Worker: Sahab, woh petrol to airlines ke liye hain!
Business Tycoon: Koi baat nahin, F1 main daal do.

Worker: Sahab, woh paisa to airlines ke liye hain!
Tycoon: Koi baat nahin, IPL pe udaa do.

Moral of the story: When you’re on a high, then the world looks totally different.
Handling that same world during a hangover is a different matter altogether.

P.S. Also overheard…

Retired Captain: Mere dhakkan main kya burai thi? Sasta tha par theek thaak udtaa to tha. Uspe laal rang thopoge to ye sab to hona hi tha na!
Tycoon: Ye laal rang kab mujhe chhodega…
Worker: Ab to peena band karo!

© Sunil Rajguru

∙ First jump on 1 leg, then jump on 1 more leg. (11)
Then balance your body on 1 hand then on 1 more hand. (11)
Then bang your head against 1 wall, then 1 other. (11)
Repeat this process when the time is 11.11.11.

∙ 11.11.11 in the morning on the date 11.11.11 is so rare that there will be a never seen before heavenly alignment that will grant every wish to everyone who asks it, no matter how fantastic.
The wish will come true after 111111111111 years.

∙ If you have a stopwatch, then try to stop it at 11.11.11.11 (11 hours 11 minutes 11.11 seconds) and frame it till 11.11.11.11, 2111.11.11.

∙ Watch Ra.One twice, then it will become Ra.OneOne or Ra.11.

∙ If you want to do good charity work, give 11 Rupees to 11 beggars at 11.11.11.
Richer people can give 11(hundred, thousand, lakh…) accordingly.

∙ At exactly 11.11.11, jump on 1 leg 111111 times.

∙ On the order of Pope Gregory XIII, the world went straight from October 4, 1582 to October 15, 1582 as a result of calendar adjustment.
Since we lost those days, purists can celebrate all of the above on November 22.

© Sunil Rajguru

Step 1: Take one obnoxious self-centred anchor who talks more than he or she listens and loves pissing everyone off.

Step 2: If it’s a political debate, then take two politicians from opposite parties and two journalists affiliated to the very same parties for variety. Don’t forget to keep out sane, neutral and erudite voices. For non-political debates make sure you use the Usual Suspects. All TV channels tap exactly the same Speaker Talent Pool.

Step 3: In the ticker below, display yesterday’s Twitter messages of the same ole 5-6 accounts that you are aware of. Repeat this collection a few dozen times.

Step 4: Stick to the golden principle of: He who shouts the most speaks the longest.

Step 5: Never forget that the anchor has more powers than a football referee. He or she can cut anyone in mid-sentence as many times as he or she wants and take the discussion to any ridiculous level that he or she pleases.

Step 6: Let the shouting continue till the dying seconds of the programme and cut it abruptly giving the impression that this debate had so much substance that it could easily have lasted a few more meaningful hours.

© Sunil Rajguru

…between MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and MMS (Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India)

∙ Mobile MMS allows for unlimited exchange of messages between two parties.
Political MMS allows for absolutely no exchange of messages, with one party always being on mute or silent mode.

∙ In the Mobile MMS scandal, the MMS was directly responsible for the scandal that affected the many lives around it and cost only a few Rupees.
In the Political MMS scams, MMS was not directly responsible for the same which involved the whole nation and cost thousands of crores of Rupees.

∙ Mobile MMS is barely 10 years old and has a bright future.
Political MMS is 79 years old with an uncertain future.

∙ Political MMS is based in India and does occasional global roaming.
Mobile MMS is based everywhere in the globe and is also on roaming.

∙ Political MMS liberalized India.
Mobile MMS liberalized the world.

∙ Political MMS is an economic wizard.
Mobile MMS is a technical wizard.

∙ LK Advani hates Political MMS.
LK Advani is too old to love or hate Mobile MMS.

∙ Political MMS can use Mobile MMS.
Mobile MMS can include content related to Political MMS.

∙ Political MMS rules India.
Mobile MMS rules large sections of the youth in the world.

© Sunil Rajguru

No matter how much scientific progress India makes, in every village there’s a legend that defies rational explanation.

There’s no proof but only the testimony of the people who have witnessed the miracle.

My father once took me to a small temple a few kilometres from our village. After we had finished praying, I noticed a small silver statue of a snake next to the entrance. That’s a pretty unusual sight.

It had an interesting story behind it.

Many years back a holy man or baba used to preach the word of god to the people in the area. One day, he promised a gathering that he would address them near the above-mentioned temple.

It was evening time. The crowd waited for the baba. And they waited and waited till the night. It was surprising because it was the first time that such a thing had happened.

The next day the baba’s body was found at a distance from the temple. The police came to the conclusion that he was waylaid by robbers who killed him.

The disciples gathered near the temple shell-shocked in mourning for their beloved baba.

As they remembered him fondly, one of them suddenly said, “But baba never broke a single promise in his life!”

Another added, “Do you know that at the exact time he was to come, I saw a snake. It came, stopped and seemed to look at us and quietly went. I found that a bit odd!”

A third surmised, “Then baba, who had died by then, took the form of a snake just to keep his promise!”

A local businessman listened to all of this quietly. After a few days, he had a small Silver Snake made. He got it fixed near the entrance of the temple. Everyone thought that it was a good idea.

The story would have ended there, but after some time, a person was bitten by a poisonous snake. In many rural areas in India, anti-venom may not be easily accessible, hence there are no chances of surviving. Someone from the village remembered the Silver Snake and suggested that they take the victim there.

They offered a prayer to the Silver Snake and lighted a lamp. The victim got up, walked a distance and vomited. He was totally fine after that. The story spread and soon all snake-bite victims found their way there. They would either vomit out the poison, or take a leak or feel like going and the poison would miraculously leave the body in that fashion.

Sounds crazy, but many people owe their lives to it!

All this would have been just a story had it not affected my relatives.

One day my uncle returned from the fields in the evening and looked like he had seen a ghost. Everyone asked him what had happened, but he refused to speak. He sat on his bed and smiled all the while keeping silent.

He suddenly started wishing everyone goodbye and lay down on the bed. Someone noticed that he had a snake bite. My uncle, who is an expert in the plant and animal life of the area, declared that he had been bitten by a Krait, which is highly poisonous, and so he had no chance of surviving.

Everyone immediately lifted him up and placed him in a bullock cart and took him to the temple of the Silver Snake. It was night by then and my uncle was unconscious. After the puja was performed, he regained consciousness early in the morning, freshened himself and was cured.

He is hale and hearty to this present day!

A holy man dies… someone makes a silver statue… and people get miraculously cured of poisonous snake bites defying the laws of science…

It happens only in India!

© Sunil Rajguru

All of us keep waiting for one big miracle to change our lives.

We pray, hope and wish desperately for it.

Are you one of those people?

Consider some facts…

1. The chances of intelligent life being formed is so low in the universe that one scientist calculated it to be “less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years”.

There are billions and billions of stars in this universe. What are the chances that we have landed up here on this perfect planet next to this perfect sun?

2. If you look at the history of the world, then it has been plagued with global wars, epidemics, famine and the like. The last major catastrophic event for the whole world was of course World War Two.

It is estimated that 70 million people died. (The population of the world was under 3 billion)

You do the math on how many were injured, displaced and scarred for life. Two nuclear bombs were also used, which affected hundreds of thousands for decades.

Imagine the fear of the nuclear holocaust in the 1940s and 1950s!

While there have been many localized conflicts, nothing like WW2 has happened for 66 years. Most of us were born after that event.

We are extremely lucky in that aspect, much luckier than the billions who lived directly under the spectre of death and destruction before us.

3. We are lucky to live in the Internet Age. But not everybody in the world has access to a computer. Depending on which statistics you quote, about two-thirds of the world’s population has either never seen a computer or has no access to the Internet on a regular basis.

You are automatically in the top one-third of the human population.

So the chances of anybody like me writing such a blog in the peace of my home or anybody like you reading it in the universe is probably a miraculous one in a zillion!

And you and I are still waiting for a miracle!

© Sunil Rajguru

• TVial: Absolutely trivial stuff shown by 24X7 news channels which they usually label breaking news or exclusive. (TVial=TV+trivial)

• Backfrog: The ability to make an unexpected and uncanny huge leap backwards, the opposite of “leapfrog”.

• The 2-1 Step: When the country takes one step back for every two steps forward. Some totally backward areas experience the “1-2 Step” and hence get steadily worse.

• Plasticky New: The tendency for an Indian to keep a product new by keeping it in the original plastic covering for as long as possible.

• Clean Politician: Someone who is corrupt and communal but at the same time does a lot of development on the side.
Note: It is impossible for any politician to be 100% clean in India.

• Conventionally Corrupt: “I don’t ask for bribes and just go about doing my job. But if someone gives me some extra money to do something, then I don’t decline.” To be contrasted with someone who is “Totally Corrupt”.

• Parental Destiny: The tendency for most Indian parents to play God and dictate the college, course, job and even the spouse of their child.

These versions by Sunil Rajguru