* * A punny look at the year that was
*THE YEAR THAT WAS - 2010* So here’s the year the way I saw it. *January* Jyoti basu dies at 11.47 a.m., yet again almost making it to P.M. UPSC increases civil services intake from 580 to 965. Ouch. 385 more bureaucrats each year. A real Babulation Explosion. Kerala gets 3G services. Now they can call themselves “GGGods own country”. * * *February* Kishenji announces his phone number : 9734695789 . Now we don’t need the army to fight him. ICICI will finish him off. Lok Sabha meets. Noise. Confusion. Lok Sabha adjourns. It’s time we rename our parliament - the Joke Sabha. India says no to Bt brinjal. An auberginity lost? *March* What’s common to Iceland & Abhishek? Both are wondering what to do with ash. Sania Mirza announces that she’s going to marry Shoaib Malik. Thank God, Sania doesn’t have to do 7 pheras with Shoaib. She’ll never get past the first round. Anagram of “Sania has a Malik” – “Asli aman ki asha”. *April* Sachin Tendulkar’s birthday today? Let’s celebrate it as runmashtami. The good thing is that Sachin has turned 37. Which means, for the next 365 days,he will be in his prime. IPL-3 happens with much glitz, glamour & goris. Definite Punjab victory over Mumbai today. Mumbai may have the X-factor in Sachin. But Yuvi gives Punjab the XXL-factor. Matthew Hayden to change his name to Matthew_Hayden. After all he is a chronic under-scorer. If Vijay Mallya had his way, after the quarter-finals, IPL would have the half-finals & full-final. And the post-IPL party starts. Unfortunately, all the recent happenings only go to prove that an honest politician is the exception rather than Tharoor. If an aquarium can have water and a planetarium, planets, why can’t a consortium have a consort? Lalit Modi possessed drugs as a teenager. What?! No way we’ll let him run a cricket tournament. Let him go stand for parliament instead. BJP, RJD & BSP want JPC probe into IPL so that NCP will get caught & UPA will be in trouble. - Acronymous scenes in parliament. *May* If India were a gym, Delhi would be the sauna, Chennai, the steam-room & Bangalore, the a/c reception. Mumbai will be the pool in 2 months. The IPL saga continues. I’ve heard of “suspension of disbelief”, but LKM’s behavior suggests that he’s experiencing “disbelief of suspension”. LKM gets threats from the underworld. Looks like organized crime doesn’t like competition. Kasab gets sentenced Like all sentences, Kasab’s too ends in a full stop. If he’s sentenced to death, Kasab will be 51st in the queue. “Capital” punishment just means your file is stuck in Delhi. Subhash Ghai was ahead of his times. He introduced 4G in 1989. A-G, oh-G, lo-G suno-G. *June* FIFA World Cup provides a lot of kicks Hope Greece is not given a penalty. They’ll say they have no money to pay it. I don’t think Mexico will make any attempt at the Argentinian goal. A Mexican can’t take a shot without salt and lemon. I think Italy should be allowed to have an extra player on the field. After all, Azzurri usually comprises 12 people. The feeling of having heard a damn irritating noise before – Deja Vu-vuzela On the offside, first there is God, then there is Ganguly. And then sometimes Argentina. If India had qualified for the World Cup, Chetan Bhagat would have been goalie & Mamata the forward. He can block, she can strike. Germany, Uruguay, Netherlands & Spain. So the big G.U.N.S. have made it to the semis. TN may free 500 convicts to mark Tamil conference. Why, may i know? Did classical Tamil have shorter sentences? Ahmedabad to celebrate World Blood Donation day. Hopefully, this time around, they’ll keep it voluntary. Karunanidhi turns 87 today. He will henceforth be called Dravida Munnetra Kazhavan. * * *July* Bopanna & Qureshi to play tennis match with Wagah border as the net. Thereby showing that there are faults on both sides. Petrol price increased again. An optimist will now look at his tank as half fuel. Just realized that M.S. Dhoni’s wife will be called Ms. Dhoni. CWG fun begins Now i understand why the CWG mascot is called Shera. They want a Shera this, a Shera that, and a Shera everything that makes money. New HR rating scheme- 5: Exceeds Expectations, 4: Meets Expectations, 3: Average, 2: Needs Improvement, 1: Kalmadi. Suresh Kalmadi plans to give us the Common & the Games. The rest, he’ll keep. The latest form of humour : Stand-up Kalmadi. So Amit Shah is behind the Sohrabuddin fake encounter uh? Makes sense. His name is, after all, an anagram of “a sham hit”. If Sherlyn Chopra met Rakhi Sawant, would the CBI call it a fake encounter? *August* Manmohan becomes third PM to hoist flag at Red Fort for 7th time. Sigh. So many hoisters, so few pearls. If life gives you lemons, be very happy. They’re now Rs.100 per kg. I’d like to start a paper factory that supplies clean chits to the CBI. Big business potential. Congress to have elections to decide its President. Ha. That’s like Robinson Crusoe conducting interviews to select his assistant. It’s a great day for our planet. All the top places in Miss Universe are bagged by earthlings. Spot-fixing controversy hits Pakistan cricket Pakistan is the world champion in book cricket. There’s actually a website that does nothing but spot-fixing. It’s called Foursquare. I’m looking forward to Arnab on spot-fixing tonight. I bet that he’ll interrupt his first guest on the third word of his second sentence. * * *September* CWG action continues. Finally some positive news about the CWG – 5 athletes test positive for dope. 1.6 million meals to be served during CWG. Oh. No wonder they have created such a big mess. Delhi gets hit by Dengue. I propose that we make mosquitoes our national insect. Then the government will try to protect them and they’ll become extinct. Kasab case drags on. Sentenced terrorists have a good time in India – They are footloose and phaansi free. UID launched. The first person gets an aadhar number. The second gets anaadhar number. And so on. I guess, in Jalandhar, people will soon be bidding lakhs of rupees for a premium UID number. Ayodhya verdict happens. Seems to be on the basis of Share-ya law. This Ayodhya issue is quite complex. Hindus want a temple, Muslims want a mosque, while Mayawati actually wants a statue. Off to Google Maps to mark Nungambakkam as Rameshjanmabhoomi so that there’s no confusion in 5510AD. Raymonds wants to sponsor the Ayodhya verdict, because it turned out to be a 3-piece suit. *October* Obama’s goal seems to be to see as much of India and as little of Indians as possible. In TN, a million more TV sets will be distributed. Our whole country seems to be in an alms race. Advice to Arundhati Roy : if at first you don’t secede, cry, cry, cry again. Mukesh Ambani is not the first to stay in Antilla. Centuries back, Valmiki used to hang out in one. * * *November* Today is the day Krishna slays Narakusara, Rama returns to Ayodhya, Mahavira attains moksha, and Airtel makes a killing. Happy Diwali. The more the number of Diwali sweets in your house, the faster they get spoilt : burfi’s law. Raja scam explodes A Raja is living proof that there is a pot of gold at the end of the spectrum. In India, scams have an alarming frequency. And now, with Raja, frequencies have an alarming scam. Dear Manmohan Singh, it would be apt if you could sack our telecom minister using radio language : Raja. Over and out. Manmohan Singh continues to do nothing about anything Manmohan Singh’s First Law of Motion : Everybody stays in a state of rest unless acted upon by Soniaji. Manmohan Singh’s Third Law of Motion : Every action has an equal and opposite inaction. One day there will be a movie made about Manmohan Singh. And the director will go, “Lights. Camera. Inaction.” Manmohan Singh’s personal integrity is unquestionable. Mostly because he never attends question hour. Yeddy allots land to his children My name is Yeddy. I’m a great father, a cool deddy. Politics has been bleddy, but be happy i am steddy. Cos else you’ll be stuck with Reddy. The nation finds out that Radia : Government :: Sonia : Manmohan Q : How do you fit 1000 media people in a hotel? A : 998 in 499 double rooms. And Barkha & Sanghvi in the lobby. Why does phone-tapping make India a banana republic? Isn’t tapioca republic better? There was a lady, Radia. Whose contacts could fill stadia. But to get stuff done, she’d trust no one, except the helpful media. * * *December* Wikileaks threatens national security, or rather politicians’ security What with wikileaks & payback, the governments of the world will now unite to face their common enemy – the public. TIME had a difficult choice for Person of the Year. Assange, who attacked governments’ privacy. Or Zuckerberg, who went after people’s. Sarkozy is a VIP Frenchie, right? To protect against hacking, DRDO instructs all government officials to change their password from sonia123. India has got an old, rich and glorious tradition in hacking. It started with Parashurama. MMS & team are busy blowing balloons for Sonia’s birthday. They’ve told their staff that they’re tackling inflation. Many bills were passed in the parliament session. Travel bills, food bills, etc. We should also screw China by issuing visas that are attached by mere gem-clips. Obama, Sarkozy, Jiabao & now Medvedev. If india can’t get to the Security Council, at least the Security Council is coming to india. There was this guy called Manian. Very very fond of onion. He ate ‘em till it hurt. So he lost his shirt. Now he roams in a chaddi & banian.d
