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.

24 hours!

In less than 24 hours from now, India will pass her leash over to her new master. 
Expect an anti-climax because we already know who our new master will be. But let's pretend we didn't know and examine the usual suspects.

Candidate Number 1 - Rahul Gandhi (aka RaGa, The Dim Wit, Women's Empowerment, Scion of the Dynasty) 

Surely, he was the late bloomer but hey, don't pile all the muck on him. He's not as stupid as he puts himself out to be. He's just inherited none of the political sauciness of his dead relatives or his mom. How many of you remember how we showered Sonia G with eloquent praises when she turned down the top seat about 10 years ago? She was the epitome of Sati Savitri.
While we have lost much of that emotion towards her in the decade because of the way she dragged her lame Italian feet, RaGa should have won our hearts with his dimples and village idiot speeches. 

So where did it all go wrong for the C Company?
I think we all know the answers. What excites and worries me is how the Dynasty knew this was coming but chose to live in denial. The government sleepwalked through much of the last 3 years. Our PM was the mute spectator in the back seat of a taxi where the drunk driver is fumbling for the keys. For lack of a better word, let's just say Manmohan was the scapegoat of nearly every frustrated insult and anguished complaint we had toward Sonia and her unique brand of divide and rule. 
RaGa doesn't stand a chance and only a sympathetic wave (if you know what I mean) can bring the Congress back to the seat of power anytime in the foreseeable future. And Rahul, please shave the beard off. It's concealing those cute dimples.

Candidate Number 2 - Arvind Kejriwal (aka The Giant Slayer, The Muffler Man)

Now, be honest and tell me - How many of you thought he would become the Delhi Chief Minister (even if it was for a brief period)? Exactly. 
He came, He Slayed, He Left.
No other party in the history of modern India has captured the imagination of a billion people the way his party of 18 months has. Ofcourse, he must give all credit to Anna Hazare who came like a whirlwind and vanished like a breeze. He struck oil by planting the impossible. The impossible thought that some day we can rout out corruption if only we have a new set of leaders. 
So while we are all celebrating the dawn of a new India, I think its wise to say Arvind has a lot to learn and governing a country is far easier than just writing an essay. 
Will he win any seats? He will. 
Not enough to make a government at the center but enough to nip at the heels of the Dynasty. 
We may be disgruntled enough to throw Sonia G and her bunch of cronies out, but not disillusioned enough to vote for the right ideals.

Candidate Number 3 - The Third Front (made up of the Fat Lady from Tamil Nadu, Fat Man from UP and other assorted misfits)

So these are the folks who didn't get called to play in either of the teams during recess and decided to create their own team. Just to humor ourselves, I would like to see them win. Because the gameplan is interesting - If elected to power, they want to rotate the PM's chair between themselves. I can't think of a bigger nightmare than this. 
But the truth is, and if you'd like to believe the exit polls, they might get enough seats to nip at the other heel of the Dynasty. 

Candidate Number 4 - Saving the best for last, Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the Knight in Shining Armor, former Mass Murderer of Muslims and the only Indian Politician the US and the UK loved to hate until recently - Narendra Modi (aka NaMo, Former Tea Shop owner).

Reluctant as he was until a year ago, we all knew he always had the top post in the cross-hairs. So yes, like it or not, he is going to be our next Prime Minister and we are hoping he will do to India what he did with Gujarat. No, not the killing part hopefully but make us all prosperous and wealthy and happy and shining. 
Oh, like make India Shining like the Congress promised to do long back, but this time we are hoping he actually does it. 

Lessons the Congress can learn (wishful thinking)

• Communicate. Honestly.
• You screw us. We will screw you back.
• Policy Paralysis. Google it. It will have a picture of the UPA.
• Be consistent. Don't burn the midnight oil 3 months before the polls.
• Go solo. Your alliances with regional parties with absolutely no vision was the last nail in your coffin.
• Don't effing loot and plunder us. We will eventually kick your corrupt ass out so fast so far, your head will spin. 
• Spare no expense in hiring the best spin doctors because you will need them.

Finally, now that the grand exercise of electing our next master is almost over, let's take stock of all the schit that flew, the bullets we dodged, selfies we shot and give ourselves a massive pat on the back. 

This is after all one of the rare instances when we show we can do something as massive and organised as this was with minimal bloodshed or embarrassment (no pun intended) in a peaceful way. I can't think of another democracy that can boast of this.