Massive Payday Awaits Bhopal Victims

by SD

The Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, also called Chiddu by people who don’t really have much work to do, said today that the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy will receive utmost sympathy. He announced this compensation at a press conference today to “hopefully erase some of the memories of an incident that took place when was in college”.

“We intend to compensate the victims of the gas tragedy by offering a record sum of 15 million AntiKiloJoules of sympathy, not to mention 5 million sombre looks of deep sadness that will be handed out to each of the victims and their next of kin” said Mr. Chidambaram as he showed us a video montage of people placing their arms on the shoulders of victims while looking straight into their eyes.

“This model of compensation is not present even in developed countries. India is not a superficial society so money doesn’t have any value. What we need is sympathy. I’d also like to take this opportunity to mention that we have already given out massive amounts of compensation in the form of media coverage and general public anger. I mean, do you know much it costs to advertise on one square inch of the front page of a national newspaper? We charged that coverage to the compensation account. But anyway, victims can now go out and get discounts by using the sympathy that we will soon release” continued the Home Minister as the instrumental version of “Gods Will” played in the background.

“This compensation will be covered in the 11th plan, but the specifics are yet to be worked out. We are currently deliberating on a delivery model for sympathy. We could send out sympathizers to meet each victim, or better still, we could just send the victims a YouTube video of a person with a sympathetic look on his face. I think it would be better if the video had a woman in it, but we still have to finalize those details. We will let your children know when we do” said Mr. Chidambaram as he concluded the conference and left the stage after adjusting his lungi.

“This is absolute bullshit” said Mr. Nanem, an economist at a popular think tank. “Sympathy isn’t measured in AntiKiloJoules. Everyone knows that it’s measured in Newtons. Besides, where is he going to get all that sympathy from? This will create a massive deficit and we may be forced to import sympathy by producing a sequel to Slumdog Millionaire. Worse, we may be forced to divert sympathy away from AIDS, poor people and the English football team. The Government has a lot to deal with. However, sympathy is still better than false hope and fingercrossed promises”