END OF THE WORLD AND OTHER RELATED STORIES.

6 days down and you can already feel that 2012 is being a jerk and not just your average sleep-with-you-and-never-call-you-ever-again jerk. The kind of jerk that’ll let an entire nation starve while he throws down £350,000 a year on expensive Hennessy VSOP cognac ...

Kim Jong il's alcohol addiction: an artist's impression

... and invents the hamburger but only for University students. 

Speaking of wishful thinking, here's my list of stuff that'll go down in 2012, in no particular order.

1) ANNA HAZARE FASTS. AGAIN.

It’s obvious that, having done it twice already in 2011, Anna Hazare will go on a fast (Fast-onto-death for three days and weather conditions permitting) again for the Lokpal Bill. 

A cornered Manmohan Singh will of course try a last-ditch attempt to make Anna the Prime Minister for a day, but fail. (Apparently that shit only works in celluloid.) 

Meanwhile, a big company, probably Kent water purifiers, will offer Team Anna an endorsement deal entailing that Anna break his fast with their product. 

This water smells like soap!

 

Take it from me, as a brand trying to make it in the cluster-fuck world of advertising, you can’t buy that sort of visibility anywhere. Unless you advertise in porn. Or pay Baba Ramdev to get your brand logo tattooed on his body.

You want a piece of that?

 2) SACHIN GETS A FILMFARE

I don’t know if Sachin will ever complete his 100^th century. OR if he'll complete 100 half centuries before his 100th century. I don’t know if he’ll get the Bharat Ratna. And I don’t know why anyone would want to buy his autobiography at $ 75,000 just cause it’s got traces of his blood.

 QUESTION: Just who the fuck wants to put so much money into a book just cause it’s got traces of some famous guy’s blood?

PICTURED: Target demographic

 But I can tell you this:  Them folks at Filmfare will give Sachin an award. Because, as you must have heard by now, SACHIN TENDULKAR ISN’T A CRICKETER. HE’S AN ACTOR.

 

While he hasn't worked in anything worthwhile, it’s only a matter of time that he gets offered a movie.

Of course, with Sachin turning to acting, the veritable Vinod Kambli, whose only known area of expertise is explaining the mindset of Sachin Tendulkar, will get an half hour slot on a TV channel reviewing movies. Possibly after having been rejected the role of playing dutiful sidekick to Tendulkar which eventually went to Johnny Lever.)

3) END OF THE WORLD? NO SWEAT!

Remember Armageddon? Or Independence Day? Or the Die Hard franchise? Or Rambo?

Or Osama bin Laden in real life? If you do, then you know for a fact that no matter what horror threatens the sanity of the world as it were, the Americans have got our back. 

A crack team comprising Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Steven Segal, Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li and Mel Gibson will be assembled. The elite team of course will be accompanied by THIS MAN. 

The plot will involve time travel, tomfoolery, chicanery, medieval kick-assery and doing what the Americans do best: entering foreign countries illegally to fuck with them over the flimsiest excuses. All this to retrieve a part of Mayan calendar from a evil coven of witch doctors to save the world.

Why is a part of the Mayan calendar being hidden in a different continent altogether, you ask?

I could tell you. But then I’d have to kill you.

So, what I’m saying is, a lot of shit will go down this year. 

My advice? Use sunscreen.

Whether you’re off in Africa fighting bloodthirsty witch doctors or sitting on a fast-onto-death or catching a Sachin movie at a theater near you.

That's all, folks. And in the words of Anna Hazare, ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish’

IT is terribly depressing when you learn so much about yourself from observing the people you hate most.

PETTY QUOTE #2

The only difference between AIADMK and DMK is that the latter has dispensed off the vowels.

A SOP BAZAAR IN TAMIL NADU 

PETTY QUOTE

If cricket is a religion, arrest me for blasphemy.

WE MADE YOU!!!

AH, 2010. A memorable year for everyone and their country cousins – most of who are probably preparing for India’s Got Talent 3

The talent here being curing homosexuality.

 and here it’s swallowing self dignity as much as swallowing… errr… well, moving on…

2010. The year when Albus Dumbledore posthumously came out of the closet; Amitabh Bachchan confessed to being a farmer (no, not on Farmville, dumass!!!); Ajmal Kasab gave hope to countless Bihari’s after speaking in impeccable Marathi; the year when politicians took away all your money but instead gave you a cool looking symbol for it; the year when Akshay Kumar tried to ban the word ‘retard’, more out of self defense than anything; when Facebook sex became a real thing; when even Princess Diana came to watch the Commonwealth Games; when North Korea forgot that they were atheists; and the pope allowed you to use condoms but only to prevent AIDS.

What a great day to be a condom, eh Sharman?

But that’s not what this post is about. This is a rant. A full-blooded rant about the complete lack of imagination on the part of those guys who make up awards.

Don’t get me wrong. I love awards – being born in India who doesn’t?

But as compared to those guys abroad our awards seem sorta lame. All we seem to have is an award for good acting, bad acting, bad acting masquerading as good acting and awards for putting the ‘idiot’ in our idiot boxes.

But look at these firangis. They have awards for everything. They have awards for peace; for paranormal fraud; for the worst opening line to a fiction novel and an award for stupidity.

Say whaaa?!?

Hell, they even have awards for filing the most ridiculous lawsuit; for discovering the most enterprising and novel way to die and for bad sex!!!

India’s official entry at the bad sex competition this year

AND although I’ve said that I love awards the following is a list of some awards that I’d like to see being given sometime in the future. And for the sake of clarity, there’s even the name of the winners.

LOONEY TUNE AWARD: SARAH PALIN

"HE is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands, why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?" -- Sarah Palin, on WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.

The world’s gonna end in 2012; Sarah Palin is US presidential front runner in 2012; and she can’t differentiate between a terrorist and a whistleblower (or North Korea and South Korea for that matter). Now picture her with her finger carelessly resting on the US’ nuclear button.

the kid is a metaphor for the world when Palin becomes US Prez

  

POETIC JUSTICE AWARD: Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi, Iranian cleric.

IT all started with Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi saying, "Many women, who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes… Iranians should adapt their lives to Islam’s moral codes to avoid being buried under the rubble."

That’s right! IMMODESTLY DRESSED WOMEN LEAD TO EARTHQUAKES. Ridiculous, eh? One forward-thinking American belle thought the same. So much so, that she based a complete campaign called ‘BOOBQUAKE’ around it. The campaign, aimed at making the cleric feel stupid, was to have women bare their cleavages in public. That, however, didn’t go exactly as per plan since THIS HAPPENED.

Who’s laughing now, eh?

AND this caused the recession!!! True story.

2+2=5 AWARD: Facebook campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer

THIS idea was probably the product of overestimating the power of virtual activism AND/OR a ridiculously off-logic idea born out of a complete lack of imagination coupled with a craving for attention.

Here’s what happened if you weren’t paying attention.

A few months back, men on Facebook woke up to females randomly posting colours as their status updates. These turned out to be the bra colours that the girl happened to be wearing and the campaign was to raise awareness for breast cancer in a kinky way of its own.

Did the campaign raise awareness about breast cancer? Probably, but it definitely strengthened the stereotype that females can be pretty stupid. Oh, and no recorded earthquakes happened that day.

ROLE MODEL TO TROLL AWARD: Kiran Bedi

HIGHEST ranked woman officer in India; Ramon Magsaysay award winner; First Indian woman officer in the UN; Brand ambassador for Ariel! Judge in a reality television kangaroo court!

That’s right. With Aap Ki Kacheri, this woman, who should’ve known better, settles domestic disputes between consenting adults. Talk about taking the law in your hands. Oh, did I mention that Ms (Mrs?) Bedi puts herself in direct comparison with Rakhi Sawant in the process. What the KHAP!!!

I wasn’t quite sure if Ms (Mrs!) Bedi deserved this spot until I discovered this:

 A delightful little snippet from the book, just to elaborate.

THAT's right. this also applies in the case of post-marriage, first night jitters.
PRACTISE IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR. OR WITH IT.

‘DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK, I SWEAR’ AWARD: PARIS HILTON

AS far as juvenile excuses go, even those seemingly-stupid parents who tell their kids that God sent a stork to drop them off while they were a baby can’t beat Paris Hilton.

On being caught by the Los Angeles cops with cocaine in her handbag, the 'teenager' claimed, “I thought it was gum.”      

DUMBNESS?!? THIS IS SPARTA!!!

But it ain’t entirely Hilton’s fault. With her bosom routinely getting in the way of her thinking and clouding her vision, no one in America expects Hilton to ever make sense. Or set an example.

For things such as setting an example, Americans turn to guys like these

‘LOOK MA, I’M ON TV’ AWARD: LALIT BHANOT

SPOTLIGHT Anxiety is a fairly common disorder amongst borderline celebrities and is usually known to leave behind a lifelong tan. The same seems to have happened to dear old Lalit Bhanot here…

WORST ATTEMPT AT SPIN DOCTOR-Y AWARD: TIMES OF INDIA
IF you read the whole story you'd realise that the headline is a little misleading. maybe the term 'little' here is also is little misleading.

And then there are the following awards that are pretty self-explanatory.  

MISERY REPEATS ITSELF AWARD: GOLMAAL 3

RIOT IN PATRIOT AWARD: SHIV SENA

PUN INVENTED

The Planning Commission has accepted the Tendulkar Committee report which holds 37 per cent of people in India below the poverty line.However, The Arjun Sengupta report says 77 per cent of Indians live on less than Rs 20 a day while the N C Saxena Committee report had said 50 per cent of people live below poverty. The fact above is a middle ground, hence has been taken from the N C Saxena report.

For a complete article, check P Sainath's blog.

SUB PLOTS

IGNORANCE and BLISS: A VENN Diagram

FAIR ENOUGH? # 1

All fairy tales have a tail wagging nineteen to the dozen- happy endings. Finding true love and living happily ever after are the crux of every "widely-accepted" fairy tale told till date.
But what catches my attention the most in these feel-good tales is not how the good will always truimph over the evil by hook-or-by-crook in the end but how the good has always been the fairer race in such tales.
All the Cinderellas, the Sleeping Beauties, The Snow Whites (ahem), the Heidis and even the Pied Piper of Haemlin have been unusually fair! Disappointingly,there was never a dark man's fairy tale.
Life just isn't fair! (pun ignorable).