From The Archives: Village loafer wastes life hitting spherical objects into dug holes

Eleusis, Sparta (Greece) 30 June 1037 AD: Eleusis, a sleepy village on the outskirts of the city state of Sparta is getting geared up for its annual fair. Buzzing with excitement, the villagers of Eleusis are busy making preparations for the big event, the only day of the year the people of this village look forward with anticipation. Except for one guy, Tiberius Woody, the village loafer who wears an indifferent look as he carries a wooden stick and a bag of round objects on his way to the banks of Tiber. Tiberius Woody's original name is Timor Theophilus, a source informs us, but he has been nicknamed Tiberius Woody, as he is usually found idling on the banks of River Tiber playing with a wooden club and rolling objects.

Curious about his strange obsession with a wooden stick and round objects, we inquired further hoping to get some some insight into the mind of the idler. No one had anything good to say about this young man in his late twenties, not even his own parents. Everyone we spoke to dismissed him as a useless loafer, a good-for-nothing goof who never did anything productive, wasting his life away playing all by himself with his club and spheres.

Unperturbed by the hostile reactions he evokes, Tiberius Woody carries on merrily persisting in his idle ways. Following him around as he rushed towards the bank, we found him cleaning his wooden club and leather balls. So what does he do with his stick and spheres? Tiberius explained to us that he has dug a dozen holes on the green field and he uses the club to hit the ball into each of the twelve holes using minimum number of strokes.

The young man in pyjamas demonstrated to us his talent as he skillfully dispatched the ball into the first hole using just three strokes. Is there a purpose to this activity, we ask. Offended by our question, Tiberius asked us what was the purpose of running the marathon. "Don't we have horses to take us quickly from one place to another? Why waste your life trying to run the marathon faster than anyone else? How is throwing discuss or a javelin at a faraway distance useful or productive?"

Woody then explained to us how aiming the ball correctly and guiding it into the holes requires tremendous concentration, skill and patience. "It isn't as easy as it looks. I bet no one in the whole world can cover a dozen holes in just 30 club strokes" he said with pride. We refrained from remarking that the reason is that no one else in the world plays the dumb game he has invented.

"I'm born at the wrong time" he rued. "At some point of time in future, people will pay to watch idlers like me hit balls into holes. Kings and noblemen will invite such loafers to their palaces and tempt them with thousands of pieces of gold and silver. They will be loved and honored by millions who will hold them as examples of what perseverance, passion, determination and hard work can achieve. Had I been born in more enlightened times, I would have lived life like a king and these uncultured peasants who laugh at me today would have been slaving their asses off for my comfort."

Since he is possibly the inventor of this stick and ball game, has he given it a name, we ask. "Not yet. But since the peasants call me a goof and a loafer, I'm thinking of combining the two words and call the game 'goaf'"

Millions of MJ fans come out of the closet

The self-proclaimed 'King of Pop' Michael Jackson, who had become an object of ridicule, scorn, hate, disgust and persecution during the last years of his life, has once again metamorphosed into a legendary superstar he once was before it became fashionable to deride him as a pathetic joke of a human. Crucified savagely by media and public alike while he was alive, he has been miraculously resurrected as an object of worship after his death.

Millions of fans of Michael Jackson, who for a period of over a decade had hid their liking and admiration for the 'King of Pop' have come out of the closet in droves, openly and unashamedly paying tribute to him on youtube, facebook, twitter and other social networking sites. Many millions of his ex-fans who ceased to be his fans when allegations of child molestation ruined his career and who never let him rest in peace while he was alive, mocking him, ridiculing him and calling him a paedophile are now praying for his soul to rest in peace.

Ravikant Gupta, 29, was so fearful of letting anyone know that he enjoyed listening to his music, he hid all MJ mp3's on his computer in a hidden folder. Now that after his death, it is considered acceptable to like him, he un-hid the hidden folder and for the first time in ten years played his songs on speakers. He also posted 13 comments on several youtube videos with the message "R.I.P. Michael, we will always love you"

Another closet fan of Jackson, who for last fourteen years never dared to utter his name in front of anyone and would tease mercilessly his friends if any of them admitted to listening to his music, wrote a long and a very moving blog expressing what Michael Jackson's music meant to him and how watching the video of 'Thriller' changed his life forever. "Now that he is dead, it is time to forgive and forget all the alleged misdemeanours and focus on his genius, his creativity and his incredible contribution to the world of pop music" he wrote in his emotion-laded blog.

Sales of his music albums have shot through the roof after his death. Even those fans who felt that he has stopped making good music after the 1991 album "Dangerous" are now queuing up to buy his later albums 'HIStory', 'Blood on the Dance Floor' and 'Invincible'.

One of his fans raved about these albums calling them 'undiscovered masterpieces'. "His music stopped sounding good to me after he started turning into a weirdo, a freakish child-man with a feminine voice and a funny-looking nose that threatened to fall off. Hearing stories that he abused little children further turned me off and made me hate him and his music. But now that he is no more, I'm beginning to see that he never stopped making great music."

His sudden death has also made many rethink the allegations leveled against him. "Maybe parents of the kids who made these terrible accusations were after his money. Would any parent whose child was actually a victim of sexual abuse settle the case outside the court for money?" asked Jack Shaw, who before his death considered out-of-court settlement as proof of Michael's guilt. Wouldn't an innocent guy who was being framed and blackmailed for money want to fight the case and be proved innocent, he used to argue with anyone who would reason that unless proved guilty, he should not be judged as guilty.

World plunges into Illegal Downloading crisis

20 October 2009, WASHINGTON, D.C.

After the subprime mortgage crisis following the bursting of the housing bubble, credit crunch and the consequent banking crisis which has resulted in economic slowdown all over the world, a fresh crisis has hit the world - illegal downloading crisis. Billions of songs worth trillions of dollars have been downloaded illegally by music-lovers all over the world over the years using P2P or torrent programs and file-sharing networks resulting in unrecoverable debts and bankruptcy of major recording companies

How it began?

It began in June 2009 when a Minnesota woman, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty of violating music copyrights and ordered to pay$1.92 million or $80,000 per illegally downloaded song to the recording companies by a federal jury in United States.

After the determination of the value of a single illegally downloaded by the jury, most of the recording companies changed their accounting practices in order to account for billions of songs illegally downloaded songs on computers all over the world.

In August 2009, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) pegged the total value of all illegally downloaded music at a ming-boggling amount of over $3000 trillion, nearly 300 times the total value of US debt. This huge figure was based on a report released by IFPI that more than 40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008, 95% of all music downloads.

While the actual monetary value of illegal songs downloaded last year was probably less than $100 billion, RIAA decided to value the illegally downloaded music not by its monetary value as determined by prices of legal downloads and CD's, but as per the jury's estimation of $80000 per song, which obviously included penalty for downloading the songs illegally.

Estimating that over the last 15 years of music piracy, over 500 billion songs must have been downloaded illegally, RIAA initially arrived at an absurd valuation of over $40000 trillion for all illegally downloaded music since the advent of Internet, but later decided to peg down the value to a more reasonable $3000 trillion when some economists pointed out to them that the amount of $40000 trillion was nearly 10 times more than the value of the entire planet.

Overriding objections that the valuation of illegally downloaded songs as determined by the jury was ridiculous and grossly unrealistic, the four major recording companies of the world Warner Music, Universal Music, EMI & Sony Music along with all their subsidiaries all over the world decided to change their accounting policies to account for the losses suffered by the recording industry as per the newly estimate valuation of pirated music.

Ignoring objections raised by many that it was highly unlikely that most illegal downloads would have been converted into sales, it was decided by RIAA that the cumulative amount of $3000 trillion owed by consumers of illegally downloaded music to the recording industry would be shown as debt in their balance sheets (as per agreed ratio based on average annual turnover) and written off as loss if the recording industry was not reimbursed with the amount.

Last moth, all the four major recording industries along with their subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy after writing off their unrecoverable debts as losses. Soon after they demanded bailout from US government claiming that they deserved to be bailed out by taxpayers money since their losses were a result of criminal acts of billions of tax-payers all over the world.

Yesterday, U.S. Treasury Secretary TImothy Geithner said that his government was negotiating with Congress for a possible $ 15 trillion bailout which is just a small fraction of the total bailout demanded by the recording industry. According to reliable sources, Geithner told the recording industry that since US has strict anti-piracy laws, it accounted for only a minor percentage of world's share of illegal downloaded music.

Blaming China and India for lax anti-piracy laws resulting in billions of songs being illegally downloaded from these two countries, Geithner has reportedly told the recording industry that it wouldn't be fair to punish US taxpayers for the sins of China and India. It is also reliably learnt that Geithner assured executives from the recording industry that President Obama will unveil a new plan to tackle the crisis arising from huge, unrecoverable debts accrued by the music industry.

Will US cancel its foreign debt?

There are fears expressed in many quarters that U.S will take this opportunity to cancel its international debt. According to some inside sources, U.S. President Obama will soon announce to the world a new plan under which its debt to other countries will be written off against the value of songs illegally downloaded from these countries. It this happens, it will create a run on US dollar and plunge the world into yet another unmanageable crisis of unfathomable proportions.

B-Grade Bollywood Director Feels Vindicated

While viewers of news channels were dismayed at UP police's ineptitude watching the heroic antics of dacoit, Ghanshyam Kevat who single-handedly fought a strong horde of 400 Uttar Pradesh policemen for over 52 hours, film-maker Anil Sharma couldn't stop smiling viewing the clips of the prolonged encounter between the cops and the lone dacoit.

Anil Sharma, producer and director of B-grade potboilers like The Hero-Love Story of a Spy, Gaddar-Ek Love Story, Hogi Love ki Victory, Declaration-E-War and Hukumat feels that he and Bollywood in general - often lampooned for unrealistic depiction of action sequences - stands vindicated.

"People often ask me how is it possible that hundreds of bullets fired from all sides always miss the hero of my movies. Critics of Bollywood action movies ridicule action scenes where the hero single-handedly fights a bunch of hefty baddies and consider such movies childish. We are accused of making unrealistic escapist movies where anything goes." said Sharma speaking to this reporter at his residence.

"This dacoit has now provided us proof that it's possible for a single person to take on hundreds simultaneously. Bollywood stands vindicated." said Sharma with a chuckle.

Pointing his finger towards the television screen when the footage of the two day long battle was being shown, Sharma said excitedly, "Look how he jumped from one roof to another dodging several bullet shots fired at him. Yeh toh paisa vasool entertainment hai. But when I show such stunts in my movies, critics laugh at me and call my masterpieces B-grade masala movies."

Anil Sharma doesn't look down disparagingly at Ghanshyam Kewat as a lowly dacoit, but considers him a hero. "He's the stuff heroes are made of. Unfortunately in our country, there are not enough decent employment opportunities with good pay for people like him. I don't blame him for becoming a dacoit. Why would a hero capable of battling an army all by himself join the police force for a measly few thousand rupees a month, where he would be forced to do degrading stuff like VIP duty and bow to politicians?"

Meanwhile, according to our sources, UP's DGP Vikram Verma, under flak for mishandling the encounter is miffed at the criticism and scorn directed towards his police force for their gross ineptitude in dealing with a lone dacoit. He has been heard complaining about media's bias in reporting the encounter.

"If this dreaded criminal was not just a dacoit, but a terrorist from Pakistan holed up in a 5-star hotel and holding up against us for 4 days, we would have been treated like war heroes who had rescued the nation from a foreign attack. Pretty young things would have come up to us, expressed their gratitude and given us flowers. Sachin Tendulkar would have felt honored meeting us. Those who are glorifying this dacoit as a hero for his ability to hold out against 400 cops for two days, do they have the guts to treat the terrorists who managed to hold the entire city of Mumbai to ransom for four days as heroes too?" asked the DGP, off the record, to some of the reporters after the press-conference was over.

Actress Sandhya Mridul storms airliner to give dental advice to a passenger

In a bizarre incident, film and television actress Sandhya Mridul stormed inside the business class of a commercial airliner along with a television crew at the exact moment one of the passengers experienced pain in his jaw and presented to him a pack of Colgate Active Salt toothpaste.

Around 10:37 AM, the passenger Mr. Atul Narayan, travelling from Bombay to Bangalore, was served breakfast by the air hostess. As Mr. Narayan thanked the air hostess and proceeded to eat a cookie, he experienced sharp pain in his left jaw. Suddenly, he saw actress Sandhya Mridul charging towards him along with a television crew armed with a microphone in her hand. Ms Mridul thrusted her microphone towards him and asked him if he was experiencing pain in his gums. When he replied in affirmative, she further questioned him about his dental habits and asked him if the toothpaste he uses contains salt.

Mr. Narayan was stunned, but before he could reply he found a pack of unbranded toothpaste in his lap. Startled at the miraculous materialization of a toothpaste pack without a brand name, he could only mumble "toothpaste mein namak?" (Salt in toothpaste?) The Page 3 actress then shoved a pack of Colgate Active Salt toothpaste right in front of his face and informed him that the new brand of Colgate toothpaste contains salt. Remarkably, Mr. Narayan, who looked shaken by the freakish intrusion of his privacy, regained his composure almost immediately, looked at the cameras flashing before him and smilingly said "For stronger gums, use Colgate Active Salt"

On hearing his endorsement of the toothpaste, a satisfied Ms Mridul told her crew. "Lets go" and stormed out of the business class.

Other passengers who witnessed this outlandish scene were shell-shocked. It is not known how Ms Mridul's crew knew that Atul Narayan would experience pain in his gums. None of the witnesses of the event were able to explain the manifestation of the unbranded toothpaste. When Atul Narayan was asked by the fellow passengers why he was carrying an unbranded toothpaste along with him, he denied that he uses unbranded toothpastes. "I actually use Colgate toothpaste, though sometimes I also use Close-up or Babool. I've no idea how this white-colored box with nothing but "Toothpaste" written on all of its four sides landed up on my lap."

Later when he reached his home, Mr. Narayan brushed his teeth using Colgate Active Salt. Impressed by its taste, he stopped for a moment to admire the paste, looked appreciatively at his toothbrush and remarked loudly "ummm...taste bhi badhiya hai"

Dhoni to donate his house to cricket fans

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of India's cricket team has decided to donate his under-construction house in his hometown Ranchi to India's cricket crazy fans. This house will be declared as a museum of 'constantly evolving fan art' and fickle-minded cricket fans of India will be allowed to design, destroy, rebuild and re-destroy his house as per their changing fancies.

After humiliating exit from T20 world cup, Dhoni apologized to his fans for his team's poor show and offered his under built house to his fans to vent their anger. "There is no excuse for our poor performance which has really disappointed the fans. I apologize for the team's poor performance and also offer my house in Ranchi, which is still under construction, to my fans so that they can attack it again and give vent to their anger at my poor showing." said MS Dhoni after India's defeat to England.

In 2007 when India was ousted from World Cup, furious Indian cricket fans had stormed Dhoni's house and brought down its walls and pillars, demanding the withdrawal of prime residential property worth five million rupees, granted to him by the government of Jharkhand. But after India's victory in the T20 world cup in the same year, they came forward to rebuild the house.

"I dedicate this loss to my house in Ranchi which has resolutely faced the brunt of my fans wrath. I'm now offering this house to my fans who are free to do with it as they please. If at the end of my cricketing career, it remains unbuilt, I would consider my captaincy and cricket career as a failure."

Dhoni also said that his under-construction house will store hundreds of his ready made effigies which can be burnt by his fans whenever India under his captaincy doesn't fare well in any international competition. There will also be a storeroom filled with garlands which the fans can use to garland his effigies when India under his captaincy wins any international competition.

For the first time, Dhoni spoke on the controversial issue of his absence at the Padma Shree award ceremony. "I believe that this award, like the plot in Ranchi, belongs not to me but to the cricket fans of India who feel they have the right to demand that government of India take back whatever award or reward has been granted to me, whenever me or my team performs badly"

He added that from now onwards, the Padma Shree award would also be kept at the same house for the benefit of his fans. "They can take it away or hand it back to the President of India whenever my team fails."

Swine Health Organization declares human terror pandemic alert

Swine Health Organization of World (SHOW) has raised the human terror alert level to 100 from the normal level 99, following rumors that millions of extra pigs may be culled by humans, in addition to over 35 lakh pigs that are slaughtered daily in slaughter houses around the world, as a precautionary measure against fresh outbreak of swine flu.

Yesterday, World Health Organisation (of Humans) (WHO) declared influenza A (H1N1), also known as swine flu, a pandemic and raised the alert level to phase 6. "There is a real possibility that humans may start killing even more pigs as a result of fear generated due to classification of swine flu as global level-6 pandemic." said Dr. Piggetty Pooh, director of SHOW at a news conference today.

"While we do not consider H1N1 virus dangerous enough to cause even a small fraction of overall human deaths from normal diseases like normal flu, malaria, jaundice, TB, air pollution etc which continue to kill millions of humans every year, the level of hype and panic generated due to alerts issued by WHO is definitely dangerous for us. Human run television channels and newspapers have been infected with over hyped reports of the virus. The spread of fear-mongering by media has now reached pandemic levels. This has created a very dangerous situation for us, since it is highly likely that the panic might spread to owners of pig farms who may start killing us before our actual slaughter due date"

"Usually we are killed because of pork-loving humans. Now we are facing additional threat of being killed because of pig-panicky humans" added Dr. Piggetty Pooh

This is the highest ever human terror alert raised by SHOW and has generated fears that pig specie may be facing extinction. "Our only hope for continued survival on this planet was countries with high number of vegetarians and pork-hating Muslims such as India, a country where we could roam freely on streets without fear of being imprisoned in pig farms. But if the panic of the flu pandemic continues unabated, even Indians may start killing us." said Dr. Ziggy Hog, a biologist working with Swine Survival Society (SSS), an organization dedicated to the prevention of extinction of swines.

But while humans have reacted with abnormal levels of panic despite only few confirmed deaths due to H1N1, the pig population of the world is not taking the heightened human terror alert issued by SHOW very seriously.

Mario Muttonchops, who is being raised in Beverly Hills Pig Farm and faces likely slaughterdom within next few months, brushed off the threat curtly "We are pigs, mate. We are born, we eat, we shit, we are slaughtered and finally consumed by humans. I'll continue to enjoy my life as long as I live. Whether I'm culled today or slaughtered tomorrow makes no difference to how I live my life"

Deploring the human terror threat alert issued by SHOW, Swami Swinanda of Art of Hogging said "We should stop getting panicky over the possibility of few million extra killings of pigs by humans. That is so human - to worry about few hundred deaths from new viruses when millions continue to die from old ones. Humans, of course, have many reasons to fear death. They worry whether they will go to heaven or hell, whether they will be reincarnated as humans again or come back as animals. They have to deal with complex issues such as sin and karma. If they are gluttonous like us they face the humiliation of being reborn as pigs. But we, pigs, need not have any worries. If we become extinct, we might be reincarnated as humans."

Elaborating on his reincarnation theory, the swami said, "Genetically, pigs are closest to humans, not monkeys. Look at the dominant human race of last century, the Americans. They eat all kind of junk food like us and become obese and rotund. An average American looks more like a fat pig than a monkey. In fact, it is very likely that most of Americans were pigs in their last birth and have carried forward their gluttonous habits in their human life."

War of the Words

While there are some who invent imaginative new words thereby contributing to the art of making language richer, there are others who self-appointedly sit on language monitoring committees to monitor the influx of new words and decide which new words deserve an entry in the hallowed English dictionaries. Who gavith them the right?

And then there is Indian media, suffering from severe lack of sense of discrimination, which starts drooling with excitement whenever anything remotely connected to Indian cultural landmass gets approval from westerners. A press release by a little-known American company that makes money by monitoring new media for mentioning its clients, announcing the crowning of one millionth word should ordinarily have been brushed aside without a thought, but the inclusion of two words having an India-connection (Slumdog & Jai Ho) was enough enticement for our media to treat a publicity gimmick by a private company as yet another shining example of India's cultural impact on the world.

Would we have stopped using the words Slumdog or Jai Ho had this monitoring agency not included these words in its expanding list? Has our national pride suffered a dent because Slumdog is listed at 9,99,997 and not at 10,00,000? If not, why do such crappy crowning ceremonies conferring chance celebritiness to accidental new words become news?

As a response to such senseless pandering to juvenile fancies, Onionuttapam.com too has created its own list of new words and phrases that deserve an entry in English lexicon.

Countupation - (noun - Counting clowns) - The silly and absolutely pointless occupation of keeping a count of new inclusions of items in a given branch of knowledge that are indelineatable due to lack of accepted and clear-cut criteria for inclusion or exclusion of such items in that branch of knowledge.

Languappropriate - Attempt to appropriate or assume pseudo-control/ownership of an entire language through insidious means such as setting up a language monitoring company, unauthorizedly taking up the role of deciding which words deserve an inclusion in official lexicon and pompously crowning words arbitrarily with meaningless titles.

Authoreverence - (reverence or worship of authority) Obsessive obeisance by mainstream media to traditional institutions of authority or institutions pretending to be institutions of authority (like Oxford English Dictionary, Global Language Monitor etc) while ignoring the contribution of popular barometers (such as Urbandictionary.com which boasts a dictionary of 4 million words) to the profusion of new words and phrases.

(National) Gloryearning - Excessive yearning or hankering for national glory. Often exhibited by media by giving over-importance to international competitions of no significance, and by treating every international contest featuring any person, product or an abstract idea related to the nation, however tangential the relation might be, as a matter of national pride and glory.

Byculla Jail undertrials express sympathy for Sheetal Mafatlal

Radhabai Surve, 49, jailed at Byculla's women cell is one of the 3 lakh undertrials (70 % of all prisoners) who are languishing in various prisons all over the country. She has been in prison for over 5 years now, 4 years more than she would have been had she been convicted of the crime she had allegedly committed. Since she is too poor to afford a lawyer, she is dependent on a state-appointed one, who has made no effort to get her bailed out and keeps seeking adjournments.

Yesterday, Radhabai Surve shared her cell with celebrity prisoner Sheetal Mafatlal, arrested for evading customs duty on jewellery worth Rs. 53 lacs. On learning the reason why the socialite from the troubled Mafatlal family was spending the night in prison, she was shocked. Echoing the sentiments of Haseena Jethmalani and many other scanalized socialites, she asked 'Panaas laakh chi keemat kai aaj? (What is the value of 50 lakhs today?) Its a ridiculously small amount'.

Radhabai was arrested for stealing a necklace worth just Rs.10,000 from the household where she worked as a maid. She denies stealing the necklace and claims that she was framed by her employers. Although she has stoically resigned herself to her fate, she is full of sympathy for her celebrity cellmate. "Poor lady..She is so used to luxury and comfort. How will she live in this rat-infested room?"

Watching Sheetal sleep on a thin, prickly coil mattress surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, Sitadevi, 35, recoiled in horror. "She's rich and she's famous. Why is she being treated like the way we poor are?' she asked innocently. "She didn't kill or hurt anybody. Its wrong to harass a respectable lady like her for such a minor offence. At least, they should have put her in clean, air-conditioned room with  TV, phone and a fridge. Not in this stinking hell-hole." When this reporter pointed out to her that the law treats everyone equally, she seemed genuinely surprised but after a few moments she started laughing, "I will believe you if even after two years I see her in this room sleeping on this same dirty mattress"

Sitadevi, who worked as a cleaner in a hospital was arrested for stealing a lamp from the hospital store room, an offence if proved carries a maximum punishment of six months. She has already spent over 2 years in prison, as she was unable to afford the bail set at Rs. 1500. Her case comes up every fortnight at the sessions court, but all she receives are date extensions. Every time she is brought to the court, the judge on duty without even looking at her sets a new date for the trial, several weeks ahead. Sitadevi too claims innocence. "Why would I steal a lamp? I don't even have electricity in the shanty where I live with my husband and two children. I accidentally broke the lamp while cleaning the storeroom. Afraid that the cost of lamp will be deducted from my measly salary of  Rs.2000, I disposed off the broken remains without informing anyone"

Both the women were excited at the media attention Sheetal Mafatlal was receiving and expressed hoped that once their stories too made front pages of newspapers, their cases will come up for hearing and be quickly disposed off. But when they learnt that they were being interviewed not by a front line newspaper, but by an obscure website which receives just a few hundred hits everyday, they got angry and shooed this reporter away.

 

Anti-racism rally turns into a racial slugfest

A massive anti-racism rally held yesterday outside the Australian embassy in Mumbai in protest against Indian students being targeted in Australia turned into a racial slugfest.

Over 20,000 protesters from different races, castes, communities and religious groups turned up outside the precincts of the Australian embassy for the rally which was organized by Students Federation of India (SFI) along with the National Students Union of India (NSU). Shouting anti-racism slogans, the protesters demanded that Australian government should take more steps to ensure security for Indian students residing in Australia.

But soon after, the protest rally took an unexpected twist when a group of north Indians from Bihar started shouted slogans against Raj Thackeray calling him a racist and demanded that Maharashtra Government should arrest and punish all those who were involved in the attacks against north Indians last year. They also called for banning of Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) terming it a racist party. Some protesters, allegedly from Shiv Sena and MNS, angered by the sloganeering of this group started pushing and beating this group of protesters and told them that if they can't maintain discipline during protesting, they should go and hold a protest rally of their own in Patna or Ranchi.

Watching the fracas between the two groups, another bunch of protesters belonging to the Muslim community decided to join in and began raising slogans against Narendra Modi and Bal Thackeray calling them mass-murderers. They demanded that Indian government should first protect minorities of India from communal and racist violence unleashed against them by Hindutva leaders and punish all those responsible for Mumbai and Gujarat riots before raising the issue of racism on an international level. This turn of events infuriated thousands of other protesters who started abusing the Muslim protesters by calling them 'terrorists' and asking them to 'go back to Pakistan'. Several protesters belonging to the minority community were badly beaten up and had to be rushed to a nearby hospital.

Disturbed at the proceedings, the organisers of the rally tried to calm down the passions. But the situation got more ugly when a small group of Dalits on the periphery of the rally took the opportunity to protest against killings of Dalits and began taunting a nearby group of college students for their hypocrisy in not standing up against caste-violence in the interiors of the country. Some college students retaliated against their taunts by shouting anti-quota slogans calling reservations in educational institutions as a form of 'institutionalised racism'. This resulted in fist-fights between the two groups in which several protesters from both sides were injured and had to be hospitalized.

Policemen who were covering the rally were clearly outnumbered and could do nothing but watch helplessly as the protest rally turned into a battleground. Before additional police parties could reach the venue to control the situation, another minor fight broke out between a group of Tamilians who started shouting slogans against Indian government for being mute witness to killings of over 50,000 Tamils in Sri Lanka and a group of north Indian students who responded by chiding the protesting group for supporting LTTE terrorists.

By the time additional forces rushed in and managed to control the rioting groups by lobbing tear gas shells, over two thousands protesters had suffered serious injuries.

The Australian deputy high commissioner who was watching the proceedings from his office window was seen chuckling loudly at the tragic turn of events but later issued a statement condemning the violence that broke out at the protest rally.

A Psychoanalysis of Monkey Man Andrew Symonds

Harbhajan Singh has been finally vindicated - that is of course, if he had indeed called Andrew Symonds a 'Monkey' and not 'Maa Ki' as he claimed later during 'Monkeygate' investigations. With the latest controversy he finds himself embroiled in - another shining example of his undisciplined wayward ways, it can be said that Andrew Symonds is an undiluted monkey monovular, belonging to the anthropoid class, alleged common ancestor race of all of mankind. Those who think that a close resemblance to anthropoids is a matter of shame should dispassionately examine their own intimacy to the primates of ape family.

What he needs now is a rehabilitation process where he can learn to come to terms with his monkey-ness and accept it gracefully like humans, which is a catch-22 situation since he is not hundred percent human and cannot be expected to act like a full-blown human. If he learns to act like humans, he will no longer remain a pure monkey specimen which might lead to accusations of racism and unlawful racial conversion by monkeys against human race in general and the rehabilitation center in particular.

But nevertheless, a rehabilitation process is a must for Andrew Symonds so that he stops feeling ashamed of his closeness to the monkey species and learns to appreciate his monkey brain. Quite a lot of his confusion and anger will be erased when he understands the composition of  human brain.

The Human Brain

Human race, as it functions, is a result of the human brain which is just a mixture of mammalian (monkey) and reptile (R-Complex) brain. There is also a third brain, the recently-evolved part called neocortex which is responsible for making peace between the monkey brain and the reptile brain. Neocortex is the home of the intellect giving humans memory, reason and logic, but since this brain was the last to evolve, it is deficient in majority of humanity.

Symonds's problem is not that his neocortex brain is underdeveloped. Poorly evolved neocortex in human race is generally responsible for most of the problems of world which mostly arise due to lack of proper reasoning and logic. So under-evolution of the third brain is not just his problem, but entire humanity's problem. Andrew's problem is that he is monkey-brain dominant. As a result his mammalian brain is not well-equilibrated or balanced with his reptile brain.

The reptile brain in humans is obsessed with rules, rituals and ceremonies. It makes humans conformists to cultural, social, religious or legal customs. On the other hand, the monkey brain in humans is unruly, free-spirited, disobedient and resistant to any kind of subjugation. With his monkey-brain dominating his reptile brain, Andrew Symonds feels like a fish out of water in a discipline and rules-obsessed environment of Australian and international cricket. 

(He will be heartened to know that the reptilian part of our brain, being the oldest and most primitive is also the least evolved of all the three parts and responsible for wars, power-obsession, greed and a host of other negatives which has kept mankind in a fear-based survival mode)

The way out for Symonds

He should consider aligning himself with all other monkey-brained dominated cricketers like Shoaib Akhthar, the player formerly known as Sreesanth and possibly even with his arch rival Harbhajan Singh and form a MPL (Monkey Premier League). This league can have all players who have fallen foul with their cricket boards due to their undisciplinary monkeying ways.

At some point of time, the rest of international cricketers will exhaust themselves with their punishing schedules playing several forms of cricket, jet-hopping from one continent to another without a break and not too far in the future, the cricket-loving Indian janta will also be exhausted watching overdose of IPLs, ICLs, T20 World Cups, one-dayers and test matches.

In such a scenario, the players of the monkey league with their alcohol problems, indiscipline, bad attitude, lack of team-spirit, slapgates and name-calling will represent the next level of cricket-based entertainment providing weary cricket lovers, bored with obsessive moneymaking of cricket boards/players, with natural and unadulterated amusement, a welcome break from the increasing irritations of excessively hyped, over-commercialized forms of cricketaintment complete with plastic cheerleaders, hard-selling television commentators and fake controversy-generating players.