WTF

Thodi Si Tu Lift Karade

I suppose I should display some empathy here, but I can’t help but be a little amused by the plight of the residents of a swank society in Santa Cruz, who have “filed a police complaint and a consumer case against a developer who, they say, installed car lifts too small to accommodate their large, swanky sedans and SUVs, forcing them to park their cars on the road despite paying astronomical prices for their posh homes.” One such gentleman, who “owns a Toyota Corolla and a 3-BHK flat in the building,” has apparently been stuck in the lift multiple times. On one such occasion, he says:

I struggled to get out of the car. There was no way that I could open the door, so I had to force myself out of the window, climb on to the roof of the car, somehow open the lift door and jump down a level.

There’s a JG Ballard novel in this somewhere.

Men, Listen Up

According to the Times of India, the five things men need to do to attract women are 1] grow old, 2] hang around in a hot place, 3] get beaten up, 4] wear spectacles and 5] carry a plant around. Apparently, “it takes a patient, affectionate man to grow healthy plants.” Also,“experts say that if you can take care of your garden for only 30 minutes a week, it can improve your health and performance in bed.” Not just that, “fertile women are subconsciously drawn to men who are good at gardening.”

Well, ok, I made that last quote up. But would you be surprised if I hadn’t?

Categories WTF

Heavy Fuel

Mid Day reports:

In an attempt to prevent animal abuse, the state government has instructed petroleum giants Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum to not transport oil using animal power.

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I’m blogging this only because of the delicious irony of Petroleum companies transporting their fuel in bullock carts. I have no comment to make on the animal rights angle here— though it’s not as bizarre as the report about the five killer whales in San Diego who “have been named in a slavery case that argues they should have the same constitutional rights as humans.” I mean, if whales have rights, it could be argued that chickens and cows do as well, and then your food could start suing you posthumously. If PETA ever sues me on behalf of a chicken that I ate the previous night, I will snap produce a legal document with an illegible scrawl on it, and say, “The chicken signed this waiver of its rights before I cooked it. Choke on that.”

Ok, lunchtime.

(Photo courtesy Mid Day.)

Ban Nudity! Ban Nightlife!

Our right-wing lunatics are so funny sometimes that it’s hard to hate them. Balbir Punj has a bizarre (but typical, so maybe not so bizarre) rant up on the New Indian Express about how Western values are ruining our country. His arguments are so priceless that you have the read the whole thing, I can’t just excerpt for WTFness. Among other things, he thinks that ‘nudity’ and ‘nightlife’ are “Western aberrations”, and rants against same-sex unions on the grounds that they only take place for ‘pleasure’, which, in his opinion, is a bad thing. Punj has it exactly the wrong way around: the rising divorce rates he rails against are, in my opinion, something to celebrate, and the decline of family values is a damn good thing.

Ooh, I can imagine Punj choking on his coffee if he reads this. But wait, coffee must surely also be a Western aberration, no?

City News

Having resumed blogging, it was natural for me to head over to the ToI site for the potential double WTFness of 1. what’s happening and 2. what the ToI is reporting. Not much gratification there, though their ‘city’ section did provide some food for thought. Here are the four headlines on that section:

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I actually clicked on one of them. Apparently Ayesha Takia complained on Twitter about Kingfisher Airlines, and Siddharth Mallya responded: “Not too sure who she is, an actor of some sorts?? [sic]” Well, I’m not sure who Siddharth Mallya is. Someone or the other’s son and boyfriend? Is there anything else he’s famous for?

The Ill-Effects of a Rave Party in Udupi

The Hindustan Times reports that two Karnataka ministers were caught watching pornographic videos “when the house was in session.” The camera crew of a TV channel apparently “filmed cooperation minister Lakshmana V Savadi watching porn clips on his cellphone and women and child development minister CC Patil peeping in during a discussion in the House.” Savadi’s explanation:

I was watching the video clip of how a woman was raped by four people to know about the incident and prepare for a discussion on the ill-effects of a rave party in Udupi recently. I do not have the cheap mentality to see pornographic visuals.

I’m gratified that our ministers do so much research for their work. What, however, is a ‘cooperation minister’? Ah well.

‘No Touching, Only Seeing, Okay?’

I’m amazed that India hasn’t yet woken up to the fact that Himesh Reshammiya is the new Govinda. I mean, check out the awesome video below of ‘Umrao Jaan’, a song from his forthcoming film Damadamm. It’s WTF, yes, but it is brilliant in its WTFness, which is quite deliberate and over-the-top, much as Govinda was at his best. There are just so many kickass moments in this. I especially love the end…

(Link via Mudra Mehta.)

‘That is Not a Lump, Mr Beck, It is a Blessing’

Huffington Post reports:

Glenn Beck called Hurricane Irene a “blessing” on his Friday radio show, saying it would teach people to be prepared for disasters.

By that logic, it would be a blessing if Beck gets cancer—it will teach him to be prepared for cancer.

Of course, I wish cancer on no one. But that’s where Beck’s logic leads us. What a clown.

(Link via Arzan Sam Wadia.)

Arindam Chaudhuri (and 200 Million Murders)

This is truly an August month in the history of Indian WTFness. Check out this insane speech by Arindam Chaudhuri in support of Anna Hazare:

An excerpt:

Humaare desh mein kuchh do so million log hai jo chaalis saal ke umad se pehle mar jaate hai, aur isi liye hum jaise log sattar-assi saal jeete hai. Hum sattar-assi saal isliye jeete hai kyunki hum apne desh ke kuchh do so million logo ko chaalis saal se pehle maar daalte hai.

(There are some two hundred million people in our country who die before the age of 40, and this is why people like us live to the age of 70-80. People like us live to the age of 70-80 because we murder some two hundred million people of our country before the age of 40.)

I mean, this is beyond priceless. It’s also beyond parody, for that matter—when life itself serves up such absurdities, what’s a satirist to do? Just watch in awe, that’s what.

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And check out the shot in the middle when the camera zooms in towards Anna’s impassive face. I can almost hear the guy thinking, ‘Who’s that clown with the oiled ponytail? I haven’t eaten for so many days, and I have to put up with this shit? Bring me some poha and let’s call it off already.’

That would be an an excellent idea.

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If you haven’t already read it, make sure you go through Siddhartha Deb’s wonderful feature on Chaudhuri, ‘Gatsby in New Delhi’ (pdf link). Chaudhuri’s already gone to court over it, as you might expect from his past shenanigans.  Such it goes.