MEETING RAM LAL

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My husband is a Central Government Servant. Like hundreds of thousands of Sarkari Naukars classified into ‘Bureaucrats’, ‘clerks’, ‘Babus’, ‘Red Tapists’ etcetera etcetera, he too works for a small organisation within the vagaries of higher power in the Ministry of Finance. Every three years, Panga, as he is fondly called, looks at the list of officials on the office notice board, slotted for transfer after completion of their tenure in a respective city, town or some unheard of rural district. Sometimes he does get transferred, sometimes he does not; depends on the boss and his opinion of my husband’s indispensability. To add to the complexity, the boss himself is transferable and so is his boss and so is the boss of the boss of the boss and ………….the hierarchy, I hear goes right up to the Hon’ble Minister himself. And his own transfer and job, as we all know are very much dependant on voters like you and me every five years and then some complex political wrangling. The entire family waits along with Panga with bated breath on the day the transfer orders are issued for Group ‘C’ officials, the category to which he belongs. That decides whether the house / Government quarters in which we reside is to get a fresh coat of paint or whether we should apply for the three year old child’s Transfer Certificate from School.

Like thousands and thousands of readers of this English vernacular daily, many of them Government servants included, Panga too laughs at the fun poked at the behemoth called the Government and does not shirk at criticising the ‘Great Indian Red Tape Trick’.

But he is also one of those who take work very seriously indeed; in fact the entire section of the Organisational Headquarters where he is currently posted, puts any paper received from the public or any other official organ or public representative into the official motion immediately and issues reminders with strong disapproval of delays when information is not received in time from the lower formations. He comes late, sometimes even at midnights and travels far and wide to finish off ‘missions’; maybe not as often as a jet flying corporate honcho, but the frequency is visible enough in the monthly disturbances of the otherwise secluded life of the family. So all he and his colleagues do is heave a few sighs on the ‘unnecessary’ criticism levelled by the editorials at the ‘undeserved’ pay hikes of ‘lazy’ Government servants.

Unnecessary? Not wholly so. That was his opinion after a visit to an unheard of Government office dealing with some of the legal issues being faced by the Government in the zillions of tasks it doles out to private and other Government entities. Self reliant as his department appears to be in all the tasks it undertakes, he and his bosses were caught on the wrong foot when a simple matter involving payment of tax by the Union Government to a State Government on purchase of a rare medicinal commodity came up.

And even though the rule book and all well defined procedures of the Government combined with Panga’s and his Superiors knowledge and experience sufficed to provide the solution to the unexpected, an obscure ten year old circular brought out of the dusty closet by an equally obscure employee, made it inevitable that an opinion be sought from a designated third party. That third party turned out to be some Assistant to a Junior Legal Officer serving under a Deputy Legal Advisor in some semi-legal department within the legal department within the department of revenue, within the Ministry ……. the complexity can get on one’s nerves.. no wonder the calls for downsizing seem to get louder by the day. So with all the necessary paperwork in order, Panga and a colleague of his left for the Delhi Office of this designated ‘Assistant’. To make sure that they would not be lost in the haze of Government offices in and around the areas of North and South Block, the power houses of the Indian governing systems, a senior officer guided the two on a mobile phone right through the entire journey after they got off the autorickshaw, somewhere near India Gate. Still they did manage to get lost and somehow lumbered at the right place sometime around 10.15 a.m.

The right time to reach a typical Government office in Delhi and find all (o.k., make that almost all) employees in place, is precisely 11.20 in the morning. This of course, is applicable to those Government offices that are scheduled to open at 9.30 a.m. everyday. The logic for using the word ‘all’ goes thus: to begin with, 9.30 is an unearthly hour to be in office. No human being worth his salt in a Government office in Delhi thinks that the Government has any right to declare and enforce an entry at that hour. Even the safaiwala/sweeper/dusting boy etc. doesn’t consider it worthwhile to begin cleaning before 9.55. Naturally, the rest follows……

10.00 a.m.: this is the time when the sincerest and the most punctual of them all arrive. The category of employees otherwise known as ‘the big boss’ of the office or the ‘deity’ arrives to find the cleaner applying his finishing touches on the dust, which is around a zillionth second after the first touch. The ‘deity’ arrives to find an empty office, devoid of any life whatsoever………, somewhat like the science fiction movies that show cities of the future, where all buildings and machinery appear intact but no living being exists; the living eaten up by atomic wars or some rampaging vampires. There are others too arriving at this ‘dawn’ of sarkari time. Some of them are those, who are being tormented by the pangs of guilt of having not completed yesterdays’ work….work that ideally should actually have been completed the previous week. It matters very little that having spent the entire day accomplishing really nothing, they might come to work with the same pangs of guilt the next day too, albeit at a later hour and with much less intensity of pain. Whoever said that ‘time heals all’, must have been a sarkari babu or closely related to one. The exception is also allowable for those who have some work to be accomplished through some ‘deity’ such as a verification signature on some bill of purchase or an inflated medical bill. It pays to be right outside the chamber of the deity, before 10.00 on such days. The smiles exchanged between the perpetual feudal class warriors, are the warmest and most genuine at this hour of the day.

Between 10.15 and 10.45a.m.: The ones who arrive at this hour are labelled differently; the boss terms them ‘the best and the ablest’; their colleagues have a number of terms ranging from ‘chamchas’, ‘nakhrewalas/nakhrewalis’ to DFWNIWTAH (Directionless Fellows With No Idea of Where They Are Headed). Most however, are content to consider them a bad example and precedence and a future threat to their own complacent existence.

11.00 a.m.: At last! The right time to be in office. The perfect MEN and the perfect WOMEN are those who have mastered the art of making a grand entry along with thousands of their brethren at this appointed hour everyday, with perfectly normal unhurried strides and a calmness on their faces that the Gurus of Yoga must have meditated decades to achieve. It is the hour that the most perfect of all of God’s creations arriving at the Government offices everyday claim as their rightful birthright.

11.15 a.m.: This is the time when the ‘Greatest of them all’ arrive. By virtue of their invincibility against any disciplinary action, invulnerability against dismissal and even the slightest rebuke from any superior; all powers attained on the day the Government made the fatal error of appointing them ‘permanent’ Government employees; these men and women are just unbeatable. The word ‘permanent employee’ in the Government employees’ dictionary implies:

i) an employee who is appointable but not dismissible,

ii) a subordinate worthy of a polite request from the superior to work but certainly not bound to accede to the same,

iii) a member of one or multiple associations/unions/clubs/groups who flaunts only one membership at any one point of time which suits him the most at that point of time,

iv) an employee who is transferable from one section to the other which may be as far away from each other to the extent that his everyday lunch is still shared amongst the same people at the same place everyday; in other words the sections must as a rule, generally exist on the same floor of the same building.

v) a permanent employee is one who will keep coming to the office till the day he is forced to actually retire by virtue of the ‘imbecile’ law that states that Government servants must retire at 60.

vi) a permanent employee is one who will continue to gnaw at the finances of the Government even after retirement by virtue of a healthy pension and not even death will relieve the Government of his burden since there is the widow to be fed till death and his children who seem to take forever to grow up and then maybe, land up with just a Government job again…..

vii) And of course, a permanent employee is one who has to be promoted to the next level on a very timely basis when his turn comes….merit be damned….he can only be promoted…..if there were any thoughts you may have had in your ‘dirty little mind’ regarding the word ‘demotion’ or no promotion for the hundreds whose hardest part of the day and work consists of travelling to their offices, you are a ‘fascist’ to the millions of millions of…….you know who!

To be fair to the ‘early birds’ of the Government offices, the post 11.15 a.m. arrivals are considered the laggards of the office and are looked upon with disdain by the rest of their brethren. Their reasons for delay are the subject of discussions once in a while in the office, in whatever little time the perfect men and women can achieve between 11.00 and 11.15. The reasons for the delay for a laggard can be many:

“I slept late last night c’os I had a few drinks too many. I woke up late, what else (the drinks last night are to be blamed not HIM, mind you) I missed the 9.30 a.m. bus (the late wake up is to be blamed not HIM)! I missed the connecting metro (obviously, the bus is responsible).

It was so late that I thought it would be better to go back!”

Just when you thought that the laggard is actually capable of a sane idea, comes the rejoinder, “…but then thought the better of it as I had already traveled so far to be at the office”. What began as a note of regret ends as a favour to the employer, the Government, since the laggard eventually made it to the office despite hazarding so many delays. Conquering Kargil couldn’t possibly have been more difficult!

So, at 11.15, the office and the employees are ready to receive you …..finally….or so you thought!

So, when the last person is in at 11.15, why, you may ask, does 11.20 have to be the right time to try meeting the Government official?!

Silly question! The employee takes time to get his handbag/pouch in place, order a cup of tea, take a glaring look all around to trace anyone who might have been bad mouthing him because this was only the 364^th time in the last one year that he had been late for everything ……………..he isn’t really ready to listen to you at 11.15; a cup of tea with biscuits and discussion on the merits of 5% rat-shit in PDS rice to boost human immunity has to be the first item on the agenda.

MEETING RAM LAL

My husband is a Central Government Servant. Like hundreds of thousands of Sarkari Naukars classified into ‘Bureaucrats’, ‘clerks’, ‘Babus’, ‘Red Tapists’ etcetera etcetera, he too works for a small organisation within the vagaries of higher power in the Ministry of Finance. 

Every three years, Panga, as he is fondly called, looks at the list of officials on the office notice board, slotted for transfer after completion of their tenure in a respective city, town or some unheard of rural district. Sometimes he does get transferred, sometimes he does not; depends on the boss and his opinion of my husband’s indispensability. To add to the complexity, the boss himself is transferable and so is his boss and so is the boss of the boss of the boss and ………….the hierarchy, I hear goes right up to the Hon’ble Minister himself. And his own transfer and job, as we all know are very much dependant on voters like you and me every five years and then some complex political wrangling. 

The entire family waits along with Panga with bated breath on the day the transfer orders are issued for Group ‘C’ officials, the category to which he belongs. That decides whether the house / Government quarters in which we reside is to get a fresh coat of paint or whether we should apply for the three year old child’s Transfer Certificate from School.

Like thousands and thousands of my non-existent readers, many of them Government servants included, Panga too laughs at the fun poked at the behemoth called the Government and does not shirk at criticising the ‘Great Indian Red Tape Trick’.

But he is also one of those who take work very seriously indeed; in fact the entire section of the Organisational Headquarters where he is currently posted, puts any paper received from the public or any other official organ or public representative into the official motion immediately and issues reminders with strong disapproval of delays when information is not received in time from the lower formations. 

He comes late, sometimes even at midnights and travels far and wide to finish off ‘missions’; maybe not as often as a jet flying corporate honcho, but the frequency is visible enough in the monthly disturbances of the otherwise secluded life of the family. So all he and his colleagues do is heave a few sighs on the ‘unnecessary’ criticism levelled by the editorials at the ‘undeserved’ pay hikes of ‘lazy’ Government servants.

Unnecessary? Not wholly so. That was his opinion after a visit to an unheard of Government office dealing with some of the legal issues being faced by the Government in the zillions of tasks it doles out to private and other Government entities. Self reliant as his department appears to be in all the tasks it undertakes, he and his bosses were caught on the wrong foot when a simple matter involving payment of tax by the Union Government to a State Government on purchase of a rare medicinal commodity came up.

And even though the rule book and all well defined procedures of the Government combined with Panga’s and his Superiors' knowledge and experience sufficed to provide the solution to the unexpected, an obscure ten year old circular brought out of the dusty closet by an equally obscure employee, made it inevitable that an opinion be sought from a designated third party. That third party turned out to be some Assistant to a Junior Legal Officer serving under a Deputy Legal Advisor in some semi-legal department within the legal department within the department of revenue, within the Ministry ……. the complexity can get on one’s nerves.. no wonder the calls for downsizing seem to get louder by the day. 

So with all the necessary paperwork in order, Panga and a colleague of his left for the Delhi Office of this designated ‘Assistant’. To make sure that they would not be lost in the haze of Government offices in and around the areas of North and South Block, the power houses of the Indian governing systems, a senior officer guided the two on a mobile phone right through the entire journey after they got off the autorickshaw, somewhere near India Gate. Still they did manage to get lost and somehow lumbered at the right place sometime around 10.15 a.m.

At the beginning of this century, the right time to reach a typical Government office in Delhi and find all (o.k., make that almost all) employees in place, was / is precisely 11.20 in the morning. This of course, is applicable to those Government offices that are scheduled to open at 9.30 a.m. everyday. The logic for using the word ‘all’ goes thus: to begin with, 9.30 is an unearthly hour to be in office. No human being worth his salt in a Government office in Delhi thinks that the Government has any right to declare and enforce an entry at that hour. Even the safaiwala/sweeper/dusting boy etc. doesn’t consider it worthwhile to begin cleaning before 9.55. Naturally, the rest follows……

10.00 a.m.: this is the time when the sincerest and the most punctual of them all arrive. The category of employees otherwise known as ‘the big boss’ of the office or the ‘deity’ arrives to find the cleaner applying his finishing touches on the dust, which is around a zillionth second after the first touch. The ‘deity’ arrives to find an empty office, devoid of any life whatsoever………, somewhat like the science fiction movies that show cities of the future, where all buildings and machinery appear intact but no living being exists; the living eaten up by atomic wars or some rampaging vampires. There are others too arriving at this ‘dawn’ of sarkari time. Some of them are those, who are being tormented by the pangs of guilt of having not completed yesterdays’ work….work that ideally should actually have been completed the previous week. It matters very little that having spent the entire day accomplishing really nothing, they might come to work with the same pangs of guilt the next day too, albeit at a later hour and with much less intensity of pain. 

Whoever said that ‘time heals all’, must have been a sarkari babu or closely related to one. The exception is also allowable for those who have some work to be accomplished through some ‘deity’ such as a verification signature on some bill of purchase or an inflated medical bill. It pays to be right outside the chamber of the deity, before 10.00 on such days. The smiles exchanged between the perpetual feudal class warriors, are the warmest and most genuine at this hour of the day.

Between 10.15 and 10.45a.m.: The ones who arrive at this hour are labelled differently; the boss terms them ‘the best and the ablest’; their colleagues have a number of terms ranging from ‘chamchas’, ‘nakhrewalas/nakhrewalis’ to DFWNIWTAH (Directionless Fellows With No Idea of Where They Are Headed). Most however, are content to consider them a bad example and precedence and a future threat to their own complacent existence.

11.00 a.m.: At last! The right time to be in office. The perfect MEN and the perfect WOMEN are those who have mastered the art of making a grand entry along with thousands of their brethren at this appointed hour everyday, with perfectly normal unhurried strides and a calmness on their faces that the Gurus of Yoga must have meditated decades to achieve. It is the hour that the most perfect of all of God’s creations arriving at the Government offices everyday claim as their rightful birthright.

11.15 a.m.: This is the time when the ‘Greatest of them all’ arrive. By virtue of their invincibility against any disciplinary action, invulnerability against dismissal and even the slightest rebuke from any superior; all powers attained on the day the Government made the fatal error of appointing them as ‘permanent’ Government employees; these men and women are just unbeatable. The word ‘permanent employee’ in the Government employees’ dictionary implies:

i) an employee who is appointable but not dismissible,

ii) a subordinate worthy of a polite request from the superior to work but certainly not bound to accede to the same,

iii) a member of one or multiple associations/unions/clubs/groups who flaunts only one membership at any one point of time which suits him the most at that point of time,

iv) an employee who is transferable from one section to the other which may be as far away from each other to the extent that his everyday lunch is still shared amongst the same people at the same place everyday; in other words the sections must as a rule, generally exist on the same floor of the same building.

v) a permanent employee is one who will keep coming to the office till the day he is forced to actually retire by virtue of the ‘imbecile’ law that states that Government servants must retire at 60.

vi) a permanent employee is one who will continue to gnaw at the finances of the Government even after retirement by virtue of a healthy pension and not even death will relieve the Government of his burden since there is the widow to be fed till death and his children who seem to take forever to grow up and then maybe, land up with just a Government job again…..

vii) And of course, a permanent employee is one who has to be promoted to the next level on a very timely basis when his turn comes….merit be damned….he can only be promoted…..if there were any thoughts you may have had in your ‘dirty little mind’ regarding the word ‘demotion’ or no promotion for the hundreds whose hardest part of the day and work consists of travelling to their offices, you are a ‘fascist’ to the millions of millions of…….you know who!

To be fair to the ‘early birds’ of the Government offices, the post 11.15 a.m. arrivals are considered the laggards of the office and are looked upon with disdain by even the rest of their brethren. Their reasons for delay are the subject of discussions once in a while in the office, in whatever little time the perfect men and women can achieve between 11.00 and 11.15. The reasons for the delay for a laggard can be many:

“I slept late last night c’os I had a few drinks too many. I woke up late, what else (the drinks last night are to be blamed not HIM, mind you) I missed the 9.30 a.m. bus (the late wake up is to be blamed not HIM)! I missed the connecting metro (obviously, the bus is responsible).

It was so late that I thought it would be better to go back!”

Just when you thought that the laggard is actually capable of a sane idea, comes the rejoinder, “…but then thought the better of it as I had already travelled so far to be at the office”. What began as a note of regret ends as a favour to the employer, the Government, since the laggard eventually made it to the office despite hazarding so many delays. Conquering Kargil couldn’t possibly have been more difficult!

So, at 11.15, the office and the employees are ready to receive you …..finally….or so you thought!

So, when the last person is in at 11.15, why, you may ask, does 11.20 have to be the right time to try meeting the Government official?!

Silly question! The employee takes time to get his handbag/pouch in place, order a cup of tea, take a glaring look all around to seek anyone out who might have been bad mouthing him because this was only the 364^th time in the last one year that he had been late for everything ……………..he isn’t really ready to listen to you at 11.15; a cup of tea with biscuits and discussion on the merits of 1% rat-shit in PDS rice to boost human immunity has to be the first item on the agenda.

Coping with ‘un’- success

Come July and it’s that time of the year when 17 and 18 year olds, fresh from the results and successes of their class XII and various entrance exams for courses in Medicine and Engineering look forward to their transition from ‘kids’ to ‘young men and women’. With school education and its importance registering phenomenal growths in the last few years, the scope of studying beyond school in elite engineering and medical colleges has also increased manifold.

Terms and abbreviations like AIEEE, IIT-JEE, PET, PMT, CBSE Medicals etc. are common during this period amongst students who have cleared their 10+2 with the sciences among their subjects of study. They vie for the best engineering or medical institutions such as the IITs or AIIMS in their quest for a fulfilling career and dreams. Students who may have studied the Arts or Commerce subjects are content to look for the best colleges in their respective states or cities or in their vicinity in accordance with their marks in their 10+2 or Board exams. It is also, remarkably, a very tough period for the young boys and girls who are suddenly bereft of the tough and distinctive cover of their uniforms (which may be considerably protective or considerably restrictive depending on how you look at it). They are no longer children and are on their way to being men and women, out in the open in the big bad world, joining ranks with people who have little time or thought to spare for their fellow brethren. It is festivities’ time in all colleges as the newest kids on the block face a completely different kind of educational environment, all fun to begin with. With ragging being a strict no no, the first days at colleges have never been more fun.

Ever thought about those girls and boys who failed to get past the goal post of class XII?! Or those who failed to make it to their cherished engineering or medical college?! And decide thereafter to sit for the exams once again…next year?! This year, felt by most students as a break in their continuity of studies, can be the most daunting one of their lives. As these students try to come to terms with their failure, it can get very lonely, very frustrating and downright annoying. Maladies arising out of this feeling of failure can range from alienation to severe depression as students are unable to reconcile to the fact that even if they do make it, they’ll be a year junior to their former classmates. And at home, life can be tough as in the early days of the repeating year, parents can sometimes be very harsh on their children. It is relieving to know that statistics do not point out that such children do not take drastic steps out of depression. In fact, if anything else, the introduction to failure so early in life only strengthens their resolve to make it. So much so, that these days it is considered absolutely natural if a child were to finish his class XII board examination first and sit for the medical/engineering entrance exams next year. The intervening year is usually one of intense preparation with coaching classes and private tuitions gaining precedence over any alternative plans.
With school performances (read passing percentages) reaching dizzying heights these days, the failures are treated as exceptions with the education system and the entire society attempting to find out where things went wrong. Compare this till the seventies or the eighties when 60% marks or first division was a enviable score and passing was still good enough to secure a decent job. Failure was treated with a casual attitude and if one had studied till 8th standard, that was enough to brand him or her as educated. Graduates were looked upon with proper respect and Post Graduates with the awe reserved for the first moon-landers. In comparison, students today score almost 100% and the concept of divisions is passé across exam boards across states. CBSE is unpretentious and awards the students with a simple ‘pass’ against the column ‘result’. It is when kids fail to achieve even this that things tend to go horribly wrong at times. Though far and few between, media does highlight incidences of children taking drastic steps, unable to tolerate failures. Ever crossed your mind as to what you could have done to stop such an act of desperation?! Here’s what you can do:
l Don’t rush to ask the child what his scores have been. To satisfy your curiosity, just wait a bit; if it’s a good result, chances are that the child will appear very happy and tell all about it by himself.
l Do not add to the gossip mill just before or after the tests. Poking around without anything to go by does not help the cause of the ‘failed’ child.
l Do not expose the child to over expectations by discussing what he plans to do after getting those gorgeous marks even before he has appeared for the test. Chances are that the child will remember only too well his ‘braggings’ when he fares poorer than expected.
l Do tell the child to make a very good effort to score well in his exams. Do not dwell on scores, emphasise on the significance of the effort ahead of the marks in the long run.
l If the child has managed to get selected, but not in the top institution or the institution of his/her choice, boost up the kid with “You’ve shown that you can do it, it is just a matter of time and opportunity now’.
l You can always tell the child examples of Bill Gates or Thomas Alva Edison who may formally not have been so highly educated yet went on to give mankind some of the greatest gifts of all time. Do not discuss this line of thought for too long. The child may actually switch his thoughts away from formal education.
l Tell the parents too that their child is brilliant in his own right, and the shine of this brilliance will appear in its own time irrespective of the institute that he completes his graduation from.
l Make an effort to learn about career options or alternatives that kids do discuss today. It is only then that the parents or the child will connect with you and your words. Else you will be no better than the hundreds of onlookers who have nothing to contribute except sneers and grins.
l And if you really have nothing to say, don’t say anything just for the sake of saying it. One wrong word and you will have damaged the child who is most vulnerable at this stage of his/her life.
l Always remember that it is important to encourage the child to put in his best effort; that will stead him more through his life than anything else.

Looking for something new???

The power to express…….:

People who have read some of my works (there are very few such people and even fewer works to choose from really) say that though I don’t possess much stuff to tell stories from. I just express myself rather well when it comes to writing….express myself…?! Ha! The only one who can express oneself or others is Mamata Banerjee, the Hon’ble Railway Minister…duronto….she is the one who can mail, express or passenger (trash) somebody or something. Chased the Nano right out of Bengal

However, my works or rather my expressions (if you prefer) are exclusively not for those and definitely not for you if:

i) If you think that any more than 0.000001% of Pakistanis want to live peacefully with Indians.

Add another zero before 1 if this means the numbers of such Pakistanis is in double digits. The only ones whose are thinking of sustaining peace with India are those looking forward to having a free surgery for their kid since this is gonna cost a packet in the only other suitable destination for surgeries, the US of A.

Anyways, the ones coming to India for even this are those who can actually afford to have this done in the States too, but then it means going through a full body scan (which might show up the explosives hidden permanently in the genitalia) and then saving money was always a far attractive option…to be spent for a vacation in Kabul, the only city un-safer than Peshawar. The ‘peace-with-India’ mindset (an abnormal state of mind in Pakistan) goes to ‘Bash-India’ mindset once the freebies have been devoured.

How about Surgery in Pak?! Doctor Taliban is conducting mass surgeries every week where limbs and torsos are amputated whether you need them or not. And all this absolutely free free free!

Other conditions for reading this blog:

Don’t read this blog ever again:

ii) If you think LK Advani will become the Prime Minister of India.

iii) If you think Rahul Gandhi will NOT become the Prime Minister of India.

iv) If you think Rahul Mahajan’s second marriage will last beyond 3 years.

v) If you think Rakhi Sawant is talented (Kinky, isn’t it?! Rakhi follows Rahul who follows Rahul.

Pramod Mahajan added the last L to his son’s name purely by chance. If he had to have a second chance at producing another gifted son like that, I have no doubt that he would have named him Ketul. Get it?! Rahul and Ketul! As in Rahu/Ketu.

I wonder what would have happened if Rakhi had been one of the contestants in Rahul’s Swayamvar or vice versa i.e. if Rahul had been one of the claimants for Rakhi’s hand!

Whooooosh! NDTV would have had to merge with Sony or was it colors?! The new channel would have been SONDY TV or Nolors).

With the kind of drug overdose that nearly killed poor Rahu …err Rahul, I’m very inclined to believe that he must be the Taliban’s MFC ….most favoured customer…..dumpkoff! (See…I know some German too). Headlines should have declared: Doctor Taliban delivers the ‘peace-of-mind’ powder to its dearest MFC Rahul.

The MFC follows the acronym MFN that Americans had coined in the days when imports from China had not yet shut almost all of the manufacturing facilities in the States. Those were the good ol’ days…unlike today where the US is bending over to correct its balance of Trade with China, in those days its was bending over to control the same with Japan.

And dear Rahul nearly shakes hand with St. Peter up there. Poor Peter! Missed his mentor-to-be by a whisker…err a fag…a joint!! Don’t know what name the folks up there have for it: heroin wrapped in a five hundred Rupee note/bill …..

On second thoughts it wasn’t the powder that tried to kill him. It was the 5C note. A fake 500 Rupee note manufactured by the evil-two-eyed Prez Musharraf at one of his secret fake note printing locations in Peshawar or some other similar place where a plot of land was purchased to set up the factory for fake notes.

And this top secret/confidential/for-your-eyes-only information comes from none other than the ghost-writer of Parvez Musharraf’s biography (or was it an auto-biography…the ghost writer claims that he wrote Musharraf’s history in the most turbulent of times…which is when you are travelling from Rohini to Rithala in Delhi during the construction of the Delhi Metro in an Auto Rickshaw.

Answer this quiz: A biography written while riding an ‘Auto’ is called an ___ ____.

Gimme a joint… Gimme a joint…. Gimme a joint! I need the 500 Rupees notes. Fake or otherwise As many as you can get me. You can have the powder within for all I care. The fake notes, I hear are so good that banks have actually started demanding more of them as they are good, feel good, last longer and best of all … are foreign made. The last condition appeals very strongly to most of us middle class Delhi walla types to whom the ‘made in India’ tag symbolises a huge loss of quality (except if made in China, which is worse..even obnoxious).

And yes, ever since the Telgi scam at the Nashik press, you have even Government facilities innocently churning out fakes. Did I hear ‘Who the hell is Telgi and where in the Andamans is Nashik’?

Get out of the hole KIDS…..!!

Read on

Hi Folks!
Been a terribly long time since I've been hearing of Blogs, Blogging and Bloggers. And now that I've got to it, there is not much that I can think of. Anyways, if you do get the time and the energy to go through the blogs, remember that there is a lot coming up and not too far away. This was just a trial. Keep reading this blogger for more.

For a couple of hours though, I added a full length article and then deleted it from this blog. I'd like to check the saleability of the article before hoing any further.

Arnab

I have been writing for sometime. Unfortunately, I can't find a publisher, even though most people who have read it agree that it's pretty good stuff.