Apologies for that anonymous reader

When did you last feel lousy after returning home from work?
Lousy about doing a lousy job?
Lousy, when you know the lousiness that slouched into the paper will in all likelihood escape notice of the bosses?
Lousy about the very lousiness of that lousy idea (aren't bosses made bosses so that they can catch the lousiness creeping into the paper and warn you?)
Lousy because one smartass in the paper will notice it and remind you every lousy moment of the day that s/he spotted it?
Lousy because the whole idea is so nerve-wracking?
Lousy because that's now how you were supposed to work?

I feel that. Every day.
And I feel it today; no exception. I am sorry, dear reader who happens to read the section i put to bed tonight.

ai la, keep you chappal on. he's gone

finally, he's gone. Seems the whole country suddenly stopped bleeding/ bleating and started breathing. Again. Is that what happens when a country is renamed by ad-wallahs? When India suddenly becomes 'Team India' and nothing more, thank you? When being Indian means going to war in front of television sets? When even rum-and-coke-wallahs are suddenly clubbed into being part of the Blue Billion, seen glut-glutting that awful soft drink that gels with nothing but television advertisements?

It's time he did. Thanks Greg. And it's time the country grew up. Thanks Mandira.

There's life beyond the 22 yards, 11 men and one television set. Go get it (the life, moron, not the TV).

Prez be the lord

* Samajwadi Party demands president’s rule in Assam (Congress rule).
* Congress wants president’s rule in Uttar Pradesh (Samajwadi Party govt).
* BJP wants president’s rule in West Bengal (CPM-led Left).
* Left wants president’s rule in Gujaat, or any other BJP-ruled government anywhere in India, or abroad.
* Each non-Congress party wants president’s rule in Maharashtra every time a debt-ridden farmer in Vidharbha kicks the bucket (though everyone, including the media, seems to have forgotten the area’s location on the map now that elections approach elsewhere in the country).
* Half of India wants president’s rule over the other half.

And the poor president? Forget imposing his rule, he cannot even decide whether he needs/wants/wishes/looks forward to/refuses… to have a haircut.

This, if the irony is to be carried a notch beyond the point of tolerance, is INDIA POISED. Or INDIA EMPOWERED. Or, for that matter, INDIA SHINING. Or… whatever.
In effect, INDIA IMPOVERISHED.
(Any media house that wants to use the campaign can contact the Subject for trademark details)

CAUGHT ON THE WRONG FOOT

# STORY IDEA FOR STING OPERATORS: Sharad Pawar admitted to Escorts Hospital here this (Friday) afternoon after he complained of restlessness and uneasiness, says PTI.Interestingly, the BCCI chief-cum Maharashtra strongman-cum union agriculture minister-cum NCP chief-cum MCA chief received an apology from Ricky Ponting on Thursday.

The Oz skipper apparently said he was sorry for trying to push Pawar off the podium to receive the ICC Champions Trophy recently.Did ‘Punter’ say something that forced Pawar to “complain of exhaustion this afternoon and rushed to hospital where doctors advised him two days’ rest”?
Juice for tabloid TV, which incidentally includes all news channels bar none; what say?



# Skyline Construction & Housing Pvt Ltd, a Bangalore-based real estate developer, today (Friday) signed India cricket captain Rahul Dravid as its brand ambassador, says PTI.
Just wondering: With a brand ambassador like that will the company construct anything beyond walls?


# "We know who had created a rift between Anil and Mukesh Ambani and why...But the blame was put on SP leader Amar Singh." That's Mulayam Yadav, slamming BJP and Congress for "solluding" to bering down his govt.
Just curious: Who was it, Yadav-ji? Care to tell us?

Pretty good to clinching…ISI ka naam evidence

When the national security advisor says he would be “hesitant to say that we have clinching evidence” against the ISI hand in the Mumbai trains blasts, it’s time to sit up and take note.
But no time, says our media. The truth is out there, and if the Mumbai Police chief says it’s those bloody Pakis who did it, it better be those bloody Pakis. So, get out and grab it, that bloody truth. No time for further introspection, the state of the bleeding notwithstanding.

It matters little here that the media would have grabbed the bloody truth from out there and trashed it down your gullet even if the Mumbai Police had not raised its bleeding fingers against those bloody Pakis. It matters even little that the Mumbai Police would either way have raised its bleeding fingers against those bloody Pakis, truth or no truth, as it eventually did.
The only thing, my dear Watson, is Mr Roy took so much time to raise his fingers and address the press conference.

You see, out here in India it’s easier to catch ‘terrorists’ than to successfully reap cotton. Just let the public anger simmer a bit and get a few guys from the ‘minority community’. No name-calling, just blame-calling, and, bingo, you have the terror network unearthed, unplugged and undone. Proof, evidence and such trifling things are, of course, not necessary in view of national interest.
Did Mr Roy, or Mumbai Police, manage to convince even a trainee reporter of any of their “findings” in that press conference? Lies, damned lies and garbage apart, the answer would be NO.
They traced a few phone calls, sure; tracked and arrested a few suspicious-looking men, sure; made them ‘confess’ to their ISI/SIMI/HUJI/LET/JEM/CAT/SCAN/MBA/BBA links (the last four are, of course, gibberish, but how many in our tribe would be able to spot that, given the surfeit of acronyms surfacing in our media about Pak hands?), sure. And then addressed a press conference.
Little wonder their version, oftener than not, do not stand scrutiny in court of law. Little wonder most of their witnesses either turn ‘hostile’ or are out of wits when the case is on.
Wrong I may well be, and wrong I sure do hope I am, but will someone please bat an eyelid, scratch the head a bit, murmur a few “but…” and ask some probing questions before reporting the police claims verbatim?
“We have pretty good evidence," says M K Narayanan now. And that’s as good a note to hum the shriek, a la Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire: Show me the evidence.

Post-Diwali blues, on National hangover Day

Oh ho, hmm (background score: Mr Santa Strikes the Keyboard), after a long, long time. On a day with no newspapers; post-Diwali, of course. Life sounds a little less rosy; without those sounds, lights, fights, bits and bytes of P3 and such overtly happy images strung together with words.
Lucky, at least I don’t have a kid or a dog; or they would have had to do with old papers from the stack today. And, trust them, that’s no fun.
But — and here’s the inevitable poser for the day — why do all journalists in all newspapers in almost all cities need a daylong off to hit the bottle all together? (I go under the presumption that most journalists, save some irritatingly sane ones, do the only earth shatteringly ponderous thing worth every bit of their journalse on such holidays; i.e. sit in front of a bottle and see it go from full to half-full to, hic, fulltoo).
And why, pray, on the other hand, don’t TV journalists get a break? (I go under the presumption, of course, that most human beings, save some irritatingly insane ones, do the only earth shatteringly ponderous thing worth every bit of their sanity every day of their life; i.e. sit in front of TV, with the news channel switched on for lack of better entertainment, and wonder why those overworked characters putting together the item numbers on the news slots ask for more holidays. Both for themselves and us).
There was no cricket match on the telly today (to give them all a break on the National Hangover Day, of course), so I watched some TV news this afternoon while getting ready, nursing The Hangover and trying not to get late for office (all at the same time; my IQ level, as you can gauge from this testimony, is definitely not in the negative). There was haze all over; in the Delhi air, as reported duly by TV. Brillianto, methinks. Bring out the sting operation on Aeges mosquito now. I can almost smell the deathly opening score as the anchor describes the inhuman torture meted out to their whole tribe by blast-crazy Delhiites.
Suddenly sober, I rest my case.
(Background score: Oh Surreal, Oh Surreal, Mr Banta Gets Nariyal)

there's a leak in House. Run, PM, run

Everyone, and the Opposition, wants the prime minister to go. Nope, I don’t pretend to nurse any special affection for any leader, but, come on, out over something as flimsy as a “leak” from one of the few hundred commissions set up every year? A little ridiculous, eh? “Breach of privilege”. What breach, and whose privilege?

A small, ignorant question: Haven’t we had such “leaks” before? Don’t our “commissions” work a bit like that tap next to the potty, forever leaking? Haven’t our media houses always seen the next front page, and the next 10-o-clock-news lead, thanks to the commissions’ propensity to leak at odd hours?

But has any prime minister/leader ever quit over something as t(r)icklish as that? Strange things (leaking House, choking drains, soaking spirit, stinking environ) sure do happen in monsoons.