So You Think You Can Scam?

I’ve always assumed that politicians are, to put it nicely, soul-sucking leeches. Of course, by this I mean no offense to actual leeches. I’m not alone – ever since the birth of the first political system in Greece (93% of which is currently owned by Sharad Pawar), people have placed politicians on the top end of the Scumbag Scale, followed closely by telemarketers and people who call you ‘Dear’.
But now, in 2011, even cynics like me are marvelling at the likes of Kalmadi, Chavan, Raja and co., who’ve exhibited a brazenness otherwise seen only at wet T-shirt contests (try getting that image out of your head).
An analysis of the various scams will take a while, but I have beer to drink, so here’s a quick look at some of my favourite happenings from Scamfest 2010/2011:
1. Reports claim that the now-empty Games village flats are set to be handed over to the same officials who scammed the nation while building them. Legal experts agree that this is like handing over Shiney Ahuja’s bai back to Shiney Ahuja.
2. Manish Tewari, after having extricated his face from his bottom, denies the misappropriation of the flats. It seems India is not the kind of country that goes around providing free, comfy housing to criminals (unless their name is Kasab)
3. Soon after, Open Magazine reveals that a top journalist (herein referred to as Darkha Butt for the purposes of media silence) was in constant touch with lobbyist Nira Radia, spending hours discussing important matters such as Karunanidhi’s uncanny resemblance to Ray Charles, and where to get the best ‘Middle-Aged Justin Bieber’ haircut.
4. Darkha Butt bides her time, finally inviting the editor of Open, Manu Joseph, into her TV studio for an unedited debate. Manu agrees, only to find himself being whipped by Darkha’s jockstrap on national television.
5. Meanwhile, the UPA is under pressure to act on all the scam-accused. Since this is about 98.7% of their workforce (the rest were on holiday) they have no choice but to try and distract the Opposition. Limited success is achieved with a Rahul Gandhi wardrobe malfunction.
6. The Opposition, appalled at the prospect of actually having to work, decides to press for a joint probe into the telecom scam. The Centre refuses, claiming that there are bigger issues plaguing the telecom sector, such as that fugly new Airtel logo. (A phone tap reveals its origins: The Vodafone logo had sex with the Videocon logo, and the resultant mess on the floor became the new Airtel logo.)
7. Amidst all this chaos, the UPA also has to be a gracious host to Wen Jiabao. Bored reporters play a cruel joke on the Chinese Premier by asking him to watch the back to back episodes of "amul masterchef india"and Navjot singh sidhu's orgasam inducing commentary(pun intended)
8. The CBI kicks into raid-mode, hitting more than 34 offices and residences of the 2G scam-accused. It turns out that all these properties belong to Ashok Chavan. Manmohan Singh’s head explodes.
9. In keeping with its tradition of not giving a damn, the Congress changes its symbol from an open hand to a middle finger.
This pretty much sums it up at the time of writing. Maybe things will change if Manmohan Singh mans up. Darkha should be able to help him out with that.

Idiots Killed the TV Star

Every generation grows up with a defining image; one that stays etched in its collective memory long after the generation itself has gone senile and joined the BJP. For example, people in the ’70s grew up with ‘free love’, believing that the key to world peace lay in unshaven female armpits and – OHMYGOD I’M RIDING A GIANT UNICORN! WHEEEEE!!!
Of course, the psychedelics wore off at some point in the ‘80s, but it was too late – 80s fashion had already been created. While women walked around sporting huge plastic earrings that men were trained to jump through, my ‘90s generation was shedding its diapers and becoming aware of the phenomenon that would shape its world for a long, long time. I’m talking about paradigm shifts in the erstwhile neo-socialist Indian economy.
OK no, I’m talking about TV.
The ’90s were a simple, yet glorious time for Indian TV, because Ekta Kapoor was still in school, giving English teachers a stroke with her kkkspelllinggg. As a result, people on TV did not look as if a jewellery store had thrown up on them, and cameras were not operated by epileptic monkeys.
But modern TV raises a lot of questions. For example, why has law been outsourced to Rakhi Sawant’s bosom? Who pissed in the gene pool that Raja Chaudhary crawled out of? And most importantly, what is a Dolly Bindra and why is it stomping across my TV screen?
Things were better in the ’90s. With fiction programming that included Circus, Fauji and Byomkesh Bakshi, it was clear that the TV industry could produce quality content that, unlike today, was not about some underage bride getting married to a Thakur, who also had a half-brother married to two women, one fair and one dark, both of whom were having an affair with the midget woman next door, who also happened to be a manglik, thus causing their ‘Baa’ (Gujarati for ‘old women who look like sheep’) to die and be reincarnated as Pamela’s implants.
Even Mandira Bedi – a woman who thinks ‘leg slip’ is some kind of lingerie – managed to appear normal back then with the critically-acclaimed Shanti (which I would’ve watched if they had incorporated ninja turtles into the story)
Then there was Sea Hawks, Surabhi, Malgudi Days – shows that, if you were to try and pitch to a channel head today, would result in him rolling up your script and using it to do blow off a sponsor’s arsecrack.
Remember, all these shows aired on just two DD channels (which, today, are the TV equivalent of a Chilean mine.) And now, with 100+ channels, there’s no room for fresh ideas, thanks to “market research”, which is a technical way of saying that a watchman sitting outside the gates of K.j. Somaiya institute of management and research studies in  Ghatkoper will not like them.
It’s scary that kids today will grow up and nostalgize about present TV shows. They’ll talk about the good ol’ days, when an ‘undercover agent’ seduced a guy, then had a sex-change and seduced his girlfriend, or about how Arnab Goswami created history by sitting silent for thirty seconds.
I, on the other hand, will be the incontinent geezer at the retirement home, harping on about DuckTales and Talespin, until somebody shuts me up, or better yet, gives me a BJP ticket.