Dappan Koothu » India

Rage against the Republic

maxdavinci — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:47:33 +0000

The ceiling features a circular stone mural, marble elephants stare at you from the four corners of the room, red sandstone grills provide ample ventilation as the morning rays filter through them. Little bells on the door jingle each time as someone walks by them or the icy Delhi winds remind you of what time it is. All this as I am reaching a crescendo on ‘pyaar tera dilli ki sardi‘, and taking a leak in the swanky urinal at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan. I now feel bad for Auro in ‘Paa‘ who returned back to his hotel, just because he didn’t want to go potty in the Presidents latrine! Oh guess what, the flush chimes ‘Sare jahan se acha’ as I make my way to the durbarr hall. I’m sure by now regulars would have figured where this is going, but let me reiterate for the others. This is resident journalist and reporter par excellence, Munna Mobile reporting live from the Presidents residence on the occasion of India’s 61st Republic Day. Last year we had that conman godman Baba Bangali who chatted up the architect of our constitution. Well my interviews are atleast with real people, but then I dare not incur his wrath and will shut up. Our first woman president is quite a character and has consented to do a piece for this space. It must be tough after her most strenuous day of the year, that includes standing and talking for 60 minutes. Let’s try to keep it clean as Her Excellency The Honorable President of The Union of India, Smt.Pratibha Patil (PP) makes her first ever social media appearance.

MM: Mataji namaskar and Dadiji ki jai!

PP: Arrey wah beta, you know about our Dadiji. I’m so happy and comfortable now. All these blog sholg log I don’t like they always talk hi-fi techie things. But I like you, did they get you my special khakra while waiting?

MM: Err No, but I hear the lawns of the Rashtrapathi Bhavan have been transformed into large pickle drying facilities during the summer. Also that the gardeners now spend most of their time, cutting mangoes for achaar and bottling them. Care to elucidate?

PP: Haan re baba, these dilli ke stores no. The achaar you get is so bland, and so I have taught my staff to use the mangoes from our yard and bottle fresh batches each year.

MM: You were recently in the news for flying a sukhoi and setting a trend for womens empowerment, what prompted you to do something so contrasting form your daily mundane life.

PP: Oh that, one night Baba came in my dreams and told me about a message he left for me in the skies. I consulted Dadiji who asked me to take a plane and receive this knowledge, the air farce people were kind to get me a uniform and take me into the clouds.

MM: Ah well you see that totally places things in perspective, and we thought otherwise. We did some research and it says that during the emergency, you were in support of forcibly sterilizing people with hereditary diseases.

PP: Oh kamaan, you want to share the streets with people who have anuvaunshik ajars? And aajkal toh yeh gay shay ka chakkar hain. I’m sure we can cure those people with meditation and satvik food. But surely we don’t want them bringing more imperfect people into the world do we?

MM: Well your thought process pwns even #arnabforpm, but it is very interesting to hear the views of the supreme commander of our army. However what do you have to say about the scams that are attached to you like the co-operative bank, and the sugar factory?

PP: You see the Pratibha Mahila Shahkari Bank was meant to empower women and give them loans. That way they can have the power to pay their
husbands’
wine shop duespay their husbands’ wine shop dues and escape domestic violence. That only increased the deficit as none of their husbands went to work, for their dues were duly paid on time. Apparently empowerment means that the women start their own business, but come on! har dayya, a womans role is to make khakras in the kitchen only and not set up industries. The RBI however failed to see our logic and we were shut down for irregularities. The sugar factory was also a similar tale, we were running a legitimate business only. The Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana, was doing pretty well until someone suggested that we try a new form of powdered jaggery. The govt didn’t approve of our brown sugar venture and reported us for illegal drug trafficking. By then we had already lifted a lot of raw material form the market and ran into losses of approximately Rs.17.5 Cr.

MM: Oh my poor lady, clearly you were framed and had nothing to do with it. I’m sure the episodes where you shielded your brother in a murder case, or diverted funds form your MP fund to your husbands company, and even your son’s recent election sham we all circumstantial.

PP: Haan ji haan, you are so sweet beta. Only you seem to agree with me, while everyone else thinks I’m eccentricwhile everyone else thinks I’m eccentric. My brother was just driving down a slope without lights and ignition switched off to save petrol, and out of nowhere a Congress leader rolled under his wheel. Abhi bolo isme kya galat kiya? My husbands organization falls under my constituency and I was only spending the funds for the welfare of my constituents. Again the authorities raked up an issue with the 36lakhs as misappropriated funds and all that. Lastly, bechaara my beta, my pappu who came to me wishing to fight the elections. Abhi kausa rule hain jee that bars a presidents son from serving the people. It is samaaj seva after all and even he has to make a living serve the masses. I just did what any mother would do, even Gandhari did all she could to ensure the best for her son in war. After all main bhi to ek maa hoon na, you must taste this naankhatai by the way. I had it specially flown in form Bhuj along with 45 of my relatives.

MM: Well auntyji, that pretty much was all I know you are getting late for your tambola kitty party in Mt.Abu. It was pleasure to have you on Dappan Koothu, and I’m sure our readers will love this.

PS: The image is part of KrishAshok’s desified rage meme collection.

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Azadi dil ki

maxdavinci — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:08:26 +0000

Hello 98210262612 BPL? cha!
Arre 98200262635 maxtouch? cha!
Yaar jis ladki ko patane ka
Wohi phone pe nahi aati kya

What is mobile number, What is your smile number
Karni hain private baatein, What is your private number
Kaha se tu aati hain darling kaha ko tu jaati hain
Aake jaake aaise kyo dil ko tapdati hain

What is your style number, Karu kya dial number
Hoga phir aana jaana, Dede koi easy number
Kaha se tu aata hain darling kaha ko tu jaata hain
Aake jaake aaise kyo dil ko tapdata hain

For the unaware, this song was a rage back in the days. Well so was David Dhawan and his team of tomfoolery. The reason for this popularity was that it coincided with the release of mobile phones in India and was touted as an accessory of the elite. As an indicator of the wealth of a character, a mobile phone was a must as they would hold those
bulky
hideous deviceshold those bulky hideous devices and strike a a pose. Now this reference is quite important to the context of this post as we look at how times have changed. Earlier a device that complimented the luxury of being rich something characteristic to the Seth Dhanirams of yore is now an absolute necessity of push-cart fruit seller. He calls up the driver of his stock to inquire why the bags of fruit haven’t reached the wholesale market. Elsewhere Sakhubai receives an SMS from her memsaab who is expecting guests and wants sakhubai to be available for the whole day. Mrs.Bannerjee calls her gardener on his Nokia 1100 reminding him to get some lilly bulbs from the nursery for her garden. With some network operators these days bringing down airtime charges to less than a rupee, a few are even going a step further and pay you for receiving calls. The mobile phone is no longer a luxury but a necessity with devices flooding the grey market and kids getting phones even before they get an email address. Gone are the times when you had to pay for incoming and boast of the snake game in your phone. It’s now all about using your phone for email, facebook, cricket scores, music and bluetooth file sharing.

Kamakshi is at CCD updating her facebook status from her MotoRokr and confirming attendance to an event so that her friends can join her at the cafe. Anjali is stuck in traffic and is publicizing her angst on the
road sensepublicizing her angst on the road sense by tweeting from her N95. Sheetal is bored waiting for her boy at the multiplex and is checking her mails while trying to kill time on her Bird phone she got from Singapore. Alisha is bored waiting for her bus at the depot and forgot to sync new songs to her phone, she tunes in to 98.3FM to listen to her favorite RJ belt out the latest chart busters. Amitesh is battling sleep in a meeting with an endless barrage of powerpoint presentations when it suddenly strikes him that there is a match going on in England, out comes his blackberry as he fires up cricinfo. Sirisha just bought a new bluetooth dongle and earpiece for her phone, she now syncs her ear piece while on the go and also hooks her phone to the car audio while driving. Preethi is excited and can’t wait for the new semester to begin, her dad got her a smuggled jailbroken iphone from the grey market which she can flaunt in front of the whole college!

There is something that connects all the above mentioned characters irrespective of gargantuan levels in class and social status and that is the freedom to go mobile. With India standing head and shoulders above the other major countries when it comes to the number of mobile subscribers, our huge population with a heavy middle class pushes the numbers way beyond the competition. Freedom means many things to different people, some love to smoke and leave cigarette butts under a sign that says ‘No smoking’. Despite the ability to hold the bladder we love our freedom of spraying on the wallsfreedom of spraying on the walls. The pleasure of spraying on walls/trees and acting like one suffering from renal disorders is probably unparalleled which the west will never understand. Despite having trash cans in public places like parks n cinema halls dressed like circus animals with an inviting ‘use-me’ emblazoned on them, we love our freedom to hurl trash on the roads. Of course can’t take away paan/gutkha chewing responsible citizens who ensure to spit only in public urinals and paint them red. Ha! who in the west has ever heard of gutkha and zarda paan! Aren’t zebra crossings meant for school kids nuns? We love to cross the road anytime anywhere with aa simple ‘look left and lok right’. We do use the zebra crossing but only to help an old lady across the road while the girl we are trying to impress is coyly watching. Red lights and no-entry signs are just meant for learning boards in driving schools, as the popular saying goes we’d even fit an armoured tank in a cycle gap! These are somethings we love our freedom for and sigh upon the so-called developed countries for missing out on them.

PS: Title inspired by a Pepsi jingle to commemorate 50yrs of independence called ‘Freedom to be, Azadi dil ki‘.

PPS: Here is the song that has the above verse with Govinda in sublime form.

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Poll poll din ke paas

maxdavinci — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:45:50 +0000

Sat sri akal and a copy to all, this is your friend philosopher and guide Baba Bangali along with our resident reporter Munna Mobile coming to you live from our bunker in the hinterlands. We’re stationed in a bunker because of the nature of information we deal with. You read the regular stuff in the papers and news channels but our constant endeavors are always to go beyond the headlines. With the election fever dying down and the IPL at it’s closing stages, it’s time to take a breather. The elections also fondly called the ‘Great Indian Tamasha‘ has provided us with loads of entertainment and has kept the psephologists busy. With news channels trying to get ahead on exit polls in the race to be counted as the most accurate, they think they can fool us by calling it as statistics when it really is good ol’ sattebaazi. This Election was even more interesting as it was not only fought at the so-called grassroots level but also on the web with social media as a powerful weapon. There were therefore a deluge of ghost blogs and twitter accounts that were set up by representatives of the candidates.

We decided to cash in on this lunacy to reach out and offered our consultation services on twitter. Thus began the journey
of hashtagsthe journey of hashtags and 140 character limited fistfights. Words have never before been so judiciously used owing to the the limit, maximum potency with minimum characters was the mantra. Today we decided to do a poll retrospection and announced a tweetup, with invites being sent out to the big names. Our aim was to look back at the results and get some feelers on future steps from the movers and shakers of lok-sabha. Within 20 minutes we were flooded with tweets and below is a snapshot of what took place. For the twitter-illiterate and everyone else, read from the the bottom. It goes without saying that all references are in jest so don’t come chasing us with a lawsuit, however that would atleast get us some publicity.

PS: Title of this post inspired by this song

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Amma, I’m coming home…….

maxdavinci — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:37:23 +0000

Ma,

I know you don’t read this space very often but still. I know that I’ve been a bad boy, I don’t call you very often. I argue, I fight but I guess that’s how all sons are. Work has been tough and compounded to that living alone doesn’t help either. I want to run away from work, servers, conference calls, meetings, cooking, cleaning, and just about everything. I want to run into your outstretched arms at the airport, sleep on your lap while we watch the 9-O-clock news, drown in the aroma of your sambar and gobble up a dozen of your pooris.

I close my eyes and see your white fluffy idlis begging to be eaten, hear the crackle of your crisp dosas, smell the invigorating flavor of your rasam and feel your upma melt in my mouth. It’s a sign and I know someone’s calling me, and it’s none other than you. So here I disappear form the radar, and dart towards the airport, void of any worries or pressure. Forget the servers, forget the conference calls, forget the meetings, for all I can think of is to sink into your arms. Peace is what I seek and there is no other place in the whole wide world, more peaceful than a mothers hug. Everything can take a back seat for a fortnight because amma, I’m coming home!

luv,
max.

Click here to view the embedded video.

PS: Folks around sambarland, drop a comment if you wanna meetup.

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Sports in India…….

maxdavinci — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 02:19:00 +0000

Narain Karthikeyan has surely aroused a lot of interest in motorsports. Pankaj Advani’s win @ IBSF championships is a shot in the arm for billiards n snooker.

Saw both interviews on NDTV, It’s really refreshin 2 c many indians take up various sports other thatn cricket n excel at em’.

Narain said that he was right now aiming at finishing the races if not scoring any points . Me happy if he finishes with a point at the end of the season, since Jordan is one of the weakest teams.

In other news Venkatesh prasad has decd 2 finally call it a day for first class cricket. Me luved his famous ‘slower ball’ and the tussle between him n Amir Sohail in the QF of the world cup in B’lore, 1996.

max

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Republic day……….

maxdavinci — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 04:17:00 +0000

Watched the second half of ‘Upkaar’ in the morning, then the parade.
‘LOC kargil’ in the afternoon n finally ‘bombay’ in the evening!

The best mix of republic day mood makers:

At one end u had manoj kumar reliving the ‘kisan’ angle of our economy n that song ‘mere desh ki dharti’ was just the thing i needed 2 drive away morning blues

Then the parade n a rare slip of the mace in front of the salutaing dias by the police guy. But the military display, dances by school kids overshadowed the mediocre AP tableau.

‘LOC kargil’ was a very gud movie n JP Dutta has tried his best to encapsulate the events of the 1999 war n made a technically gud movie but it wasn’t commercialy viable. Some very good performances, gud background score n excellent lyrics. The song ‘main kahi bhi rahoon’ moved even a patthar dil like me! I then realised that i had the MP3 sumwhere on my comp n found it. It’s intoxicating n has been playin on my comp ever since!

Finally ‘bombay’, Mani ratnam’s excellent movie. Camera wrk, music, lyrics, story n actors all just fell into place. Luved the performances of the supporting actors. The gore, fire all brought back thoughts of godhra!

we plough our lands with great pride, we march in glory and display our valour, we give even the last drop of our blood for the safety of our motherland but yet we kill each other over religion?

strange but true!

Isiliye toh hum kahatein hai bhaiya
it happens only in India…….

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