PORTRAIT OF SCAMSTERS AS YOUNG ARTISTS

2010 .. what a year .. to me it has been one of those years in Indian history where our politicians and cronies could get up from their broken parliament seats and sing R.Kelly style : “I believe I can fly …”. It has been that year when we truly became a nation to reckon with . We were the tortoise to China’s hare .. Sheila to USA’s Munni (all figuratively) . Its not because of the fact that in 2010 the government ‘announced’ national development programs worth billions of bucks (naming it right after Indira Gandhi to her unborn sister’s second nephew) or the government decided to build thousands of westernized toilets across the country or Pranab Mukherjee’s English pronunciation improved or Carla Bruni visited us ; these are just minor wafers compared to the transition we made in 2010. We finally let go of our horrid past of petty scams running into a  few crores concerning petty stuffs like cow fodder or stamp papers to more international standards of complex scams like 2G and CWG.

So while Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were playing “Dumb and Dumber” in a sequel to their movie “Roop ki rani Choron ka Raja “ and Rahul Gandhi (PRAISE BE UPON HIM) was busy posting cowdung cakes on a Dalit woman’s Facebook wall, the Raja’s , the Kalmadi’s and the Modi’s tangoed their way into our wallets and raped it 70’s hindi movie style . While previously we used to feel low about scam names like ‘HAWALA’  or ‘CHARA GHOTALA’ compared to the likes of  something like the WATERGATE , it was only because of these people we had scams with plots which would make Christopher Nolan movies seem like public service messages . Together they plundered amounts which would have been enough to sponsor 300 of Obama’s business trips to India or add two more storeys to the mansion Anil Ambani is building his wife . It could have also been used to save the poor cattles living in the villages of India who eventually die of hunger or pressure of debt (but I guess that features low on everyones list ..who cares for cattles ..they are no cute stripey tiger) .

Which is my favourite scam you ask … I’ll say CWG ..as an aspiring B-school aspirant it taught me the whole new methods of violating the golden rule of economics – Supply and Demand . Well there has never been a huge demand for toilet papers in India so the prices should be low , but somehow Kalmadi managed to fudge up accounts and get for 12000 a roll . Or wait …maybe there was a great demand for them .. well you do need a lot of toilet paper to wrap around the eyes of  the Justice statue : the one that is there in every court of India holding a faulty balance .

WHITEWASHING A BROWN FENCE

THE BEST AD ON TV THESE DAYS

White boss : why will I give u this job

White candidate : because im fair .

White candidate(talking to other white people) : I think he is perfect.

White Boss :  From when can I join Boss.

Before you try to make sense of the above : if you are a single lonely girl or boy living in a dark damp place feeling like a burden on the world … YOUUUUU!!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE … Im fair and you are not...

Who said the world is fair, it’s not , it’s fair and lovely … I am a racist and I hate to admit it (and that makes me a true Indian).Every time I see a Firang .. there’s a initial pang of envy which eventually gets beleagured by the primal impulse of calling out GORAAA/GORIII aloud. Now I’m just gonna deal with the “envy” part .. call it the colonial hangover but we are a sucker for whiteness. A recent market survey (which I might have made up with a few shots of vodka/ I might have read it in The Economist..whats the difference) states that Asians specially Indians spend major part of their income on beauty products specially those involved in lightening your skin pigmentation. Now assumig that the market survey did occur and I was not drunk while reading it , it only validates the fact that has been circulating since Nehru met Edwina : Our ass is black but we want a fair face .

Blame it on the white porn that we grow up watching or the white Sonia Gandhi we blindly obey, we have come to tag anything white as beautiful, clean and successful (think of Rahul Gandhi) while black is something ugly, poor and deprived (think of the Dalit families Rahul visited for Moral Science project in school). We wont easily fantasize about Padma “Brown Sugar” Lakshmi when all our adolescent nights were wasted on watching Pamela “White Heroin” Anderson . And when you have a weakness for something be sure there are hundreds ad guys waiting to pounce on your fantasies . So before you can say Bipasha you are being emasculated by hundreds of ads showing tanned people kissing white angelic bums in servility… again before you can say Michael Jackson you are smack infront of your grocery store buying a tube of fairness cream with as much guilt as if you are buying a pack of condoms . Add to that the Gods of the modern world like Mr. Gobbledygook Khan telling you to get your own gender specific fairness cream so that you don’t have to venture out late in the night to the ladies hostel to get a pack ..(nice proposition by the way) . Well Mr.Khan if only you had applied more of the fair and handsome cream on your pseudo photoshopped white skin then you would not have been mistaken for a brown terrorist in a Gora airport.

So all you girls and boys who are unfortunate enough to have been born with a not so white complexion…. It’s not long before you will hear these public messages on TV:

Message 1 : AMITABH RAI BACCHAN : “DO BOOND ZINDAGI KE” (followed by an approving nod by AISHWARYA RAI BACCHAN)

Message 2 : GOBBLEDYGOOK KHAN : “EK TUBE KAMYAB ZINDAGI KI”………

THE CURIOUS CASE OF STEW BANGLE

Far far away in a place called STEW BANGLE there lived a feisty warrior woman called Ms.Black Hair White Sari (full name Ms. Black Hair White Sari Green Skin Red Heart Bandhkarjee) . She was one of the most fiersome woman ever to have treaded the planet .  And who was she fighting against … ooh the very name would make Voldemort shit in his pants and Joker brush his teeth, she was up against the dreaded Crapunists led by the dangerous Mr.White Hair White Dhoti (full name Mr.White Hair White Dhoti Red Skin Green Heart Bhatbokchi ). The Crapunist were a dangerous clan , once their kingdom spread far wide but now their only bastion was the state of  S. BANGLE . With its inhabitants all mouth no talk , the Crapunist were the best clan to rule over the blind bangled class.

But something happened in the last few years , after years of neglect under the rule of the Devil incarnate Mr.No Smile No Die BOSS-U, the crapunist seriously wanted to give something back to the state . They brought in the biggest merchants of the town the Chatas, who would set up a factory manufacturing cheap magic carpets for the bangled class to travel . Only there was a slight problem the banglis loved their land and didn’t want to give it up .. and here in burst into the scene Ms Bandhkarjee . With her fiery voice and very low apetite , she single handedly drove the Chatas away and also placed a big tight slap on the prospect of banglis to ever prosper .

But the banglis as blind as they were , did not lack intelligence . They had realized that the crapunist were tyrants and wanted to overthrow them and replace them with the land loving mother loving people loving (not necessarily in the same order) Ms. Bandhkarjee (actually she loved Mao, idolized Marx & wanted to marry Castro and was secretly an Ultra Crapunist , necessarily in the same order) . So a bloody battle ensued, the state was polarized into two factions : the Crapunists and those who supported Ms. Bandhkarjee.

So who emerged victorious , none actually .In the run up to the bloody battle , people killed each other mercilessly . Before long the state was turned into a graveyard with no banglis left to rule . As  for the Crapunist leaders , they moved northwards to the yellow country and last heard they were taking fresh lessons of Crapunism from the Big Brother. The warrior woman stayed back in the kingdom , she called herself the empress and was content for the rest of her life, after all her wish of sitting in the throne of S. Bangle had come true .As for the state , it was dead , empty streets , empty house , empty parks ..the only thing that was conspicuous was blood .. red blood scattered on the green grass.