Category Archives: Comment

Cesses in excess, mum on scams!

Posted on by Rofl Indian

First published on Tehelka.com

Must say, the nation has been ambling along fairly well ever since the days of the Preamble. Over the years we have fought and won many a sly battle, shot satellites into space (maybe some went precariously inches over the heads of neighbours, but that’s okay), exploded a couple of real indigenous nukes (not the cheapo Chinese types that the guys next door pointlessly threaten us with), built up an awesome military with kickbacking howitzers, commissioned (pun intended) dams, bridges, eight lane highways and industries, pushed through reforms, stashed away sackfuls of black money….well, the long and short of it is that we have succeeded in doing ourselves proud and turned India into a truly sovereign, socialist, secular , democratic republic where everyone is free to have his way.

Admittedly, none of such outstanding developments may have taken place had the country not been blessed by a bunch of really heroic finance ministers. Year after year they come up with formidable treatises on the nation’s economic health, crunching numbers in excruciating detail, the mystery heightened by elaborate literary embellishments in each subsequent retelling of the union budget. Amidst the matrix of baffling financial jargon, the common man sits dumbfounded like the Tusshar Kapoor of Golmaal, holding his breath, fearing the worst, and worried to death as to how he would make ends meet without having to sacrifice his smoke.

Perhaps the single most important factor of the budget is the tax. Somewhere down the line, the wily bureaucrats must have figured out that there are far more innovative ways to levy a tax without having to call the goon by his name. So they named it ‘cess’. Though I am no expert in etymology, I have firm reasons to believe that the word ‘cess’ surely comes from excess, which, by all means, sufficiently describes what a budgetary exercise is all about. An alternative theory traces ‘cess’ to Bangla’s ‘shesh’, meaning ‘the end’, which is when the villain shoots the hero dead in real life. Either way, the common man loses and more black money makes it’s way to the Alpine climes.

This is why there is all the more need to simplify the budget. With scams and embezzlements becoming the order of the day, the entire union budget appears to be an exercise in futility. Much like Om Puri’s role as a crook in Victoria No. 203. Doesn’t matter if you have never heard of the movie? Even I hadn’t until today.  The idea is, why burn midnight oil trying to figure out plan outlays and capital expenditure when you can’t stop billions leaking out surreptitiously.

Why can’t the government just admit that scams exist, and in acceptance of it’s legitimacy, charge a uniform 10% ‘disservice tax’ on the dough generated through this route?  10% of 10% amounts to 1% of the GDP, if you would get the drift. Simple calculation. Trust me, with this stunning masterstroke, the government will, in a single financial year, put together a revenue far in excess of whatever trickles in painstakingly through income tax, outcome tax, capital gains tax, service tax, business tax, wealth tax, health tax and sundry other complicated instruments in a whole decade. Consider the positive fallouts. All ambiguity in financial dealings will disappear. Business processes will be streamlined like never before, corporates will heave a sigh of relief and accountancy firms will breathe in a sunshine of transparency.

Most of all, the common taxpayer will be spared from taking his trousers to the tailor every now and then to get the burnt holes in his pockets patched up.  Good riddance.

 

Anna-lysis of a Ramlila

Posted on by Rofl Indian

What is puny and small in the beginning, but swells enormously when appropriately tickled?

Crowds, of course. And an indomitably spirited Anna Hazare demonstrated exactly this to the world with his usual aplomb during the Herculean fast which he just concluded amidst the humongous applause of freshly stirred countrymen. As speaker after righteous speaker at the Ramlila grounds performed ritualistic ablutions of the annals of UPA’s history (pun intended), the Kejriwals, the Bhushans and the Bedis wasted no time in handing out (t)issues to those who volunteered to wipe out the stink in the name of the great crusader. Media houses went berserk with the live coverage. Correspondents frothed at the mouth. Children struggled in the hot sun to revisit the independence struggle. Students bunked classes on no pretext.  And proud girls wearing the Anna cap rejected boyfriends who refused to wear the same, arguing that a reluctance to wear a simple cap today might portend a reluctance to wear the family planning gear tomorrow.  In short, humanity could barely be saved from the clutches of democracy just in the nick of time.

Which brings us to the larger question. Who gained what. Undoubtedly, it was yet again the irresistible Arindam Choudhuri of IIPM who came up trumps in counting the number of chicks in the batch. Remember the seminal treatise he wrote on self help ‘Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch’? Buoyed by the events, the wily mentor might now seriously think of putting in place a comprehensive pedagogy on civil society campaigns, smartly calling it the PGPPMM – Post Graduate Program on People’s Movement Management, with the punchline ‘Dare To Think Beyond The Shy Dry PMs”.  For budding PR strategists languishing in the shadows, as described by Surekha Pillai in her column in the DNA, he could offer a few exciting Management Development Programs like Lost-Cause Management, Charm-Campaign Management and Uncertain Venture Management, although he must steadfastly refuse to entertain any calls from across the border to initiate courses on Jihad Management at his Dubai campus. Helluva money there, but still. His detractors, a bunch of impetuous retards anyway, might provoke him by demanding a course on Unemployment Management, but Arindam, the eternally sedate and conscientious guy that he is, must brush aside such barbs with the contempt they deserve.

Om Puri, on his part, must be in a perpetual self congratulatory mode ever since he shook the nation with his hideous acts of non violence. Not his fault, though. He was asked to speak on the aspirations of the common man. But the single malts that he had so condescendingly agreed to imbibe for the larger cause tricked him into assuming that he was expected to speak on the common man’s ‘aspersions’. Let me tell you, the furore is needless. For his part, Om Puri attempted to give us an objective idea of how Bheja Fry 3 would eventually come out to be. So, the most appropriate recourse would be to continue to remember Mr. Puri for his stellar performance in Ardh Satya. Which brings us to the sacred memory of poor Smita Patil. Had she been alive today, she’d easily have ousted Medha Patkar and Kiran Bedi from all forms of civil unrest.

Words are woefully inadequate when it comes to praising the outstanding contribution of that holy shrine of healthcare, the Mecca of medicine, Medanta Medicity. But for the charitable cartel of cardiologists and physicians cordoning off the venue 24×7, Anna Hazare’s team wouldn’t have dared to push the old man right up to the brink. Okay, Medanta may have a few cruel taxes imposed by the government here and there and maybe a couple of sops would get suddenly withdrawn, but that’s a small price to pay for the ginormous free publicity that was garnered entirely at the expense of Times Now. Who knows, TOI might even come out with a spiritual CD on Effective Hunger Management with liberal scholarly inputs on urinary ketones by Dr. Naresh Trehan. That is, the higher the level of ketones in your urine, the closer you are to God. Here, it would be important to note that while setting up Medanta Medicity for a cost of a thousand crores, Dr. Trehan was entirely guided by a fierce set of philanthropic ideals.

That leaves us. You and me. With the hope that the next time a bribe is demanded, we will refuse to pay it for two days. Okay, three days. By then Anna will have shoved his cap up the rogue’s gaping conscience.

Google Chromosome!

Posted on by Rofl Indian

This post appeared among Blogadda’s Spicy Saturday Picks on July 3, ’10

Doctors are not too well known for their IT skills. We guys usually eye the computer with considerable unease and are known to invent elaborate excuses to avoid even having to go near one. If I may confess, most docs confuse the word ‘laptop’ with an attractive and youthful female having pleasing attributes and large, inviting lap. I have often thought of broaching the subject with Susie over a cup of coffee and seek her honest opinion on the matter of fully loaded, higher end laptops with plenty of giga bites gigabytes, but every time some or the other thing crops up and the issue gets forgotten.

Many practitioners, though, do keep a PC in their clinics. The rich ones like our Hospital Director keep a Mac. The aim is obvious. To snare patients and con them into thinking that the doctor is cool, trendy and upwardly mobile. Casting an impression on the opposite sex is an added benefit. Still, they try their best to avoid having to use the computer, except on a those occasions when the urge to watch a pedagogic DVD or two becomes really overpowering. May I, at this juncture, make it clear that a pedagogic DVD is a piece of hardware that contains loads of ‘visually stimulating’ material that is usually sneaked in hidden among the pages of Harrison’s Textbook of Internal Medicine.   Many a doc has been caught red handed by inquisitive staff members (and vice versa), lapping up such academic videos in the privacy of his darkened chamber.  Now, a doc may be as cool as a frozen Tuborg when it comes to cutting the stomach open and playing Twenty-20 with the intestines, but when confronted with the challenge of snap shutting a browser window, a doc usually plops  into a deep kind of stupor, bordering almost on coma. Even the Statue of Liberty would appear much animated in comparison.

The aversion of doctors towards information technology is rooted in their unique professional upbringing. The MBBS course is one of the toughest trainings ever designed to screw a half dead human being. When the blokes in the engineering or commerce colleges ramble around on Pulsars and Yamahas (the older ones roamed about on Yezdis) with gorgeous babes wrapped around them from head to toe, the medical guy loses his sleep over the harrowing details of levator labii superioris alaeque nasi and its nasty relations with other such stupid muscles. While the MBA geeks swim around in espresso coffee mugs with sugary belles clinging on to them in hordes, the bachelor of medicine buries himself deep into Gray’s Anatomy and sighs in despair while trying hard to mug the anatomy of the female breasts. Poor guy, he must learn to identify the breast as a ‘modified sweat gland’ if he has to pass the Ist term exams.

It isn’t that we guys do not try to learn a thing or two about the internet and things like that. One of my colleagues was so impressed by Google that he started prescribing ‘two teaspoons of isabgoogle at night with a glass of water’ to cure constipation. Another named his son after the search giant. Google Shukla.

In light of the above revelations, it appears that the medical fraternity is in dire need of professional assistance from the IT guys. Docs would welcome a short course on ‘How to download useful video clips from the internet and store (hide) them on the hard disk’  or ‘How to set up a chat without letting the wife know’. And Google would really do well to come up with a doctor friendly internet browser. They may name it Google Chromosome!

Hissss-tory in the making?

Posted on by Rofl Indian

Or is it just plain Hissss-teria (hysteria)?

Shapeshifting and animal transformation are gripping themes in folklore, literature and cinema.  Satyajit Ray once seriously considered making one of his most brilliant short stories ‘Khagam’ into a tele film. [See here for the plot and here for the audio torrents]. If he’d have made it, I’m sure the makers of Phoonk would have pissed in their pants out of sheer horror. Most shapeshifting dramas in Indian cinema (Nagin, Nagina) have been droll yet commercially successful attempts to cash in on a popular mythological theme, wherein a (widowed) snake woman cuts loose and unleashes a reign of revenge and terror on a motley group of spiteful crooks. Agreed, the technical accomplishments of the 70s and 80s were limited to making a few outlandish efforts of showing snake-human transformation. Why, there was even a ‘Pyasi Nagin’ spoof (shudder) in between! But with the advent of cutting edge SFX and computer generated imagery in today’s era, expectations are bound to be high. So when Jennifer Lynch announced her intent to shoot Naagin (Hissss) with the amply talented (ample and talented?) Miss Mallika Sherawat in the lead, it caused an explosive arousal of platonic interest in the plot. And now that the trailer is out, with a writhing and wriggling Ms Sherawat climbing lamp posts and vying for undivided attention amidst a lot of blood, gore and dripping tropical jungles, the wait is becoming more and more unbearable by the day. Hope the Lynch-Sherawat combo delivers.

 

Who Framed Todger Grabbit

Posted on by Rofl Indian

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It is indeed a queer quirk of fate that actor Todger Grabbit finds himself today behind bars, accused by his bai of fishing in forbidden waters.  To the utter consternation of Mr. Grabbit perhaps, the bars in this case are made of steel, and are not the usual assembly of glass topped tables with cushioned chairs and hovering bartenders. Apparently, Todger Grabbit weaseled into illicit territory while attempting to his hook his libidinous line with his bai’s innocent sinker, and when the police took him into custody, he was reportedly trying to fix his blemished rudder with oil stains all over it.  

Now, for the uninitiated, the word bai refers to a female domestic help in Indian households. Such a person, as a rule, is believed to possess a multitude of sweeping, unconditional rights conferred automatically upon her from the day she condescends to extend her estimable services in exchange for an ample salary. This includes holding an entire household to ransom over the right to avail unlimited casual leaves and the right to demand generous grants of credit and consumables at bai-monthly intervals. Most Indian households, particularly in the metropolitan cities, are strictly bai-polar, where the word of the bai is final and bai-nding. Understandably, no one messes with their clan, let alone even think of flexing bai-ceps before them or rubbing them in either right or wrong ways. Wrath of a bai is horror personified, as Todger Grabbit is now realising to his utter humiliation.

Mr. Grabbit’s wayward, and in a way, inexplicable behavior is increasingly being attributed to a few of his earlier films, in which he was shown cavorting amorously with assorted seductresses in wanton acts of unbridled lust. Sins Since then of course, Mr. Grabbit has come a long way, grabbing a Filmfare Award or two on the route and generally coming to be accepted as an acceptable actor. As his co stars emphatically point out, Mr. Grabbit sported a wholesome reputation on the whole and was known to keep his boat usually under wraps, at an arm’s length from raunchy vessels bobbling in alluring waters. As to why Mr. Grabbit chose to rip away from his fairly steady anchor and run after a wild goose so late in married life, is definitely a puzzle for human bai-logists to mull over.

His defense counsel may argue that poor Todger was an innocent bai-stander in the whole sordid affair, and that all evidences that otherwise point to a forced one night bai-stand are utterly fabricated. Perhaps, it was merely bai-chance that Mr. Grabbit happened to be at home when the domestic help was rubbing away at the floor hard, in a sincere attempt to make it shiny and lustrous. Perhaps Mr. Grabbit was seized by a philanthropic urge to lend a hand in her chores, and that the passionate chorus which resulted was a bai-product of those messy laws of physics involving forced vibrations and unnatural frequencies. Or that Todger was merely riding a bai-cycle in his loving living room and inadvertently lumped into the lass in question, the bai-cycle’s handle doing all the grimy damage. The counsel may also argue that the congress was consensual to begin with, and the alarm which was raised afterwards was the result of failed bai-lateral negotiations. Whichever the case may be, for once, Spongebob has been apprehended without his square pants in place.

Whatever may be the truth, Mr. Grabbit’s career appears pretty blighted for the moment. Licking illicit grape juice is an 65C68-sour-grapesinfinitely more heinious crime than, say, ferrying guns with roses. If the charge is proved, Mr. Grabbit will spend the next decade or so mending his tattered sails in undignified confinement. He may, perhaps, redeem his image later by writing a truthful autobaiography, confessing to his sins. His distraught wife, who is putting up a brave face and an impassioned fight at the moment, will eventually wipe away her tears and get on with the task of bringing up their child. It may also happen that Mr. Grabbit’s counsels manage to make him wriggle out of the bai-gamy charge through some loophole in the bai-laws of the Indian Penile Penal Code.

All characters and situations mentioned in WFTG are figment of the author’s flatulent imagination. Any resemblance to characters alive or dead or somewhere in between is purely coincidental and unintentional.