And that's the way the cookie crumbled, in May 2014...

Yes, my children. India changed! 
After the euphoria the cookie crumbled for the Grand Ol' Party. And how!

Modi came, he saw and he conquered. Having been out of power long enough, the hunger is visible. Against tradition, the RSS asked LK Advani to stop grumbling and retire. 
As if to rub it in the face of Mrs G, he even invited all the biggies from SAARC to his party. 

In the last fortnight, at the helm of the most powerful chair in India Modi has been on a predictable roll. Rolling back some of the Dynasty's pet projects and shedding much of the dead-weight. And if you are a Congress Governor, you better start packing. 

So like a whiff of fresh air and evening showers, the Modi Sarkar (government) made sure it started with all the right tones and the right foot forward. Let's hope the momentum stays.

In related news, Kannada loud-mouth and literary flash in the pan UR Ananthamurthy did a Poonam Pandey and vowed to get out of India if Modi came into power. Fast forward to May 17 and the poor man had to station a platoon of overworked, underpaid cops to guard him since he has been getting prank calls asking him if he isn't left already. The good people at NaMo brigade even sent him a travel itinerary. 
After trash-talking the BJP, the Shiv Sena now wants to copulate with them.
Snoopgate? Who said that? 
Whoever said Indians didn't have a sense of humor?

And talking about comebacks, another Modi came back home. Lalit got his turf back at the Rajastan Cricket Board and got banned by BCCI. Real mature, guys. Real mature.

The Aam Aadmi Party has been fighting like common thieves, and Kejriwal was packed off to jail for not posting bail. Ok, let me give you a little bit of background here: Mr Kejriwal filed a lawsuit against Nitin Gadkari. Apparently the pizza base of this lawsuit is that Gadkari is corrupt. Really?! Kejriwal apparently doesn't think Mrs G and her bunch of cronies are corrupt because he needs to partner them. 
Say it slow with me - Exactly!

With the way AAP was knocked off the zipcode in these elections, Kejriwal now wants the Delhi chief minister's chair back. Not going to happen. See, this is why corporate wisdom tells you not to quit a job before you get another. And talking about transitions, Anandiben Patel succeeded Gujarat's longest serving Chief Minister. 

Back at Mrs G's lair, the party has been unraveling faster than Mr Singh's turban. So what if really important files went missing from the government, history will still be kinder to Manmohan. Predictably, after a flurry of resignations and retractions, the Congress blamed the Mossad, the ISI, advertisement agencies and aliens. Yes, like a deer caught in the headlights!
The former first Son-in-Law of the land - Robert Vadra (aka Money Multiplier and Corporate David Copperfield) will now be frisked at airports and as if to soften the blow, his famous wife told the security agencies to remove the cloak of security over her family. Gee thanks, Priyanka.
Can someone please explain why we have 22 ex-Ministers still occupying their palatial, rent-free official accommodations? 

So what if Kingfisher had its wings clipped 2 years ago. Fortunes have reversed and Modi being the kind of businessman-friendly guy that he is, don't be surprised if Kingfisher starts flying again, soon.
Talking about flying, Air Asia launched their operations - with a bang!

Across the border, militants attacked the Indian consulate in Afghanistan. One of the worst bomb attacks in Nigeria, killed 118 people. Courtesy Boko Haram. 
A coal mine in Turkey killed 238 people and there are 120 missing. This doesn't mean much to us. 
If you are a fan of the franchise, prepare to see American soldiers wearing ironman in combat. The United States of America, Bringing Democracy to the world, since 1980. 

Hate War? Make Love. 
If you are looking for some cheap Asian sex, you can still head to Thailand, where the army overthrew the government in a bloodless coup. 

Elsewhere, Indian shuttlers Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa have been quietly shining at the Uber Cup. 
And we'll now have the Kabbadi Premier League. 

In Prison News, Tejpal got bail and Subrata and Asaram got ball. Looks like they'll have to sell their crown jewels after all. 

Now, if I was in Russia, I could have been jailed by now, because Putin has outlawed all swear words. Yeah, cucking frazy isn't it?

And guess who verified Twitter? Yeah, Rajinikanth did. Masterstroke.
His magnum opus Kochadaiyaan not so much. I've always wondered why we can't make animation movies that can compete with Hollywood even when we do exceptional work when outsourced. This is neither a Shrek nor a Bal Ganesha and as you walk out of the theater, you realize that some advertisements have much better animation than this movie. 
Why you must watch this movie? 
Watch it if you want to be see how we idol-worship an aging super-actor. 
Watch it if you want to hear some incredible music and really good dance sequences by some of the biggest names in India. 
Watch it if you want to see how this movie could be the start of motion capture animation in Indian movies. 
My Rating: 5, and here's why- 
This movie is a poor first draft and an amateurish attempt at creating an epic movie. 

There are plenty of times throughout the movie when you can see how kitschy animation and motion capture is. The lines are quite clearly defined. There are obvious misses like when the army advances only the horse's movement kicks up little dust and the thousands of men marching and running appears like they are doing it on polished marble. 
The makers of this movie have obviously put Rajini on a pedestal and the quality is there to see, for instance if I were to compare how Rajini and other characters have been rendered, you'll see the difference is like night and day. The faces are terribly rendered, the eyes are plasticy and display almost no emotion and appear to stare. The lighting on the faces are terrible in many scenes. The characters appear to be standing bend at the knees. Rukmini's character appears to have hair that defies gravity. And what's with Deepika's outfit? In some of the scenes, her face looks contorted and unrecognizable. 
In some of the fight sequences, like the one between Deepika's and Rajini's character, appear so amateurish I've seen better rendering in computer games.
The plot isn't thick either. It has shades of a lot of other movies. 
Now, I know this is a Rajini movie, out and out and I am a huge fan of his earlier movies. Like a SRK movie, this movie will rake in the moolah for its makers. And I know I will get a lot of flak for this review but I've always called a spade a spade in my posts. 

But guess what! We do have some good news too - India has been polio-free for the last 3 years. Yay us!
A 3D printer landed a man in Tokyo in jail. And here we still struggle with toner prices.

In news that you won't ever hear in India, a former Israeli PM was sent to 6 years for accepting bribes while in office. 

And if you ever wondered why marital rape is still not recognized as a punishable crime in India, here's why - an Indian court ruled that forced intercourse in a marriage cannot be rape. The tragedy of our times.

And you want to know what else the Indian courts did? They allowed pre-launch promos of Rahasya, a movie based on Aarushi while staying its launch on June 13. Did anyone say any news is good news? If we have learned anything from banning something, it should be - Banning it will only make the forbidden fruit sweeter. 

And o yeah, exiled authoress Taslima Khan was diagnosed with breast cancer. 
Down south, Jaya madam pulled off a coup-de-grace and the courts ordered that the levels at Mullaperiyar dam be raised. Damn!

A WHO study revealed that Delhi is the most polluted city in the world. You think?
The trusty Amby began its drive into the sunset, as demand for the most comfortable taxi in the world declined. 

Kimye went on their honeymoon. Is it just me or do you think they do everything backwards? Well, good for them. Does this mean Offspring # 2 is on the way?

Back in India, in the State that advertises itself as the pride of India, shot into the international Do-Not-Travel list when 2 teenage Dalit (lower caste) girls were raped and hung from a tree. The cops apparently made fun of the parents when they wanted to lodge a complaint. So as we limp from one high-profile rape to another, we seem intent on raping the few women that we have left. 

Save for the rapes, and the bombs, the humiliating defeat of the Congress and the thousand other ways that we screwed up, everything else was wonderful. 

I'm off to watch my favorite sport - Football. See you all next month.

While you were gone: August 2013 [Part 3 of 3]

Okay, folks. Stock up on food and water and say your prayers. This could be it.

We love gossip, correction - We love listening to those juicy bits. Towards that effort, we read news of how our most recently famous rapists spent their day after violating the photo-journalist and her male co-worker. One thing is sure, none of the rapists will be punished in a way that deserves their crime. 

While I've said this countless times before, our justice system needs an overhaul.
By sentencing the lone juve in the now infamous Delhi gang-rape for a paltry 3 years, I wonder how this will deter future rapists. Oh and by the way, our government has no more money for the Nirbhaya fund. How 'bout that!

Over the past couple of months, I've come to believe that we can't punish a person enough for his/her crimes committed here on earth or can we?

But as the cry for sterner punishment gathers momentum, I hope the SC will find it within themselves to ensure punishment is proportional to crimes. The only hurdle though is the government. Seeing as how the government does not want to let the judiciary grow to bite it in its balls, allowing the SC to link punishment with quorum of the crime will mean out-of-favor politicians get screwed too. But I digress.

While I do want the guilty punished, I don't want the death penalty for any of the rapists. Hear me out.
I don't think hanging him/her will ever work. Death is too swift and too short for these monsters. I want a justice system that will put the guilty through the exact measure of trauma that the victims suffered. In the US, judges are allowed to decide the method and quorum of punishment, which has resulted in many curious verdicts that have both satisfied the victim and reformed the culprit, sometimes. I want rapists to suffer the shame, emotional and physical trauma and the untold agony of their victims. Why do we cover the faces of the guilty, when we love sharing the pictures (and names) of our victims? To rape is a horrible thing to do. And by sentencing them to the noose, aren't we letting them go easy?
So this is what I propose - The guilty and his/her family must suffer the fullest extent of shame, their faces publicized, their financial credit ruined, their careers destroyed and be listed as a sex criminal and predator for the rest of their natural lives. Human rights? Unless you've been raped, you won't remotely understand why victims feel their predators don't deserve leniency.

Juvenile Justice? I recently read a poll that listed Melbourne at the top of the most liveable city in the world. Its citizens felt safe, secure and happy.
And then a couple of days later, I read about a 10 year old girl who raped a 6 year old boy. The girl was promptly packed off to jail for 3 days and is now standing trial. I'll let those who oppose juvenile justice marinate in this for a while.

Over to politics, Jagan - Hero of the masses, closet Billionaire, went on indefinite strike over Telangana. Once upon a time, Anna went on an indefinite fast too. Now, he just visits touristy places in the US.

SC spoke 'No more beacons for VIPs', yet we had to sacrifice on the Whistle-blower Act. Atleast we got Bhatkal, eh? Some victory.

Several years ago, when I lost my driver's license, I visited the issuing RTO. After 3 hours of 'searching', I was told my file is missing. Not one to let go, I slipped Rs 50 to the attendant and they found my file in 5 minutes flat. Just like that!
So when our government reported several files were missing, that is the same shit as 'the dog ate my homework'.

In other inane political news, Sonia and her cronies passed the Food Security Bill and the Land Acquisition Bill. Sonia fainted in parliament (could be a sign from the heavens), Vadra become a 'small' farmer and politicians in Karnataka are working up the mayonnaise while at office.

With fingers on their triggers, Syria is on a tag team match with the US and its allies of the willing. And oh, if you wondered what they meant by that, then its countries that prostrate themselves before Uncle Sam.
On the Syrian side, we have Iran, Russia and China. Heavyweights that can pin America down on any given day.
Uncle Sam said - 'They've used chemical weapons'. Gee! Haven't you heard that before?! But hey! For countries that don't learn shit from earlier misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from movies like Black Hawk Down, history will (in the words of Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) layeth the smacketh down.

So maybe, now could an excellent time for Obama to listen to his people. The same people who voted him to power on a wafer thin margin, believing in his many promises.
Americans: Do you actually think there is anything like a limited strike? If anything you shouldn't let your president make you believe you can come out of this smelling like roses.
Iran and Russia will not take this lightly. As Uncle Sam steps into much camel-shit, another conflict in the Middle East will be the beginning of the End.

Balmer announced his retirement. Wall St. jumped like an eager pup. Curb your enthusiasm, guys!

Google is building its own cars. But we'll need the Mars rover for our roads.

A bunch of Hindu pilgrims thought they could just flag down a train by standing in the track. This would have been roadrunner cartoon funny if it weren't for the sheer human tragedy.

Loved one died recently? Don't hurry with the funeral.

Bradley wants to become a woman. See! This is what happens when you leak secrets. Snowden, you might want to clarify your stand on this.

'Ass'aram Babu has been accused of raping a minor. Wait! This shit happening again?! I just hope he doesn't say he is sterile like some of those other yogis regularly do.

Watching cartoons is bad. Bugs Bunny will be filing a lawsuit soon.

Anil Ambani suffered from selective memory loss. Why he doesn't forget the PIN codes for his ATM cards baffles me.

And tomorrow is payday? Cherish every rupee you get. It isn't going to last long.

And Poonam. Personally, I am amazed how you beat millions of other sperms to the egg. You are without a shadow of a doubt, the most shallow, stupid 'sell-a-brity' India has known. I highly recommend you sign up for Mars One and get the hell out of here.

Saving the best for last, Miley Cyrus grew up, and how! On second thoughts, I'm not so surprised, because she lost it when she put up a song announcing her exit from Twitter. As if!

When I was gone: Part 1/2 [March 2013]

The first half of March saw a torrent of 'Breaking News'. So much that I'm doing overtime just to get my head around this.

Here's Part 1 of what you missed.

As domestic airlines sold millions of cheap air tickets (with fine print), another MNC came under the scanner for alleged malpractices. Cadbury was found to be using an 'nonexistent factory' to avoid about $46 billion in taxes. While it has already been under investigation over its $19 billion takeover of Cadbury, this couldn't have come at a worse time. As India tries to rein in its yawning fiscal deficit and a last chance for the ruling party to fatten some of their own wallets, this may not be the last of such news.

Talking about news, Manmohan roared. Yes, you read that right! Delayed as it is, Manmohan 'the bonecrusher' Singh took a bite off the leader of the main opposition party, LK 'the lamb' Advani by pointing out how the Congress is still in power and the BJP is not. Well, seeing as how Modi is sharpening his pitchfork, Manmohan roared so late and too soon.

The world celebrated another Women's day and sticking with 'tradition', Indian men gang-raped women like it was going out of style. Handicapped or not, any vagina is fair game. So we raped women who were going through troubled marriages and touristy villages. There was some brouhaha and seeing how the cops rounded up the dicks who raped the Swiss tourist, I am positively certain the Swiss may have threatened to not return any of the money that our politicians have in their banks.
Women who were not raped where killed. Right in their mother's wombs. It was the same shame story of female infanticide and we are talking about just one Indian state. What happens in Maharashtra stays in Maharashtra.
India as a society is simply incapable of keeping its promise to end violence against women.
The problem is within our psyche. A few years ago, an email that did the rounds spoke about how emotionally strong Indian women are. While I won't deny our women are made of sterner and nobler stuff, I wonder why we are hell bent on 'taming' them.

Over the past couple of months, I can sense a collective pall of gloom, fear and loathe that has fallen over our women. Violence and abuse is not the stuff of raunchy Bollywood movies anymore. They are real, with every women. Every day.
The sheer magnitude of abuse will shame even the most holiest of us. If every victim were to register a complaint against every instance of abuse, I doubt if our justice system can wrap their heads around it. Our crocodile tears, our phony marches and empty promises must stop. Our customary banal celebrations of Womanhood and our wild accusations must cease. And we need to act soon because inspite of our best advertisements, our nascent tourism industry is about to die a premature death.
Official statistics from any Indian State is a mere fraction of what the real body count is. It is however a clear indication of how lawless our administration really is and how our country is littered with individuals with vested interests and contradictions.
As a signatory to the CEDAW - Convention of Elimination of All forms of violence Against Women, all the violence that has been allowed to happen in India, sounds like a cruel joke. So is when self-appointed guardians of the society decide to lend their weight towards the worthy cause of the guilty. 

Whilst the country was still haggling, one of the men who has been accused of raping Jyothi in the now infamous 'Delhi gang rape' was found hanging. My guess is that he decided to save all of us some drama (and show the way to the other five) by hanging himself. The country erupted. Most national newspapers spent reams of newsreel on him and autopsied his life in glorious public view. His former neighhours and villagers got their 15 minutes of fame and everyone forgot about the agony that Jyothi faced. While his lawyers said he was happy in jail, his family members helpfully pointed out that he was handicapped and hence incapable of hanging himself. Raping a defenseless girl? Yes. Hanging? No way! Ofcourse, we all know that his fellow prisoners could have raped him but then I doubt if he was unhappy about having the favor returned.

Korea's evil twin flexed its muscles, again. Fired a few missiles and got on the last nerve of Uncle Sam. My questions are:
1) Why do countries that say they have nothing to fear, still do things out of fear? Aren't they reaping what they sow?
2) How do countries like Korea and India have so much money to spend on arms and ammo that won't do jackshit in feeding their hungry millions? And how is it that their missiles 'fail' miserably when tested?

SRK was in the news again. In a convoluted show of misogyny, he declared that women in all his movies will have their names appear first. The problem is not the order of names in the credits of the film. Credits merely show the pecking order.
If he really wants to show respect to the women in his films, he will give her a meatier role in his movies. Ofcourse, directors like Srinivasan in the South have produced, directed and acted in movies where the female protagonist has a much more powerful role then the male. Does SRK have it within his over-inflated ego to make and act alongside a woman who has a better role than himself? I highly doubt if he would have been happy acting as Vidya Balan's onscreen husband in Kahaani.

Bitti, the Rapist, was found safe and secure working in a nationalized bank. After being on the lam for six years, an anonymous tip-off blew his cover. The story of how he raped, jumped bail, reinvented his life with a new identity, and landed a cushy job in God's Own Country will someday be the plot of a blockbuster Bollywood movie. Moral of the story- Well, there is none.

She may have never acted in a single movie yet, but that could not stop Poonam from celebrating her 22nd birthday by taking another well publicized bath, this time in the Ganges. Well, Americans have their Kim Kardhashian and we have our Poonam.

So talking about the much married Kardashian, she stayed in the news by expressing her indignation at accusations made by her former 'Made for TV' quickie-husband Kris Humphreys. For those who came in late, Kim and Kris were like two peas of the same pod. I am surprised they didn't have a love-child together. 
Worry not, for she has quickly and effectively corrected that mistake by having a baby with her current squeeze Kanye West. Touche`

India showed rare resilience and bravado when Italy announced it was not going to send its marines back to India to be tried. Dr MS bared his fangs and so did his puppet mistress Mrs G . Both of which surprised and humored us. Our courts followed with an encore and Pakistan might have felt good that we don't go through all this theatrics every-time they kill a few of our javans. The most India was known to do is cancel cricket matches. Call it the Italian Connection. Howwzat!
But don't let any of this make you believe that we are kind or caring towards any of our foreign guests. 

Congress washed its hands, both literally and otherwise, off its famous son-in-law and that was that. And the US of A saw another Bush rising. 

Our Catholic cousins got a new Pope. And online journal Cobra Post caught our banks with their gloved hands deep inside the cookie jar in what is arguably the most organized network of money laundering in the world. Our newspapers barely gave it any coverage. And as I write this post, RBI has already given the banks a clean chit.

So all in all, this was a really exciting month! Hurray!

Pocket Money [285/365]

So we all saw how a grandiose plan to bring an end to corruption in the time-honored tradition of non-violence and non-cooperation degraded to Team Anna breaking up. 

Kejriwal announced that he would launch his own party and released a teaser of his party's manifesto.
The politicians guffawed at how a simpleton like Kejriwal would take on the combined riches of the BJP and Congress. All hell broke loose when he starting spewing venom against the high and mighty. Caught first in the cross-hairs, was Robert Vadra; son-in-law of the (Sonia) Gandhi family and 'an ordinary businessman'.

The allegations were serious enough to cause concern. One of India's largest real-estate companies DLF had apparently given a massive sum as an 'unsecured loan' to Vadra, who in turn purchased properties that were undervalued at less than 10% of what they cost in the market.
50 crores is barely loose change and is a shamefully small amount when compared to the billions of rupees that the members of the UPA government have siphoned off.
Vadra, who enjoys VVIP treatment in Indian airports, was naturally indignant. He claimed innocence and transparency. Madam would've clucked her tongue and uttered an Italian curse and every single cabinet minister ran to his aid. The speed at which the government responded to allegations against one of its citizens was admirable.

Some questions here:

• Why rush to defend a man who claims to be just another honest businessman?
• Would audited books of accounts that are in public domain lie? 
• How can DLF and Vadra explain why the loans were unsecured were given and why the properties were not accounted for in the books until 3 years later?
• Is what DLF did an acceptable standard practice?

We may never know the bitter truth here either, but the reality is Kejriwal has set the cat amongst the pigeons. He has opened a can of worms and it sure isn't going to be smelling likes roses for a while.
That said, I doubt if Kejriwal can claim to be a saint himself. He has battled charges of misusing funds in the recent past but ofcourse being the media's darling, you'll not find any dirt on him even if you trawl google. But then we can overlook minor infractions like this and seeing how he has taken the political path to clean up a really messy situation I don't know if coming into the ring spitting and slinging mud was the best way forward. 

Ideally, the activist turned politician should have build a water tight no-nonsense manifesto before engaging in a sludge-match. He did have the aces but when you are taking on the most powerful son-in-law in the country, you are playing with nukes. Nonetheless, there could be a method to the madness, and the Haryanvi is surely playing to the youth who have begun to see him as a role model and a 'guy like us'.

In Round 1 of Mr manicured Armani tux vs rest of India, the mangoes and bananas got much unwanted attention.