that means!

Haha… they add no value to the debate. They are not giving us any new facts, neither are they are not giving us any new insights. Except comedy or entertainment value, this point of view has no practical value at all. It is fun to have such colourful characters though.

To be fair, people were genuinely outraged. I mean we are the 123rd safest country to be a woman and that is bad. Even by our standards. And our government also handled it in the worst possible way.

Their first reaction to the protests was suppressing – Shutting down public transport, cordoning off areas, deploying additional security for the politicians, Lathi charges, water cannons, tear gas (optional) and Section 144.

The usual Police State Style

Then they flew her out of the country as a preemptive political move to prevent the on-going street protests from intensifying. And now that she died, they are giving her a state funeral, special aircraft, special postage stamp, flags at half-mast and other memorial shit as if she is some kind of a war hero.

How is she a martyr? That doesn’t even make sense. A martyr is someone who voluntarily chooses to suffer death rather than renounce their principles. War heroes are heroes because they volunteer to take the risk for a higher cause you are cool with. There is no higher cause here. She did not volunteer for anything. There is nothing ‘fearless’ about getting into a bus at 9 o’clock in the evening. She was just a normal girl who was going home after watching the movie. Let her be that “human” person.

Our political class is clearly afraid of its own citizens. That is why they send out poorly trained police force to crush any small sign of dissidence.

As far as the police are concerned, it is just another day at work. That is how they deal with every protest. Farmers, price rise, labor rights, women’s rights, nuclear plant, corruption, land grabbing, child malnutrition, water…. It doesn’t matter what you are protesting for, this is what you are going to get.

Have you noticed that the media rarely talks about the unnecessary use of force by the police when poor people protest?

They don’t cover most of the people’s movements to begin with. Those protests happen in “Bharat” you see, the third world country where people hold signs and placards in vernacular tongues saying they don’t want mines, nuclear plants, dams and factories built on top of their houses. They don’t want “development”.

But we live in this country called “India”, an emerging market and rising superpower where these protests are a “nuisance” because they create a “bad investment climate”.

The recent Delhi protests happened in “India” with urban middle and upper middleclass people holding sign boards in English and that is why the “Bharat” Sarkar’s methods of dealing with dissent are being questioned now.

It is good that they are being questioned at least now.

None of this outrage is gravitating towards finding an effective fix to the rape and sexual harassment problem. The criminals win more often than not because they know exactly what they want. A rapist knows what he wants. It is the same case with a company that exploits their workers; a politician who scams the public; corporations that rape mother earth; or a Bhopal gas tragedy.

Look at how well the criminals are organized. The big criminals I mean –- politicians, corporations, media and the bureaucracy. They are organized at the global level. They cover each others asses when they are facing the heat. The police provide security to the politicians. The politicians protect the police from scrutiny, the corporations write labor laws and mining companies are in charge of environment regulation.

yeah

The reaction to the crime on the other hand is always spread out all over the place. Some want all the rapists to be hanged. Some want us to look inwards and meditate. Some people are happy that Congress is going to pay for it in 2014. And right wing people pretend that rapes don’t exist at all!

You don’t even know what you’re protesting for. You don’t even good mechanisms to collect statistics that might help nail the criminals. All public debate only happens in the emotional space. We rarely see any arguments backed up by real data.

Yeah, emotional responses in short bursts cannot bring any meaningful change

You humans suck at democracy

We have failed to develop that scientific culture. Elections here are primarily won by vote bank politics, not through debate and reason.

But democracy is not about voting your favorite feudal lord and hoping that he’ll be benevolent. Democracy is about dialogue. Democracy is about humans organizing themselves and demanding what they want and getting it.

Historically, all the rights and freedoms you have today like your fundamental rights, freedom of speech, labor rights, judicial rights… all of them have been the result of hard won and often bloody struggles. They weren’t “given” to you by your rulers because “it was the right thing to do”. Bullshit, the rulers of the time did everything in their power to deny you those rights! And given a chance, they’ll take them back again and that is what they are doing.

Democracy is a continuous process of imposing the will of the people and making life difficult for those in power unless they do the right things. Elections are just one aspect of it. Democracy has been around for 2000 years and still you don’t get the essence of if!

Now, that is a lot of democracy coming from a cat!

Cats are Anarchist. We know better.

But there is only so much the government can do. The problem is just not a question of law enforcement. It is about the society that we live in, our patriarchal mindset itself. I mean, we are a culture of Goddess worshippers who burned millions of women along with their dead husbands. If you are a woman and made of stone, you're revered. If you're made of flesh and blood, you're on your own!

Bullshit doesn't get any finer. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that gropes women who are protesting against sexual harassment!

Yeah, there are no easy solutions. There is no giant off button that says “Press to stop all rapes” that we can go and click. The brutality of this particular rape is almost unimaginable. Why are such psychopaths roaming free? How alienated from the system must one feel to even think of doing something like that to another human being? What are the conditions that create such maniacs?

Is it the rising income inequality? The conditions of horrible poverty, objectification of women, economic policies that accelerate these conditions, apathy of the majority, dowry, female infanticide…

The only way to go about is to take scientific approach of collecting data, crunching and empirically arrive at feasible solutions that make the roads safer for our women and make those specific demands. Any solution that doesn’t include these two processes will end up belonging to the four categories of outrage.

Which one do you belong to?

My allegiance is solely to The Battalion of the Completely Useless!

Co-written by Flawsophy

R.I.P Facebook

I logged into Facebook after almost a year and it looks like an airport trashcan.

Airport trashcan?

I mean too much glossy crap. Just a year back Facebook had interesting articles, intelligent view-points and emoticon riddled discussions. We had good jokes, incisive articles, useful personal updates and lots of cat videos. It used to feel like a nice relaxing dinner party with intelligent conversations.

Now it is littered with people redeeming gift coupons, store sale reward points, massage parlour offers, phone recharge discounts, travel tickets, vacation packages, movie ticket stubs… What's with this sociopathic trend of celebrating consumption?

Why are you pissed?

I thought you at least had to be a Facebook tourist to be proud of your shopping based achievements but this guy just posted a picture of his wireless modem with the caption “My new wireless modem :D :D :D :D”!

Hey, I know that guy. He did a whole photo shoot titled “My first External Hard drive :)) :)) :P :P” sometime last month. It was self-shot and he also applied an Instagram filter to make it look like 1967!

And these social readers… God, I hate them. I clicked on a webpage to get a better look at Scarlett Johansson's cleavage in the thumbnail and er… it… it might’ve been publicly shared over your wall.

That was you? How many times have I TOLD you NOT to use my Facebo…

Oh, puh-leeze! You’re worried about privacy now?

I told people it wasn't me but they never believed me. Now they probably thinks of me as a non-biodegradable plastic bottle of sleaze!

Look, I am sorry. How was I supposed to know that the default privacy setting would be set to public? Besides, thousands of people fell for the “social reading” thing, so you're not alone.

What the hell is “social reading” anyway? Since when is “reading” a social activity? Reading is something you do when you sit in peace, introspect and expand your understanding of this vast and wonderful universe in the privacy of your toilet!

Exactly. 300 curious humans clicking on a link titled, “Is Aishwarya Rai’s daughter actually a son?” on Washington Post Reader within the same two hour window is not reading, it is just mouse-clicking!

Mouse clicking – now that’s an activity that doesn’t get much credit.

Then there are apps that let people share their “activity”. NSFW videos on Dailymotion, shitty music on Spotify, "free chewing gum" coupons from Groupon... since when are all these things important enough to be shared with 600 other people? Who gives a shit if you have checked into a second hand pani-puri store on Foursquare?

Facebook realized that people willingly share only one or two articles out of every ten they read. Natural filters like “personality” and “thought” were filtering all the bullshit. But “thought” and “personality” are not good for the advertising business. So they essentially said, “Look it’s not what you like. It is about what you do.”

And what you humans do is order pizza, watch item songs and read celebrity gossip.

Yes, 90% of the time. #sigh

A Facebook profile was like having an alter-ego where everyone did their own thing. People shared their interests and hobbies. Some folks were into sports, some got all worked up about politics. A few vehemently defended their favourite tech company while others worried about endangered reptiles, stock market scams, science news, suicidal cotton farmers, art movies, and pretentious personal blogs…

Yeah, I got to know a lot about mere acquaintances and distant relatives just based on what they enthusiastically shared and friendships formed quickly on that basis.

Remember that guy who both loved celeb gossip and quantum loop-gravity and how one affected the other?

Do not judge others when you know nothing about quantum loop-gravity.

It wasn’t perfect last or anything with all the photographers and HIMs but it still was an eclectic collection of information, entertainment, knowledge, silliness, and emotion until the marketing cockroaches came along and started taking over.

The root of the problem is that Facebook became “Facebook Inc. – the publicly traded hundred billion dollar company.” Going public means that their loyalty now lies only with the stock holders, not the users. The stock market doesn’t care about the quality. The only thing it cares about is more profits every quarter.

When there is a virtual monopoly in a saturated market, the only way you can show increasing profits quarter after quarter is either by reducing costs like Walmart does, thanks to easily available slave labour all around the world, or by monetizing your users like product placements in sports, increasingly intrusive ads on Youtube, “Trending articles” on Facebook etc.

But let us not entirely blame a corporation’s quest for quarterly profits for the mess. You humans suck big time. You are the ones sharing fake inspirational stories, Satya Sai Baba blessings, photos of kidnapped children, pity posts for impoverished African kids, prayers for people with weird genetic diseases, and the worst of them all, “share if you love your immediate-family-member” statuses.

Can’t argue against that. I once saw a status that said “Share this post within 3 seconds if you really love your Mom.” Three seconds? There is a time limit for this shit now?

At least the marketing people are making some money off the shit they produce. What do they get out of sharing these things?

Twenty three likes?

Yeah. We cats may do a lot of disgusting things when you’re not looking but we never annoy fellow felines for fake attention. Only humans do it. You’re the ones who don’t think twice about annoying 80 other species if it gives you 8% off on AA batteries. You people are more than happy to trade your online identities for some extra mayonnaise on your garlic bread.

That is quite condescending coming from a species that can be tricked into chasing its own tail.

Maybe you’re just a cheap species and Facebook just made easier be “yourself”. Think about it. The creators of Facebook knew your weakness all along. You think they were giving you an account and all that space for freedom of expression for free? Bullshit, no one does that.
If you’re not paying, you’re the product being sold.

Probably. It’s same case with newspapers too. It takes about 8 rupees to publish, print and deliver a copy of Times of India. We pay only a fraction and bulk of it is paid for by advertising. Not just the Times of India, any newspaper for that matter.

The sales pitch of the newspapers is, “Look, we have a large number of uninformed readers who have an affinity for cleavage. Do you want to sell them some Axe deodorant?” The newspaper is not selling you ads. It is selling you to the advertisers!

They’re not newspapers anymore. They are advertising companies. They are all advertising companies. Facebook, Google, all the news channels, music channels, movies, sports… they’re all in the business of showing us ads. That is their primary duty. That is what drives them. Everything else they do is a by-product.

Comic books icon William Gaines and Editor Harvey Kurtzman created the MAD comic magazine which went on to become a highly-acclaimed masterpiece in American culture. Those guys had just one rule: NO GODDAMN ADS.

For decades, that policy helped them become pioneers in satirizing everything about the shallow materialist culture free from any conflict of interests with their funding sources.

I think it is time for Facebook to retire as yet another impressive subculture that got sold out because of our soul-selling, opportunistic behaviour.

Of course, after 5 decades of taking no shit from nobody, the old owners along with their values retired. MAD magazine started allowing the ads.
The ad guys always win.

Everyone else is sold out. Only crowd-sourced or subscription based outlets like EPW, NewsClick etc. have managed to inculcate and maintain standards. Maybe that is the way to go.

The way to go? You don’t even have an independent sub-culture that shows the finger to the ‘Advertising, Bollywood and Corporate power’ establishment dictating the mainstream narrative of your country and you’re dreaming of a future where Indians pay for high quality things?

I am just saying that the media and the arts need to be decentralized and democratized if there has to be any reasonable change.

I am honestly surprised you still have hope on humanity. Remember, you are the same species that inherited this beautiful planet and now you’re burning down the homes of polar-bears for insurance money! Forget about it. Now, scratch me on my head like a good boy… and below the neck too.

Make it quick, I have to step out.

Share this within 3 seconds if you really love your brother-in-law's second cousin.

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Written by Flawsophy. Edited by me. CSS styling by @apnerve

Note: This site is best viewed in a computer and in a real browser (not IE)

I call this piece "Advertising"

Do you remember Television advertisements from the 1990s? All they sold back then was Lifebuoy soap, Annapurna Atta, Tata salt, Bajaj Chetak, Meera shampoo (featuring a homely looking housewife who had trouble managing her daughter’s long mane), Parachute Coconut Oil, and Chandana Brothers sarees, “suitings and shirtings for mens!” (Yes, suitings and shirtings, that is exactly what they used to say)

I am personally embarrassed that these were the coolest things we Indians consumed back then.

Thanks to two decades of neo-liberalization during which India first shone and later grew, the nature of advertising significantly changed. Look at the prime time ads. Only things like Volkswagen cars, Luxury holiday resorts, L’Oreal products, smart phones, Reid n’ Taylor suits, credit cards, mutual funds, frozen idlis (unfortunately, they exist) and luxury paints are sold.

Cars, insurance plans, lifestyle products, housing loans and electronic gadgets. Who do you think they are selling this desi version of the American dream to? The middle class can’t afford Volkswagens and 3D TVs. The rich people probably already have them. It’s us – the upper middle class. The real product being sold is a culture of passive consumption where everything is on sale and everyone is sold out. And wow, how proudly we’re buying ourselves into it!

A Tale of two templates

It is not just the portfolio of products. The ads themselves look quite “international” if you notice. "International" in this context means that every model from that little girl in the Rasna ad to the dusky A-list Bollywood celebrity look almost Caucasian and act hyper-sexual over things like coffee, mango juice, second hand cars, bathroom tiles, cement, switch boards, new cable connection etc. If aliens are watching us through a telescope, they would think that our women have thing for plumbing and electrical outlets!

So what kind of a mind does it take to come up with ads like these? Again a lot of guesswork is involved here but I think every copywriter on his/her first day at office is taken into a dark room and is given a crash course on what I call The Copywriter's Model of the Human Brain. According to this model, the human brain has four major areas of activity:

This model dictates that the best way to sell anything is to equate it with sex. That way the guys will not complain and it is easier for the copywriters too. The feminists may rant about it on the internet but who cares about them?

In the unlikely event that they don’t want to use sex to sell, there is another strategy. I call it The Abstract Jingle. This is how a typical ad looks like:

A bunch of rural looking school boys rush towards a sandy open place in the evening. They throw their slippers in the air and run barefooted and divide themselves into teams. One boy tosses a coin to decide who bats first. A soulful jingle in Hindi plays in the background...  

The kids are completely immersed in their game invoking a nostalgic bliss of simple joys from  simpler times. A kid hits the ball and another kid takes a great catch diving to his left in slow motion. The soulful jingle continues… 

And while all this is happening, the viewer has no idea what the ad is trying to sell. This can be an ad for anything. That is the beauty of the Abstract Jingle. There is no way for the viewer to know until the last frame, what the product is. It is this suspense that keeps him hooked!

In the last frame of the ad, if one of the boys grow up to be Dhoni, it is an ad for Reebok. If the kids wear a Team India shirt, they’re promoting Nike. If they are refreshed by a sip of pure water from a nearby lake – it is either Kinley or Hero Honda or if Tendulkar appears holding a bottle of Coke... See, the Abstract Jingle is simple yet versatile and it is completely recyclable.

The Internationals and the Abstract Jingle, these are the only templates for ads there are today. I didn't complain all these days because I don’t watch TV but the same ads started streaming on Youtube and I can’t even skip them. So now, it’s personal!

Image courtesy:  http://www.polyp.org.uk/cartoons.html which has an amazing collection of editorial cartoons

P.S: Why is it that an ad always streams faster than the actual video?

News is always entertaining if you read it after a month!

Don't believe me? Let me illustrate!

Prologue:

If you’re a politician planning to go on an indefinite fast in Andhra Pradesh and wondering what time of the year is good – December it is! The summers are too hot and dehydrating. The monsoons are not conducive for sitting in open grounds in public places. January has Sankranti – the most important festival for Telugu people which leaves December to be the perfect month for fasting.

December continues to be the most entertaining month. Unexpected cyclonic rains damaged the winter crop in coastal regions of the state. The govt. promptly announced a Rs. 400 crore relief package along with interest waivers on loans. But few politicians were of the opinion that 400 crore is not enough! What followed was a three way passive aggressive non-violent battle of the hungry, for the hungry by the power-hungry! Let’s look at the events as they happened.

Chapter 1: Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy

If a person holding a government job dies young while in duty or otherwise, the govt. arranges for his son/daughter/spouse to have the deceased person’s job to ensure financial security for the family. Y. S Jagan thought that the same rule applied for the post of Chief Minister too! So when his father Y. S Rajashekhara Reddy died in a helicopter crash, Jagan felt he deserved to be the CM but Sonia told him it doesn’t work that way.

What ensued was a long, hard and bitter break-up with the congress party which resulted in Jagan starting his own political party. Being the youngest political party craving for attention, Jagan felt that he can best serve the affected farmers by going on a fast for two days (conveniently over a weekend).

Chapter 2: Chandrababu Naidu

People have long been telling him that he had no right to feel sorry for the poor farmers because he neglected them when he was the Chief Minister. But deep inside, Naidu is not the kind of a person who wouldn't help farmers if there is an opportunity to make breaking news.

Being the fiercely competitive person he is, Naidu tried to out-help Jagan by demanding even more than what Jagan is demanding for the farmers! While Jagan demanded only better compensation, Naidu wanted the cyclone to be declared as a National calamity! Jagan went on a two day fast over the weekend. Naidu did an indefinite fast which lasted 8 days (falling one short of KCR’s 9 day fast last December)

Chapter 3: The Congress

Needless to say, the congress didn't give a rat’s ass about their colleagues in the opposition. However, all the fast and the furious business brought back memories of being in the opposition for a few congress MPs and in a fit of nostalgia, they announced that they are going on a fast even though what they wanted was a phone call away!

They demanded that criminal cases against criminal students (who had fun burning buses and damaging public property protesting for a separate Telangana last December) be dropped by the govt. The MPs skipped a meal and the cases were dropped!

Chapter 4: The Media

Three hunger strikes from the three biggest parties in a span of ten days! The breaking news media couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present. Both Jagan’s and Naidu’s fasts were covered exclusively by the media. The usual attractions like media’s hyperactive concern for their health, trying to extract redundant information medical from doctors with poor communication skills, bus burning ceremonies and intravenous force feeding etc. were a huge hit!

Often, the media was confused on who deserved more attention. A lot of celebrities visited Jagan during his fast whereas Naidu’s health was failing. Ordinary folks, these are no ordinary dilemmas for the media to solve!

NTV (Naidu’s friend channel) led from the front by flashing Naidu’s live blood pressure and blood sugar levels setting the standard for covering future hunger strikes! Notable performances from the print media include The Times of India as it rose to the occasion and declared Jagan as the winner in a sort-of-editorial piece titled “Y. S Jagan's fast better than Naidu's?”

Chapter 5: The Farmers

Farmers? What farmers?

Breaking News -- seriously

Like I have mentioned before in one of my earlier posts, I have an offer from The NRI magazine to be one of their contributors and my first article has been published today. The article combines two of my favorite areas - the news media and stand up comedy and is named Breaking News: India Needs a Comic Relief. I insist you check it out here --> http://www.the-nri.com/index.php/2010/07/why-does-indian-media-not-offer-serious-reporting-of-news/

P.S: I know this might freak you out a little bit but trust me, gtoosphere will be updated with the same tempo :D

Octopus, Parrot and Humanity

Proud Moments of Human Evolution. Part-1

I am convinced about evolution. Darwin might not have seen this through but I am sure that there is no way we humans can be the end result of any divine or intelligent design going by the recent news events! I know that's not great proof, but the past week of sports reporting has led me to believe that stating wild conjecture as fact is now considered acceptable journalism these days and I am only a blogger, not even a journalist!

So according to the media, in the last one week; Paul the Octopus emerged the new Spanish hero. The Spaniards want to rechristen it as Pablo and adopt it. A few angry Germans want to eat it. Now that the Octopus has predicted a Spanish victory for the world-cup final, the Spanish Prime Minister wants to send troops to protect the octopus! Mani – an equally successful psychic parakeet in Singapore has predicted a Dutch victory. The world cup final is now between Paul Octopus and Mani Parrot.

Attention whores from around the world are coming into the limelight by displaying their psychic pets which can “accurately” predict the world champions in football. I am sure no one believes it and yet everyone is excited about it. I wonder why PETA is not offended yet. They, as honorable members of the prestigious League-of-Easily-Offended should be offended by now! May be there is a grander plan. May be PETA secretly convinced Larissa Requelme to run naked in Paraguay. May be she’ll have a PETA tattoo instead of Axe. May be... *dirty thoughts censored*- (=|:-P)

I bet that if you repeat the experiment with the same Octopus and the same food, North Korea will win the world cup. Do you know why? Because a hungry Octopus doesn’t give a shit about humans! I bet it does not even have the sophistication to see the colors on the flags. It just crawls into the nearest box and eats whatever feels like shrimp. It’s just a handsomely packaged Rudi Goldberg-ish coin tossing experiment with the same odds!

But we don’t get it. Despite being on top of the food chain, human beings just don’t get it. We continue to get excited over a hungry octopus eating shrimp! It’s ridiculous and it’s embarrassing. The whole cast of Lion King is ROFL-ing at the human race. So is Mutley the mutt! I think humanity is stuck with a childish fascination to be swept away by some magic Octopus which will solve all our problems and bestow everlasting happiness upon us. Also humanity wants to fix the oil spill and stop Global Warming!


On a serious note, this may be my last post as a common man – as one among you; because in two days’ time, I am going to be rich and famous. I have a coin. It’s no ordinary coin, it’s a magic coin. I just tossed it and… it’s TAILS. Hence The Netherlands will win the world cup! The media must be already on its way to report the awesomely magical coin and the amazing ME for tossing it and predicting every match in the world cup with 100% accuracy! So the time has come to bid goodbye and say this to you from the bottom of my heart, “Screw IIT, Screw you guys I am going home and later I’ll holiday in Casa Bonita!”

I was expecting a standing ovation but I will settle for this :p

P.S: This post is based on the ideas and observations of Flawsophy who is too busy this weekend to write about this, so I took over. You should check out his blog here --> http://flawsophy.blogspot.com/

P. P. S: IndiBloggers, if you like this (I am sure you will), vote for this post on Indivine here --> http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=25031