Amit Kaundinya’s review of Priyadarshan’s new movie Dhol  has the following paragraph

Armed with a script that is as old as the Harappan Civilization and with actors who are competing for the Worst Actor Award, director Priyadarshan sets off to make the audience laugh. And as expected he fails miserably. Clichéd scenes, garish cinematography, tiring songs and perhaps the most banal screenplay are what you take back after watching Dhol. [Dhol]

ASI archaeologist Karunanidhi, who also doubles as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, would have explained Priyadarsan’s miserable failure as the result of a Dravidian trying to adapt a script as old as an Aryan civilization. Besides this, Priyadarshan also used Aryan actors in a movie which was initially written and performed by Dravidians.

Word processors like Microsoft Office or Star Office chain you to a computer. Instead, if you opt for hosted services like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, your word processor is accessible from anywhere an Internet connection is available. Hosted services, like Google Apps, are powerful and requires no setup or maintenance. The software and hardware are updated without the user even having to know about it and whenever there is a problem in the service, the host will take care of it. Thanks to Bush administration, now a hosted democracy service is available for countries like Pakistan and Iraq.

Recently, after seeing that no one Pakistan was listening to him, the General in the labyrinth decided to impose emergency. He  had already signed the order declaring emergency when the phone rang. “Yes, Dick”, he probably answered, thinking it was the Lord Voldemort on the line, but it was Dr. Rice. A few minutes of conversation and Gen. Musharraf, who is seen a macho macho man only in India was shredding the document.

“Hey, isn’t the hosted service provider saving dictatorship here”, you may ask. Calm down, grasshopper. Sometimes to save democracy, you need to save dictatorship. Yes, it is one of those Zen things.

Since Gen. Musharraf is nearing his expiry date, the Bush administration has been looking for a Prime Minister. Sadly, the available ones cannot enter the country. So, there has been negotiations and re-negotiations between Benazir Bhutto and Bush administration officials about a possible deal. Maybe the Bhutto deal won’t work out and it maybe Nawaz Sharif. Either way, you will hear it on CNN before the Pakistani people know about it.

We all know Pakistan cannot handle democracy and such outsourcing helps them avoid wasteful expenditures in terms of elections, booth rigging and bullets fired into fellow Muslims. It is not just Pakistan which is having problems in democracy. The ratings of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been plummeting and his opponents in Iraq have decided to campaign against him, not in Iraq, but in Washington D.C. Ayad Allawi, who was the interim prime minister is  paying the GOP firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR) more than a quarter-million dollars to lobby on his behalf. 

Finally we are sure that a group of armchair quarterbacks in Washington D.C. will do what is right for Iraq. Isn’t this kind of democracy wonderful?

In an article about Santosh George, who could be India’s first space tourist, PTI writes

He will pay around Rs 1 crore for the two-hour-flight on SpaceShip Two but there will be no landing on another planet. The tourists will experience zero gravity and re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.[President meets India’s would-be first space tourist]

Imagine the disappointment of Santosh George, when he knows that he cannot get off at Saturn as planned. Seriously, how old is the person who wrote the PTI  article and how old is the Rediff editor who approved it?

And also the female Yash Chopra! (From the Pioneer)

If California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger meets Sonia Gandhi (mother of India’s future), they will have a common topic to talk about. As per American laws, Arnold cannot be the President of United States since he is a citizen by naturalization. In India, the Supreme Court has asked the Government’s opinion on the issue of registered citizens holding constitutional posts. By registered citizens’  everyone means Sonia Gandhi.

Let us say by some miracle, the court finds that Sonia cannot hold any constitutional post, it still does not prevent the next generation of the Royal Family from giving us that world class governance.  More effective that this PIL business would be to plead with Rahul Gandhi to give a public speech every day.

If there has been one news which has denied front page coverage of Abhishek Bachchan’s marriage to some Ms. Rai for at least one day, it has been the kissing (not on lips) of Shilpa Shetty by that foreigner Richard Gere. Apparently this is not Indian Culture and I agree for it provides excellent business opportunity for my effigy making startup. Due to this Richard Gere-Culture-Vulture thing, I am missing all those wonderful Rakhi Sawant, Mallika Sherawat, Emraan Hashami movies on TV which were instilling Indian culture into us.

The last foreigner issue comes from the Infosys Campus in Mysore where they decided not to sing the national anthem in a function attended by the President of India. Instead they decided to play the instrumental version. So far so good. Then Mr. Narayana Murthy made the statement that they decided not to sing the Indian National Anthem in India because the foreigners present would feel embarrassed.

President Abdul Kalam thinks Mr. Narayana Murthy would be a good candidate for the post of President of India. As President, Narayana Murthy will have to receive  many foreign dignitaries and there is a 100% chance that the national anthem will be played in all those occasions. To avoid embarrassing situations for foreigners, President Narayana Murthy will have to enforce a new rule –  visitors can bring their own songs which will be played instead of the national anthem. This could sometimes result in the Teletubbies theme song being played when President Bush visits India, but hey Athithi Devo Bhavah!

 What would we do without foreigners?

Last month, Discovery Channel’s planned telecast of The Jesus Tomb was scuttled by Joseph Diaz, the General Secretary of Catholic Secular Forum. Mr. Diaz without even watching the documentary, clairvoyantly assumed that it trivializes the Bible and would hurt the sentiments of people. Christian population in Christian majority countries and the Vatican had no issues with the documentary and in such countries Discovery Channel went with the telecast. In India they meekly submitted.

This time Joseph Diaz was able to step in at the right time and prevent people from seeing the documentary. We fear that sometimes things may slip through, like for example, he forgot to get the book, Da Vinci Code banned.  Books like Satanic Verses and Dwikhandita could only be banned in time because the concerned people were alert.

Also it is not just book banning that requires help. Political parties and communal organizations need help in disrupting the life of Indian citizens for matters which have nothing to do with India like the hanging of Saddam Hussein or the Palestinian issue. Besides this there are various effigy burning worth national incidents, like Khusboo’s remarks on sex, or India losing to High School cricket teams or the Shilpa Shetty- Big Brother incident.

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Kerala is currently run by Tom & Jerry. Tom is Pinarayi Vijayan, the Communist party state secretary and Jerry is V S Achyutanandan, the octogenarian Chief Minister and they love each other the way Nouri al-Maliki loved Saddam Hussein. At present, administration in Kerala essentially consists of both of them and their supporters trying to out smart one another. If they ran into pitch forks or doors and like how Hanna-Barbera intended, it would have been more fun, but it is not so.

And the politburo is not amused by this cartoon show. Good Communists are supposed to get rich, keep the masses poor, create agitations, disrupt life, but not fight among themselves. The politburo has zero tolerance for such behavior which is common among the bourgeoisie.

In a recent speech in Kannur, Pinarayi came out against the Chief Minister’s crony Manjalamkuzhi Ali MLA for the reason that sun rose in the east. Pinarayi claimed that Ali was infected by the Shahjahan syndrome. This did not mean Ali was importing marbles to construct another Taj Mahal, but just that Pinarayi had lost his marbles. Pinarayi also mentioned that Ali would have the same fate as Shahjahan. People took it to mean that when Ali dies Indians would pay Rs 20 to visit his tomb and foreigners would pay Rs. 750.

That was not what Pinarayi meant. He meant that like Shahjahan, he too would be expelled from the party. Then some newbie party worker reminded Pinarayi that Ali was not a party member and as an Independent member of the Assembly, it would be difficult to expel him. Pinarayi admonished the newbie and said that facts should never deter a good communist.

Another point of disagreement among the communists is on whether the state should take an ADB Loan. The Chief Minister is against it while Pinarayi is for it. In a speech in Kozhikkode, Pinarayi said that people who opposed the loan were Dogmatix.  Later he said, he meant “dogmatists”

When you are charged up like this and going to the politburo, you have to be prepared. Yesterday  Pinarayi was detained at Chennai airport, on his way to Delhi, for possessing five rounds of live cartridges in his bag. He did not have a gun though. Probably one of his Maoist comrades would have loaned it to him if needed in Delhi.

The State Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that this was certainly illegal, but the media need now blow up the incident. On hearing this Osama bin Laden called up George Bush and asked if he can use the same defense?

This makes you wonder. Does everyone come with firearms and bombs to politburo meetings? Is this how unanimous decisions are made? Maybe it is like a scene in Tom & Jerry where Achyutanandan comes with an AK 47, Buddhadeb with a Howitzer (Copied and Made in China), Prakash Karat with a bow and arrow and Brinda Karat with a rolling pin. They all bow to the Chinese flag and then start shooting each other while Scott Bradley’s music plays in the background.

• When you buy a Canon SD800 why do they give only a 16MB card along with it when you can buy a 2GB Secure Digital Card for $20 in the market?
• When you buy a HP Deskjet 5940 why can’t they give a USB cable along with it when it costs just $9.99 in the market?

No more need for vipassana. Just focusing on these koans will give you nirvana.