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.

Children of a Lesser Slumlord

Millions of slum kids of Mumbai and all other cities of India, who were not fortunate enough to act in the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' will continue to live in the same shit-holes as before. Danny Boyle's trust will not buy homes for them. Mumbai Regional Congress Committee will not allot MHADA flats for them. Chief of MHADA's Mumbai Board will not grant them homes under the EWS (economically weaker section) category since these anonymous children of economically weaker sections are too anonymous to deserve a home that is not located in a slum. Indian and international media will ignore their condition for the same reason.

Anonymous kids growing up in slums being children of a lesser slumlord won't get endorsement deals or walk on fashion ramps. Politicians will ignore them even during election times as they are too young to vote. Bulldozers of BMC will raze down their 'illegal' shanties too, but Milind Deora or Priya Dutt will not make enquiries about their families or express any concern for their fate. When bulldozers will render these kids homeless, media will either not report the demolition of their homes or report it as just another much-needed encroachment removal drive to clean up the city and free its encroached spaces. Resul Pookooty wouldn't consider their homelessness as a matter of 'national shame'

Those whose job is to solve the problems of these anonymous slum children have found a solution that will eradicate all of their problems. Their solution is - become famous like the celebrity slum kids of Slumdog Millionaire. From now onwards, any kid from slums who will be chosen as an actor in any Hollywood movie to depict realities of his or her existance will become eligible for receiving free housing, education and all other benefits by virtue of becoming a celebrity slum kid. All his needs will be taken care by government or private trusts.

In order to help slum children in achieving their dreams of instant fame and fortune, Information & Broadcasting ministry is planning to start a training academy where slum children can learn to act, sing and dance. Hollywood directors will be pressurized to select child-stars for slum-based movies only from this academy. As already reported before, Indian government is planning to protect and preserve Indian slums by declaring them as national heritage. Preservation of slums is likely to inspire more western filmmakers into making slum-based movies.

"We are in the process of launching several schemes that will help slum kids in getting employment as child actors in movies. By year 2020, we expect that the number of slum kids who will get chance to act in international movies will rise from present two to over twenty." said minister for Information and Broadcasting. The minister promised that in case the producers of these movies did not compensate these kids fairly, the ministry will step in and in coordination with local governments help them in providing them with free housing and other necessary benefits.

Minister for Labour and Employment said that his ministry is planning to modify the Minimum Wages Act to ensure that children of slums acting in western movies are not exploited. "We are planning to amend the Minimum Wages Act. Under the proposed amendment, filmmakers using slum kids will have to provide free housing to the kids as part of the acting contract. They will also be required to pay the kids remuneration on par with the remuneration paid to child actors from western countries"

There are also rumors that the Human Resources and Development ministry will be proposing a 33 percent quota for slum kids for television quiz shows like 'Kaun Banege Crorepati'. There is also a possibility that the ministry might insist that at least 50 per cent of the questions asked in the show must be related to events in their life to give slum children a fair chance to compete with the rest of the contestants.

Kids living in slums but not lucky enough to get a chance of acting in international blockbuster movies or get selected for quiz shows, will continue to live the rest of their  lives in their dirty hovels. Even though each one of them has a story to tell, their stories will never be told.