'You Conceive. We Will Deliver IITian'

In a major scientific breakthrough, a leading IIT-JEE coaching institution in the country has invented an ultrasound scanning machine that can be used to impart lessons in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry to the yet-to-be-born child in mother’s womb.

Using sound waves, the new technology converts loads of information into an easily absorbable substance that can start nourishing the foetus from fourth month onwards. “As the baby grows in the womb, it starts absorbing the CBSE syllabus chapter-wise. During weekends, there will be revision of syllabus that has been covered,” said the project head.

For parents who dream about their children becoming IITians so that they can hold their heads high in social circles, the coaching through ultrasound technology comes as a boon. Instead of sending their wards to the IIT Foundation coaching from primary school stage, they can now deliver a fully-grown, IIT-compliant baby.

Christened as “Sono Sona” (Golden Sound), the new technology will be patented soon and offered through a leading chain of diagnostics with Pan-India footprint, the institute spokesman said. “You conceive. We will deliver IITian,” will be the tagline of the institute.

I Outrage, Therefore I am

In a major social outreach initiative, Indian government has drawn up plans to do away with the age-old, exploitative caste system. In its place, a new, scientific categorization of people based on 'Outrage Index' will be undertaken to reflect changing realities.

Under the new policy, one billion plus people will be divided into groups according to their vulnerability levels and the nature of issues that can hurt their sentiments.

Using a complex set of algorithms, experts have recommended Outrage Index that takes into consideration several parameters such as social, cultural, religious, regional and other identities of individuals and their proclivity to get offended in any or all of these spheres.

“If outrage levels were to be factored into Human Development Index, India would have been the most developed nation by now. Why not leverage this inherent strength of ours to formulate appropriate public policies?” said a senior official of the Union Home Ministry involved in formulation of national policy on outrage management.

“Like BMI (Body Mass Index) to measure your obesity level, the Outrage Index gauges your propensity to get hurt. This gives us a broad framework to make policies,” the official said.

India has a potential to emerge as a superpower in terms of GDO (Gross Domestic Outrage) with people willing to pour out their outrage on a wide range of issues and often hitting the streets to demand ban on works of art they have not read/watched.

Given the recent spurt in the number of cases involving hurt sentiments, it has been decided to create a data bank of various social denominations and the issues that can provoke them to take the law into their own hands. As part of the initiative, the application form for Aaadhar cards will incorporate a column “Outrage Status”, asking people to specify what will hurt their sentiments in the order of intensity.

Meanwhile, Home Ministry has approached Arnab Goswami, the country’s leading player in anger market, to head the committee to formulate outrage guidelines. However, he expressed outrage over the idea of Outrage Index itself. “It seems he has an angrier-than-thou attitude,” an official said.

“Interstellar” scientific concepts simplified

1) Theory of Relativity: A phenomenon where politicians in power will ensure that the benefits are distributed among relatives.

2) Wormhole Travel: A cosy short-cut to power. It is like a fold in the fabric of space and time that connects two points separated by vast distances running into decades. By entering a wormhole, one can complete the political journey to power within a short span of time.

3) Spinning Black Holes: An extremely dense, massive and compact concentration of power that is dark with dishonesty. So much so that those around its periphery have a warped perception of space and time. They can actually distort time and space around them.

4) Gravitational Time Dilation: Since time is a relative construct, it runs at different rates for different reference frames. Those who are closer to a strong gravitational environment, provided by the lucre of power, experience slower rate of time flow, compared to the people struggling with their day-to-day lives in a weaker gravitational environment. As a result, you will find that people who are pitchforked to power appear to possess age-defying youthfulness.

5) Artificial Gravity: Creating a centrifugal force that pushes the unwanted functionaries of a political organisation to the outer walls of the power center so that only the kith and kin and dynasty worshippers can stay comfortably grounded.

6) Neutron stars: The next generation leaders of political dynasties. Of course, only sons.

7) Cryo-hibernation: Putting to sleep and reducing the metabolic rate of the traveler for a long haul journey. Example: Deve Gowda.

8) Tesseract, The Gravitational Singularity: A fifth dimension portal that allows a politician to manipulate space and time and rewrite the poll manifestoes of the past.

Media Statement From The Other World

“Following passage of the Space Acquisition Act by a joint sitting of the Union of Republics, the stage is now set for rolling out an ambitious project of inter-galactic super highway by removing the obstacles.

In a bid to improve infrastructure to facilitate high speed space travel across galaxies, the super highway project has been proposed. In the first phase, M23 star and the planets orbiting it would be cleared to make way for the super highway which is critical for our high speed inter-galactic missions and establishing new habitations.

An experts committee, constituted to study the project, had pointed out that one of the planets in the M23 star system harbours living creatures. But, after careful consideration of the facts and the pressing need to put in place the super highway project, it was concluded that the Blue Planet, which contains less advanced life, can be done away with. This small blue dot, with three-fourths water, has creatures that are anyway bent upon destroying their habitat.

The life span of even the most advanced among the species on this obscure planet does not exceed 100 planetary years. It is miniscule by any standards. Moreover, they had arrived quite recently compared to the age of the planet which is about 4.5 billion planetary years. It is also pointed out by experts that the Blue Planet civilization is not so advanced as to warrant establishing contact with them.

Under Section 66 of the Space Acquisition Act, all such obstacles can be removed to make way for building appropriate infrastructure to cater to our future space missions.”

Fiction Writers call it a day!

In a startling media statement, Indian fiction writers have announced that they would hang up their boots. Their decision to quit the profession stems from acute frustration over the ground realities in the country becoming stranger and weirder than any form of fiction they could conjure up.

“Look, we thrive on presenting a fictionalized world to the reader. But, when the day-to-day realities become stranger than fiction, what can we do? How can we survive? At least, fiction has a responsibility to make some sense but the reality has no such obligations. We quit,” said a renowned author.

Explaining the circumstances that hit at the very roots of their profession, he said that in terms of the bizarre quotient they were no match to the challenges posed by an assorted group of politicians, sarkari babus and the media. “Can any of us produce a greater fiction than a poll manifesto? Or a media sting operation? Or a departmental inquiry committee report? We simply cannot measure up to their imagination power,” the writer said.     

In the good old days when social life had a semblance of believability and certainty to it, the writers could sit down with barrels of vodka for inspiration and unveil fictionalized events to tickle the readers’ minds and take them on a flight of fantasy.

“Now, we face multiple challenges in a world where the everyday life experience of a common man is far more unusual, funky and spooky than any author can think of. How can you sell a fantasy fiction to a reader who is already bombarded with a thoroughly entertaining genre of fiction being dished out by politicians?” the soon-to-be-jobless author wondered.

Another writer of crime thrillers spoke about his imminent denouement: “After polishing off a bottle of whiskey borrowed from a friend, I came up with a brilliant plot for a thriller. But, when I watched a series of exclusive sting operations, reconstructed crime stories and edge-of-the-seat investigative stories about old, botched up police operations telecast on news channels throughout the day, I thought my days are finished. I have only one question to ask now: what is the meaning of my life?”

Sensing the approaching trouble, a young writer dropped his already faded thinking cap and switched over to a new role as the brand ambassador for an online marriage portal, helping India’s youth to find their life partners. “At least, through this mission, I can push the youth into another fictionalized world,” he quipped.            

            

    

Bofors takes to blogging, pours out his anger!

Bofors, a child of pre-reforms era who went missing in Kumbh Mela years ago, has resurfaced now as an angry young man. He is angry because no one seems to acknowledge his pioneering role in scam-building in the country.

The nation has completely forgotten the original hero whose stellar contributions had catapulted India into the global map of big-ticket scandals.“Is this the way you treat your national heroes?” asked Bofors with an intense, Arnab Goswami-like expression in his voice.

"This is as humiliating as Tusshar Kapoor’s Bollywood career,” he admitted and vowed to fight for a pride of place among the hallowed pantheon of scamsters who are worshiped in the country. 

Like any outraged Indian youth, Bofors has taken to blogging to pour out his anger against an unjust system that has ignored the framers of the “con”stitution. Aptly titled “Yes, We Scam!”, his blog is a bare-all account of the journey of a neglected graft artiste, a heart-wrenching saga of a man who was once hailed as the whiz kid of the con world. 

     

Here is a sneak preview of his angst-filled blog post:

“Abandoned by the political class, I was made to feel like a boy who goes missing in a Kumbh Mela. On my return, I was hoping for an emotional re-union, reserved for a long-lost boy. But, what have I got in return? Nobody in the country seems to care about me.

I was expecting the nation to embrace me. But now, I have realized that much smoke has flowed from the barrel of the howitzers in the last 25 years. I am no more wanted as the country has come a long way in terms of the size and ingenuity of the scams.  A mere Rs 60 crore kickbacks, which I was credited with, is like peanuts these days, I am told.

I am also told that while ancient Indian mathematicians had invented the concept of zero, the present-day politicians are adding zeros to the scam amounts in innovative ways. Look, I have no fight with them. What all I am saying is I should get my due. Period.

I wanted to pour my heart out on Arnab’s “News Hour” show, a programme that seeks answers from the nation on pressing issues and dispenses instant justice. But, I was shouted down by the learned panelists across the political spectrum and an all-weather expert Suhel Seth.            

“Look, things have changed now. Size does matter. Look at 2G, CWG, Coalgate and Choppergate. What is Bofors’ standing in the market? It is like a Kiranawala taking on a Fortune-500 company. We advise Bofors to withdraw from the race and accept defeat like a true sportsman,” the Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari taunted me. 

Even the BJP spokesman did not come to my rescue. “We have disowned Bangaru Lakshman because he was caught accepting a mere Rs One lakh in the Tehelka sting operation. Such a small amount is an affront on our image and stature. I am sorry to say that Bofors does not qualify to be called a scam,” the BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad argued.

Being an investigator, adjudicator and moral policeman rolled into one, Arnab dismissed my case, placing me under BPL (Below Poverty Line) category of scams.

In a distressing moment like this, I get inspired by Arvind Kejriwal and think of launching my own political party called “scAam Aadmi”.    

Life of Lie

Ankit, an unemployed youth in his late 20s, is planning to drag film makers, poets and music directors to court, under “vicarious liability” clause, for “aiding and abetting” romantic notions that eventually messed up his life.

“Look, I have a Nirupama Roy-like mother coughing all the time in our 200 sq ft rented room in a Borivali chawl. A girl who I thought was my lover abandoned me because I have no job and my drunkard father deserted us for the same reason,” he said and went on to explain how his dreams of an Utopian world, fueled by Bollywood films and syrupy romantic thrillers, now lay shattered.

What came as a last straw was his failure to get an entry into the KBC show on Sony TV though his life story had all the markings of a telegenic tear-jerker. In fact, Ankit’s friends had told him that his plight would perfectly fit into the format that the game show producers were looking for to address the “aspirational quotient”.

In his formative years, Ankit was drawn towards message-oriented movies that he watched on Doordarshan at a neighbour’s home and felt euphoric and re-assured at the end of each outing as the rich heroine, draped a chiffon saree, walked out on her family to jump into the arms of her poor lover to the accompaniment of some stirring numbers.

Salim-Javed’s scripts celebrated the triumph of love that knew no socio-economic boundaries. The Rich were the evil guys living in big bungalows with a fleet of luxury cars, dispatching their muscular henchmen in SUVs to bump off a poor lover while the Poor were honest, upright, law-abiding and morally superior.

All through his adolescent phase, Ankit’s brain became a home theatre for the Bollywood romantic numbers to play out with woofers on. They were like God particles that gave him the mass.  Then, entered Neha into his life or rather into his imagination.

“She took just about a nano-second to spike my proposal. The last I saw her was when she was waiting for her company cab at Borivali junction, with her ID card hanging from her neck,” Ankit recalled.   

He then passionately explained how he spent years discussing with his friends about futility of pursuing a materialistic life and how he frequently punched his fist and kicked his leg into the air in a mock display of defiance.

“On one particular rainy night when my Nurupama Roy-like mother was coughing incessantly, I went to a medical shop, grabbed a medicine bottle and ran, hoping that I would transform into Amitabh Bachchan in the next frame. But, nothing of that sort happened even after running a fairly long distance. Instead, I was caught by passers-by,” the youth said.         

Spelling out his future plans, Ankit said he would sue the script writers and lyricists whose profound influences had curtailed his worldview and made a mess out of his life.