Some possible solutions…

1. The General be promoted to Field Marshall, thereby solving the problem of retirement and succession.

2. The two agree that the date of birth touch the half-way mark and be fixed at November 10, 1950. A perfect compromise!

3. The government work on a time machine. Even if the contraption is built after hundreds of years, it can first visit 1950 and 1951 to ascertain the truth, then come back to 2012 to pass on the information and go back to the future from where it came from.

4. The retirement ages of everyone in the Army be pushed ahead by a year. When the General retires in 2013, then the Chief’s retirement age can be pushed ahead by 1 year too. As it is the average retirement age in Europe has crossed 65 and we are way behind on that count.

5. Parliament passes a Constitutional Amendment saying that handwritten applications take precedence over matriculation certificates.

6. The UPA government resigns and calls for Lok Sabha elections. This is the last straw in their beleaguered plate.

These versions (With due respect to the respected armed forces) By Sunil Rajguru

4 reasons why this could be happening…

1. The number of prayers that have reached God have crashed the Prayer Counter. It is unable to handle such a record number of prayers. Either that or the counter is such that the moment it receives 1 billion prayers for a single event, the counter sets back to zero.

2. After winning the World Cup final, Indian cricket is passing through an extraordinarily long  Rahukaalam. That’s why (less importantly) India got thrashed 0-4 in England and (more importantly) Sachin’s Mahashatak eludes him. The country’s top astrologers are calculating when this dark period will come to an end.

3. When Sachin got up in the morning his Facebook notification told him that it was World Kindness Day today. (It was actually set to Pacific Standard Time, which is time, which is 13.30 hours behind IST). He sub-consciously decided to be kind to the West Indies team. (And this is how they repaid him?)

4. The collective thoughts, aspirations worries, tensions and fears of millions and millions of Indian fans is warping the very spacetime around Sachin, thereby creating a disturbance in the force that will create the Mahashatak.

© Sunil Rajguru

2. Optimism: Hum honge kaamyaab…
In school, I wanted to be Prime Minister of India. When I pass out of college I’m going to be Bill Gates! Why not! Anything is possible! I can top the class this year. Or maybe next year! I can join IIT and IIM. I can launch a company bigger that Microsoft…
The world is my oyster, even if I’ve never eaten an oyster and haven’t the foggiest idea what an oyster looks like!

3. Equality: Just another brick in the wall
In school, everyone looks and acts just the same. In college, with the right attitude, anyone can be a cool dude. You can escape all class distinctions that appear much later in life when everyone seems to have no choice but to keep up with the Joneses.
School=Total Socialism.
Work=Total Capitalism.

4. Economy: Having not much money to spend in the first place
We could really make our money last. It was in short supply and optimized to the hilt.
I remember in school, the equation was…
One ten rupee note = One rice plate + One balcony ticket + One popcorn + One bus ride back home = One day spent like a king.

5. Total time waste: Kee pharak painde?
You can waste all the time in the world in college and still have enough time to waste some more. In contrast, while working, sometimes a minute wasted seems like a horrible tragedy of hours.
Theory of Ageing Relativity: Time passes slowly in childhood and speeds up when you grow up.

Bonus…
Bunking: So easy in college, but just try doing it regularly at work!
Parents: They have the headaches when you’re small and you inherit all of them with compound interest when you grow up.
Choices: In school, you have only once choice: To go to the next class. After passing out of college the poor unsuspecting soul is bombarded with choices of all shapes, sizes and types which continue throughout his or her life…

© Sunil Rajguru

1. The Tere bin Laden Theory
Osama died years back anonymously. A US top official saw the Bollywood film Tere bin Laden and decided to stage-manage the death of a look-alike. That’s why the US forces simply stormed in, got time to do DNA test and dump his body in the ocean on the way back all in a matter of hours. Plot could possibly be used for a Hollywood Tere bin Laden.

2. The WillKat Wedding Theory
Obama gave the the Osama kill order on April 29. And yet Osama died only on May 2. What happened in between?
British intelligence got wind of it and Queen Elizabeth personally called Obama to postpone the capture as it would upstage the marriage of her grandson William with Kate.
Britain hasn’t been America’s best friend for nothing.

3. The Change of Leadership Theory
People within Al-Qaeda were fed up and wanted a total change of leadership and infusion of fresh blood and therefore ratted him out.

4. The Osama-Pak Fallout Theory
Pak had been housing Osama for years. A tiff over some minor issue led ISI to anonymously tip the CIA.
They later pretended to know nothing about it.

5. The I am Bored Theory
Tired of being locked indoors for 10 years, Osama cracked up and slipped out for a morning walk at 4am and was noticed by a neighbour who anonymously tipped off the ISI who anonymously tipped off the CIA.

6. The Law of Averages Theory
Osama’s security head kept him hidden for more than 3500 days.
Look what happened when he had a bad day!

7. The Dubious Dubya Theory
George W Bush got top secret info on where Osama was hiding in his second term.
He decided to use it for a rainy day in maybe his third term. Only, he forgot that he was not entitled for a third term and he forgot about the note.
Obama found a note in his drawer that said: “Open on April 14, 2011 before the re-election campaign”. The note had the coordinates for the house which has been housing Osama from 2005.
Lucky Obama!

This version by Sunil Rajguru

1. Mr Manmohan Singh, please give Sachin the Bharat Ratna.
More Indians want this man to get it than all the supporters of all the Bharat Ratna awardees combined.

2. Mr Ajay Maken, begin your tenure in style.
Institute a “Sachin Tendulkar Maha Global Sportsman Award” and give Donald Bradman the first one posthumously.

3. Mr Shashank Manohar, may a foreign player be allowed to join IPL only after he has signed a statement stating Sachin is the greatest of all.
I doubt whether they read the fine print anyway, they just want the moolah!

4. Someone get hold of Pele, Federer and Woods… anyone and get them to make a statement that Sachin is the greatest sportsperson of all time.

5. There are tonnes of Indian billionaires.
Can’t one of them buy Sports Illustrated Magazine and do a cover story on how Sachin’s the greatest of all time?

© Sunil Rajguru

• Makes you more social: You are forced to interact with your neighbours on a more regular basis…

• While the world hosts Earth Hour annually, we Indians celebrate it about a 1000 times a year. Some places celebrate Earth Day and Earth Week. Some villages even celebrate Earth Decade.

• A welcome check on kids who watch non-stop TV or play computer games without a break.

• India consumes less power and is hence eco-friendlier than other countries.

• Savings on your power bill.

© Sunil Rajguru

A billion planets out there and we’re stuck on this one
So far 450+ extrasolar planets have been discovered (outside our solar system). Scientists estimate that there are more than a billion planets in our galaxy alone!
(With so many possible planets, a big Boo! to all those experts who claim that there is no chance of life elsewhere.)

Our sun may have a Nemesis…
The Nemesis Star Hypothesis states that a smaller star/sun (brown/red dwarf) may be circling the sun, making our solar system a binary star system!
(Two Suns, Two Lives, Two Loves, Two Chances, Two Gods…)

From 9th to almost Lakhon main ek
While everyone knows that Pluto has been downgraded, did you know that it is now merely a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO)? One estimate says that there are 70,000 KBOs of more than 100kms diameter! Plus Pluto is not even independent, but part of a binary system with Charon. And its new name is 134340 Pluto.
(Whatever made Pluto think that it could be a planet? It sure fooled us for 75 years!)

A humongous cloud where comets are born
Have you heard of the Oort Cloud? It’s far beyond the Kuiper Belt. That’s where comets are born. Large objects are pushed from this place to become comets with a tail as they come near the sun. How many objects are there which are larger than 1km? Trillions!
90377 Sedna, a potential Dwarf Planet may live here.
(Mujhe nahin maloom tha ki Hailey’s Comet ke itne saare bhai hai.)

Parting Shot: So the true picture of our solar system is four inner planets, followed by the Asteroid Belt with thousands of objects, followed by four outer planets with hundreds of moons and moonlets, followed by the Kuiper Belt with tens of thousands of objects, followed by the Oort Cloud with trillions of objects, followed by maybe another sun.
We are also surrounded by trillions of stars in the universe with billions of planets and millions of Black Holes.
Phew!

© Sunil Rajguru

• A political party secretary receives a criminal charged with murder, kidnapping and looting and says, “Finally, a serious candidate for the elections.”

• The power company official comes out and smells wet soil and says, “Ah! The smell of incoming rain! It’s time to shut power for this area!”

• An employee who comes exactly on time, leaves exactly on time and spends the weekends with his family is frowned upon: We “unofficially” want slaves who will be camped in office all day and at our beck and call on weekends!

• The Prime Minister is about to hire a minister when he is told that he is computer literate, internet savvy and active on sites like Twitter. “Change of decision, we don’t want troublemakers!”

• A politician is ostracized by his community for not being corrupt: He doesn’t fit into the scheme of things and will throw a spanner in the perfectly functioning works.

• All the movies released are full of songs and focus on romance in some form or the other and yet all of them claim to be different.

• Thinking out of the box will make you out of sync with the people around you and eventually you will be out of the general scheme of things.

© Sunil Rajguru

Why is it soooo Loooooong?
In the 1996 ODI WC, there were 12 teams and every team had to play each other. On top of that there were quarter finals. That seemed way to long. In IPL, why does every team play each other twice? (OK, OK, I know: Home and way matches, but still…) But I wonder what will happen next year with nearly a 100 matches. IPL will go on for about 2.5 months. Where will they get the time in the ICC calendar? And will viewer interest continue till the end?

A case of Megalomodimania
Let’s get a few things clear. The English invented T20. The 2007 WC win popularized it in India. The ICL brought T20 club cricket in India. Then the BCCI’s resolve brought about IPL. Lalit Modi has great business acumen, but he happened to be at the right place at the right time. But it looks like Modi invented T20. He’s everywhere on TV and has an opinion on every little thing and looks like a control freak. And why are you telling us so much about the Kochi team on your Twitter account? Didn’t you check properly when you accepted the bid?

Over-the-top commentators
Listening to the commentators, one could be forgiven for thinking that the IPL is actually a World Cup that happens every 20 years. I’ve never seen them so enthusiastic and gush so much at each and every shot. Does the IPL pay far more that other tournaments? Money not only talks, but shouts.

Exorbitant Ticket Prices
Why are the ticket prices so high? Who buys them? And if they are sold out most of the time, then why do we still see empty stands?

© Sunil Rajguru

We all know that all our politicians are corrupt, which is a crime, hence they are all criminals.
But only the chargesheeted ones upset us.

We all frown on nepotism in every walk of life.
Yet one family has been ruling this country for more than half of its Independent existence and we know and accept that another sonrise is due.

If we meet 90% of our work targets, then we feel really bad.
But if politicians even meet 10% of their targets, we get very happy.

© Sunil Rajguru