For one, I must congratulate the Shiv Sena for tearing down posters of Kareena Kapoor’s bare back. Someone needed to do that, in order to save Indian culture and our collective sanity. [Link]

She is known as ‘Size Zero’ of the Indian Film Industry. So we decided, let’s just call her ‘Half a Bagel’. She is slim, sleek and sexy. Kareena Kapoor is taking Bollywood by storm since a year, and taking the paparazzi by frenzy whenever she is spotted with boyfriend and actor Saif Ali Khan. Off screen, Kareena, popularly known as Bebo in Bollywood, exudes a smaller-than-life, self deprecating persona. She always looks hopeful about her future, whether it’s family, films or Saif Ali Khan. She is unique. She has the sort of untouchable star quality about her. In person, she is quite remarkably beautiful and lean. So lean that she seems almost to be a trick of perspective.

I am sorry but this worshipping of super-leaness just has to stop. When your body seems to be an optical illusion (a trick of perspective) then you are not only a danger to yourself but also to society.  Here’s the deal. If I wanted to look at Kareena Kapoor’s bare back, I would be looking at a skeleton hanging in a dissection room thank you.

If the vulgarity of that emaciated back is not enough, the sheer “Look we are a hot couple. Write about us” Brangelina thing that Saif and Kareena have going just has to stop. It just has to. I of course knew this kind of outrage was going to happen the moment Kareena, a person who specializes in getting press attention through wanton public displays of ” I am so hawt” affection (remember the Shahid Kapoor kiss), hooked up with Saif Ali Khan yet another person who likes to keep his relationships in the news. In case I appear too harsh,  I would like to say that I have nothing personal against Saif and Kareena—it is just that I always detested “couples” in college and school who would go out of their way to show everyone how in-love they were.

What I knew got them off, like I am sure it does for Saif and Kareena,  was not so much the fact that they were together but that so many of us others were not.

So Saifeena shoo shoo, go and adopt some babies like your inspiration Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie please and spare us displays of what a great couple you are. Please.

On the topic of hurting sentiments and Marathi pride, Sachin Tendulkar was rightfully dragged over the coals by Balasaheb for the following un-necessary remark.

” But I am an Indian first. And Mumbai belongs to all Indians.”

Yes Sachin, we know you play for Mumbai Indians. We got it dude. Now will you please go back, stop your franchise from retaining the services of Luke Ronchi (from Ranchi) and Saurabh Tiwari (from Bihar), score a couple of more centuries and not say anything that pisses off the great Balasaheb, his equally redoubtable nephew and their great Sena of supporters.

The third is of  Rahul Bhatt’s link with super-terrorist Headley. Now I am sure that Papa Bhatt, who specializes in turning his life-experiences into movies (as an example look at how many times he has flogged his affair with Parveen Babi, which some people may consider to be exploitative of the poor lady) will use this incident to make a movie (or two). Like handsome hunk bar-guitarist Amar (played by Emraan Hashmi) meets a hot-looking firang Sam (played by random beefed-up third-rate actor from Europe or the US), they get close, very close till Amar discovers that Sam is actually a terrorist who has come to finish off India because India has tortured its minorities.  The movie will then build on that dramatic conflict with stellar performances by Commissioner Chauhan (Avatar Gill), cocaine-snorting model Lucy (Kangana Ranaut) who pines for Amar, Pakistani handler Hawas Kashmiri (Gulshan Grover) with beautiful “Mushy”  music by Pakistani musical duo Pervez-Omar and lovely ballads like “Oh balaam ‘Ji Had’ kar di aapne” and hot foot-tappers like “Quatilana” (with a lounge remix),  “Toiba Toiba Tera Jalwa” and “Jaish-e-Jashn” (with trance mix) , finally leading to triumphant openings in Lahore, Karachi and an explosive one in Rawalpindi.

And I shall now leave you, off-topic, with a picture that was forwarded to me by Gurudutt Redkar, a picture that convinces me that there is God. And that not only does he have a sense of humor but that he loves “Gunda” as much as we do.

It is no longer a crime for a man to wear pink.

“Tu bhi gay mere sang gaye saara jahan gayeja  gayeja gayeja”….

India finally made another tryst,  that too peeche se angootha laga ke, with its destiny, not in a full measure but substantially with the decriminalization of homosexuality.

History will remember this not only as the occasion when Celina Jaitley, with her blogs on iTimes, galvanized the nation and unintentionally her career with her espousal of the “gay cause” [Check out this video where Celina says everyone who has helped her to become what she is today is gay] but also when all religions in India provided an unified front.  Christian, Muslim and Hindu religious figures put aside all their differences relating to who will go to heaven and who to hell and came together to express their disgust for this love of man for man (and for woman for woman), their combined sentiment appropriately summarized by The Great Yoga guru: “Homosexuals are sick people, they should be sent to hospitals for treatment“, (a precursor hopefully to his new CD “Samalinga-itya se mukti” where he will show how breathing in and out will cure you of asthma, diabetes and the desire to peek into the neighboring cubicle at an urinal).

However I have a question. While we are busy protecting the rights of our sexual minorities, have people forgotten those of the sexual majorities?

Who is to protest the criminalization of  heterosexual activity, especially the kind that is engaged with oneself in a darkened room with a computer on, as the government of India in its wisdom bans the website Savitabhabhi?

Will all those cool and hep youngsters who came out onto the streets for same-sex couples, be willing to join a messiah in a “danda pakarke Danda March” in protest against the assault on our rishta with the most famous Bhabhi ever?

Will some celebrity in the fashion of Celina Jetley take up the “Save Savitha” cause —-Sherlyn Chopra are you listening?

Will the minority appeasing ruling classes tell us why oh why Savita Bhabhi, a patriot who has given her body for the national interest in one of her episodes, showed us that bra salesmen are people too and  over the past year provided a depressed country ten seconds of release every night, is considered such a huge threat to the national security that she should be banned?

Tell me why do jholla-wallahs and the “socially conscious” candle-light people care for the human rights of terrorists but not for ours—the silent heterosexual majority?

I am waiting for the answer.

It is inconceivable how, even if one were to take what is stated in the FIR to be true, an expression of love by a young married couple would attract offence of obscenity and trigger the coercive process of law,”

[Music: Main talli main talli main talli ho gayeee]

Presenter: Welcome to GBTV’s special panel where we discuss public kisses, pub culture and whether the initiative to “ban” talli girls would create a “Talli-ban” culture in India.

Tonight we have with us lawyer Inderjit Chaddha famous for being on the losing side of the Damini case and whose business motto is “Sue karo, sue karo, karo soo soo” with a specialization in screwing pesky bloggers, typical park-bench-old-man Mr. Damle (65), confirmed bachelor Chowbey Sahab (45) and “Ugly-Pagli” Anjali Devi (undisclosed age) from the local Mahila Mandal.

Let’s start with you typical park-bench-old-man Mr. Damle.

“Why do you think the honorable judge has specifically mentioned an “young couple”? Why specifically do you think that old couples have been left out of the ambit of this judgement?”

Mr. Damle: “Hah. That’s because old and middle-aged married couples do not kiss each other in public. They hardly kiss each other in private. Trust me, after a few years even a Fighter Bidi feels smoother on your lips than those of the old hag’s. Hah. And if you ever catch a slightly older couple kissing in public, let me tell you they may be married but not to each other. ”

Now Chowbey sahab, TOI says:

The newly married duo was picked up by ASI Vidhyadhar Singh of Dwarka police station on September 4 last year after he claimed to have found them “sitting in an objectionable position near a Metro pillar and kissing each other due to which passersby were feeling bad.”

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Chowbey sahab: “Of course people have a right to feel bad. What this couple was doing was just like eating a five-course dinner in front of starving children of Somalia. If that is not a vulgarity, then what is.”

Anjali Devi [interrupting]: “I think we are missing the point here. What is most important is that a recognition has been made of the need for society and law to distinguish between expressions of love between married couples and between immoral love-birds who go about singing “Kahe do to aaj duniya se, aaj baja doon band, tu mera boyfriend main tera girlfriend” and then do a lot of “gaana” and definitely “bajanaa”. We may suck at catching terrorists or murderers but it is imperative that full police resources be devoted to checking that every man and woman that walk within two feet of each other are either brother-sister or husband-wife. ”

Mr. Chadda, what is your legal opinion on this?

Inderjit Chadda: I would first like to read out the following quote.

Speaking to Times City, the advocate explained, “Obscenity charges get attracted when the act is so obscene that it encourages depravity or annoys the public

By this definition, some may claim that those women attacked and molested in the pub in Mangalore should be charged with obscenity. First of all, they definitely annoyed the public( the public who leer at women going into bars and dream that they can have them) by not dancing with the aforementioned public. And thus by ignoring them, they definitely encouraged the depravity that followed.

Chowbey sahab: You must understand that pubs are not part of Indian culture. Village women in India never have liquor and will never dance around with men. That happens only in the West. I am glad that these men from Ram Sena really defined what Indian culture truly is by beating, kicking helpless women. I am afraid not many people understand this.

I am glad to note that for once our politicians are on the right side. Gehlot sahab has said that girls and boys holding hands is not proper. I agree. The only time girls and boys may hold hands is when they play “Ringa ringa roses pocket full of poses” but only later if they do not “all fall down” on each other in a “husha husha” fashion.

Mr. Damle: And you must understand that girls should be kept out of pubs for their protection only. As this ex-DIG says: “After drinking, boys lose their controls and can be doing anything to girls”. I mean having been a boy myself once, I totally agree.

Chowbey sahab: I would like to point out that the majority of Indians agree with us. The Chief Minister of Karnataka has vowed to stop pub culture in the state. Its only people who stay in flats who condone this kind of behavior and fail to see why it’s my business as well as yours to protect our “culture” , to ensure that young people do not commit the same sins that I could never commit, despite my best efforts. In this respect, I totally agree with Valke sahab, 40 year old patriot who had learnt everything there was to learn in this world by Class 5, and his friends.

These girls come from all over India, drink, smoke, and walk around in the night spoiling the traditional girls of Mangalore. A girl from Punjab was drugged, raped, and killed last month. There was no hue and cry then. Why should girls go to pubs? Are they going to serve their future husbands alcohol? Should they not be learning to make chapattis? Bars and pubs should be for men only. We wanted to ensure that all women in Mangalore are home by 7 pm,” says Pravin Valke a 40-year-old, fifth-standard drop-out, who is a founding member of the Sri Rama Sene. [Link]

And what I like about these people is how they have expressed their shock and disgust at the debauchery all around with dignity and restraint in consonance with the Indian culture they so claim to love.

One of his associates boasts of an incident where they made some girls urinate in their pants after threatening to beat them up for going around with boys from other communities. “No one dares to tease girls. No one plays loud music in cars around colleges,” he says. [Link]

Stopping girls from being teased by making girls urinate in their pants….now that’s some Indian culture. Kya idea sirji. It should make all of us so proud.

Presenter: That’s all the time we have folks. Coming up after these commercial messages, is a special hidden-camera report on loo breaks (Yeh I loo I loo kya hain yeh I loo) and their significance for Indian democracy.

Cause they are not.

A new menace is here, an insidious agent of malignancy that creeps silently into your bedrooms (and yes even offices when the boss is not around). Assuming the form of electron streams, it activates pixels on your computer screen with certain poisonous RGB values which, before you know, sap you of your morals, your humanity and also more than a bit of your energy.

For those of you who have no idea of what I am saying and for those of you pretending not to understand, I am talking about a certain “Bhabhi”, India’s first sensual comic character, whose excapades with a lingerie salesmen and budding cricket players have become a threat to the nation’s moral security.

Now I am sure a lot of you are mocking me right now. You are saying “How is this different from any adult themed site?” Why am I suddenly so bothered by this?

Well because this time the peddlers of smut have gone too far. As articulated beautifully by an outraged Netizen, a person who suggests the CBI to step in to arrest the content creators of the site.

In my opinion this site is more dangerous than a normal adult site since it targets young Indian audience and degrades women.

I agree. Most normal adult sites do not target younger audiences and depict women as fully-rounded individuals with feelings as opposed to just a composition of attractive body parts.

This site however is different. It is exclusively aimed at corrupting young Indians by striking at the very root of the Indian family. And with the Tehelka pointing out the cleverness of the people behind the endeavor—-in the month of April taking advantage of the post-budget season they had the bra-salesman, in the month of May they had a cricket-themed story in line with the IPL craze—I suspect a Pakistani plot hatched by the Bhab-i-Kharabi faction to trigger a collapse of the Indian family system. An endeavor in which they are being supported by the intellectuals who are sprouting fashionable words like “sexual consumerism of a post-colonial nation” to cover up the worst kind of perversion.

And the effects are already being felt. And no not just in locality boys knocking their balls into certain neighboring balconies with increasing frequencies or the friendly vacuum cleaner salesman asking for a glass of water at every house he visits but in increasingly weird behavior from our ma behen.

[Link from Times of India]

Aarti (name changed), 24, a marketing manager admits, “I fantasize my husband tying me to the bed and spanking me, abusing me and playing hard on me. It makes me feel like a wild cat waiting to be controlled.”

More such perverse ideas detailed here at the Times of India. Expect a few of these to make it to a certain comics strip.

Disgusting !

Well I sincerely hope that this site (whose URL if I provide I might be in trouble under Indian law) gets banned and its creators forced to sell men’s underwear in a prison.

Only then can we revert to the age-old rural innocence that is our tradition, a chaste utopia unsullied by the Net perverts.

A “mahaul” where a newly wed wife sings about multiple shifts of “duty” in her husband’s home in “Duty double sasurar main” .

Or an environment where a song is introduced as “Bihar main chal rahe teen din se devaron ke hartal aaj samapt hui. Mukhe mantri shreemati Rabri Devi unke maangein sweekar karte huye Bihar ke tamam bahujaiyon ko phagan bhar ke liye free karne ki ghoshna ki hain. Devar jab chahe, jahaan chahe, jaise chahen apne bhoujaiyon pe rang dal saakte hain” [Link]

Or a world where a devar can ask “Arrey Bhabhi, zyara mera doodh-badaam aur koyla dena to!” and be given a reply as apt and as innocent as “Arrey wah, devarji, badan ke liye doodh-badaam, aur daaton ke liye koyla?”

[Addendum: The last line is from an old advertisement on Doordarshan peddling daant-manjan---Colgate tooth powder. Clarification provided for those too young to have seen that ad]

yeh prasn is liye utha hain kyon ki ek vidyarthi mere paas aaaya aur kaha ki yeh vibrating ring lekar hostel ke andar vidyarthi iske upayog kar rahe hain aur iske marketing ho rahee hain. vidyarthi agar parne ke samay main is prakar ki vibrating ring ka upyog karta hain to main samajhta hoon ki yeh kisi ke liye chinta ki vishaaye ho sakti hain.

Which means that one day, our honourable minister, in the course of his peregrinations, was accosted by a student whose complaint was not the unavailability of books in the library, or of placement opportunities or the need to upgrade campus facilities. No. His complaint was that some students had vibrating condoms on their walking sticks. Displaying sagacity of the highest form, the minister realized that if “vidyarthis” are racked with repeated eruptions from battery-operated enhancements while studying (parne ke samay), a generation of young men will be created solely dependent on automation for even the simplest of tasks, unable to use their hands.

Moved deeply by this vulgarity, this minister demanded an all-party meeting to be convened by the Prime Minister to discuss this matter of urgent national import. No more G8 summits. Just G-spot.

I have always been thrilled by our erected sorry elected representatives protecting us from vulgarity. People like Priya Praneshwari Das Munshi, our I&B chief and the saviour of Indian football who tirelessly led India’s unsuccessful bids for hosting the football world cup through ceaseless criscrossing of Europe and the Americas on the taxpayer’s account and has since brought to his job as the country’s moral supremo the same selfless and punishing work-ethic.

From the Telegraph:

A monitoring process (for vulgarity on TV) does exist, besides Das Munshi himself, who has said he sometimes stays up late to monitor television content.

So while his constituents sleep in the comfort of their bed, the minister is up at night, lights turned off, surfing the channels to watch the level of debauchery being shown, sometimes perhaps even with the sound off.

Don’t get me wrong here. I really love being protected from flashing breasts at 1 o’clock and that college kid who walks funny. But what really gets my goat is the vulgarity that assails me each day I open the newspaper.

Like Mayawati “revealing her assets” (the headline from TOI). And what assets those are ! Add up Pam Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith and Sushmita Sen and you still get a puny fraction of her 52 crore bounty (and these are the assets she “chooses” to reveal: what she keeps “choli ke peeche” must be many times that). All of which she claims she earned through “voluntary donations” from the downtrodden members of the BSP.

Like the fact that Pratibha Tai, who disbursed crores of government money as “bad loans” to her relatives, thus bankrupting a cooperative bank, is soon going to be the next President of India. That she makes statements which would make Dada Kondke go red in the face— like “Dadiji ke shareer mein baba aye” and “He also made me very lucky” only adds insult to injury.

Someone somewhere really needs to put a stop to this shameless obscenity. But what to do? As long as mammaries jiggle and organs wriggle, the best and brightest of the land are otherwise occupied.

“A few days ago, we received news that panda porn was being shown in this zoo, which as we all know is totally against our culture. We may piss in our mouth and have lice in our fur, but such vulgarity is absolutely unacceptable. Once we arrived here, we found the situation was even worse. Not only were copies of Bear Hug triplex freely available, but panda orgies were taking place accompanied by rampant partner swapping and other things that offend our religion. ”

Monkey Jain is no stranger to controversy. He made the news some time ago for launching an assault on a tortoise George when it was learnt that offensive tortoise-human behavior was taking place where a 26 year old female graduate student in zoology was pleasuring George with her hands.

In late developments, a panda bear was arrested from the zoo on charges of lewd behavior. George, the tortoise, could not be reached for comment as he had gone into his shell.

Hands down.

To be fair, you played a good game. Here was Richard Gere, washed out has-been from Hollywood, who gets carried away by lust at an AIDS rally and kisses Shilpa Shetty with as much romantic grace as a bear pawing at a bee-hive. Quick on the draw and eager to show the world that we can beat the other loony countries with our desi looniness, a Jaipur court issues an arrest warrant taking into account what the judge perceived was the “highly sexually erotic” nature of the kiss.

The magistrate, who viewed the video footage of the programme, observed that the attitude of the two film personalities was “highly sexually erotic” which had “transgressed all limits of vulgarity and have the tendency to corrupt the society”. He said Shetty’s attitude was “cooperative” and she never restrained herself, but kept inviting Gere for the kissing episode which stretched on for a good while.

Needless to say, so erotic was the scene that the upright conscience-keepers came to a very quick decision.

Well society uncorrupters. You did good.

But you didn’t expect the mega-loons, the Fatwatists to take this attempt to usurp their crazy crown lying down, did you?

How’s this picture for highly sexually erotic?

From the Drudge Report:

“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been accused of indecency after he publicly embraced and kissed on the hand an elderly woman who used to be his schoolteacher.

At a ceremony on Tuesday ahead of Iranian teachers’ day, Mr Ahmadinejad was photographed and filmed by state media stooping to kiss the woman’s hand and then clasping her arms in an embrace.

The ultra-conservative Hezbollah newspaper, which is not related to the group in Lebanon of the same name, criticised him on the front page.

“The Muslim Iranian people have no recollection of such acts contrary to sharia law during Islamic rule [since the 1979 revolution],” it said.

“This type of indecency progressively has grave consequences, like violating religious and sacred values.”

The elderly woman, who was not named, wore thick gloves along with a headscarf and long black coat, meaning that Mr Ahmadinejad avoided any skin contact.

But his action raised eyebrows because according to sharia law, it is forbidden for a man to have any physical contact with a woman to whom he is not related.”

Note the similarity between the pretenders: “transgressed all limits of vulgarity and have the tendency to corrupt the society” and the players: ” This type of indecency progressively has grave consequences, like violating religious and sacred values.”

And with that one fell swoop, Iran has asserted its dominance in the “we are the biggest crazies” game leaving the conscience-keepers of India to lick their paws and wait for the next highly erotic act to offend their sensibilities.

As they shouted anti-Valentine Day slogans and made a bonfire of cards and cute red teddy bears, I caught up with a particularly ferocious activist who declined to give his name, insisting we address him as simply “Bajrangi”.

When I asked Bajrangi whether this Vivah raath was some kind of publicity vehicle for the movie “Vivaah“, he said:

“No way. We are catching couples in public places and are giving them an option: either get married on the Vivah raath or make the guy tie a Rakhi around the girl and become brother-sister. And please no high-falutin “individual rights” arguments here, as a concerned moral guardian of the nation, mujhe haq hain. End of story.”

I interjected.

“Why only “laowers” or brother-sister? Cannot a man and a woman  be just friends?”

Bajrangi sneered.

“Have you not heard that line from Maine Pyar Kiya? Ek ladka aur ek ladki kabhi dost nahin ban sakte!! Yeh to ek bahana hain tadpati raaton main bharakti jismon ki dhadakhti aag bujhane ka”

Before I could interject, Bajrangi started yelping.

“I really do not understand why you people do not get it. I really do not. If displaying wealth in front of those who do not have it is obscene, so is flaunting your girl-friend in front of so many of us consigned to eternal bachelorhood. While these lovers stroke each other’s hands in full public view, how do you think we, whose hands have nothing else to stroke except ourselves, feel? If we cannot enjoy, why should we let anyone else ?”

“And it is not just stroking hands sir. Look at this.”

Owner of another prominent restaurant Amantran in Kidwai Nagar Rajeev Gupta said that because of the threats issued he would take extra care and ensure that couples did not get intimate on his premises.

“Sir, these couples are getting intimate in restaurants ! They are sipping from same cold drink bottle, looking into each other’s eyes, playing footsie under table and not even tipping the waiter. How can I take my parents and go to such a place any more? Look at the picture above sir. “Heart-shaped” balloons being sold—balloons for adults? Next these amorous people will be playing with toys …has anyone ever heard of that before ?

I tell you sir. At the rate things are being perverted, soon there will be no difference between us humans and dogs. Wait. There already is not.

Even pets had it good, with the tailwaggers animal salon playing cupid to “dog couples”, offering them free aroma therapy sessions.

Interrupting his frothing rant, I asked him the next question.

“So why this tension all over the city? This looks like a scene from Fallujah.”

Bajrangi sniggered.

“Sir, this is Kurukshetra. On one hand, are the forces of good: namely us and Dukhtaran-e-Millat and the coalition of the unwilling called Forum Against Social Evils (FASE). And on the other hand, armed to the teeth with mace and batons, and fortified by money from evil corporations like Hallmarks, Archies are these heinous merchants of immorality who, unlike us, are openly talking about taking the law into their own hands:

Two women’s groups, belonging to the Sawarna Samaaj Party (SSP) and the Rashtriya Secular Manch (RSM), have decided to take on those threatening to oppose Valentine’s Day celebrations in the state, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

If the SSP is threatening Bajrang Dal members with a mace (lord Hanuman’s weapon), the RSM has decided to form baton-wielding groups of women to dissuade Bajrang Dal activists from disrupting lovers on Wednesday.

“These women will provide the necessary security to citizens if the state government fails to do so,” said RSM convenor Chandna Arora. “We will follow the Bajrang Dal workers on February 14 to prevent them from misbehaving with lovers.”

The Congress’ student wing National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) has also decided to oppose “any act of the Bajrangis”.

“NSUI workers would first give roses to Bajrang Dal workers while requesting them not to disturb anyone. Then they would inform the police in case anyone is harassed and lastly take the law into their own hands if the police fails to act,” said NSUI state secretary Abhay Kushal Tiwari.

The NSUI has formed teams to defend lovers in case of harassment and even launched a helpline.

And then it happened. An assault party from the Sawarana Samaj Party started hurling IEDs (improvised explosive devices) which burst open releasing rose thorns, hot caramel and debris from broken perfume bottles everywhere. As several anti-Valentine day activists rolled on the ground, clutching their hearts and screaming in pain, my friend the Bajrangi said:

“Sorry interview over. Vivah raath under attack.”

And then swinging an enormous rakhi over his head like a hunter whip, he ran into the “red zone” of battle.

One more martyr for the cause of love.

[Images courtesy CNN-IBN and Rediff]

In Bhubaneswar, a voluntary organisation Kalinga Sena, organised a demonstration and burnt the effigy of Gautam Prasad.

“His (Mahatma Gandhi) disgrace is India’s disgrace, the disgrace of one billion people of India. We are staging a protest against Gautam and we demand capital punishment for him,” said Kalinga Sena President Hemanth Rath.

[Source]

Gandhigiri on the march ! Death to the infidel ! Wouldn’t Bapuji have been proud of Kalinga Sena chieftain (incidentally was not the Kalinga Sena wiped out by Emperor Asoka thousands of years ago?) Hemanth Rath and the violent students of Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith for their belligerent upholding of the principles of forgiveness and tolerance?

Granted that Gautam Prasad is an ass. His Gandhi poledance and stripping routine as seen on youtube (link intentionally not provided) is not satire or smart iconoclasm but an attempt to elicit laughs (he is a professional clown) by the debasement of himself (and by association of the Gandhi/towelhead stereotype that he plays) in front of a Western audience. But if there be an even greater parody of Gandhism then it has to be the behavior of these other amateur clowns, who are not even aware of the ironic silliness of their demands for “capital punishment”.

And another point in passing. In report after report, I see the same mistake: that Gautam Prasad shows Gandhi pole-dancing and then fighting/cavorting with women. Actually there are two videos: one of Mr. Prasad and another a parody of the movie Gandhi by Weird Al Yankovich where Gandhi is shown eating beef, fighting and womanizing.

Coming back to the main point, the biggest loser in this glorious spectacle is the Indian government, which consistently insists on behaving like the typical crackpot Islamic state in obsessively frothing at the mouth in response to any perceived insult. In its infinite wisdom, it has served show-causes to the Indian channels which carried the news and called for the video to be taken down failing which a ban would be placed on Youtube.

Yes the Big Ban Theory. Once again.

Sigh.

[Post script: This is my blog's 300th post and taking advantage of the euphoria that this has unleashed all across the world, Abhishek Bachchan has finally proposed to Aishwarya Rai. And she has accepted and if unconfirmed reports are to be believed, she has promised him a little B by the time the 400th post is made on this blog.]

Rakhi Sawant, India’s wonder girl, has become one of the first persons to be charged under the new Domestic Violence Law for women, a law that people thought was meant to bring violent husbands to book.

Evidently not.

A local court on Monday admitted a criminal complaint against Bollywood ‘item girl’ Rakhi Sawant, recently involved in a kissing row with pop singer Mika, charging her with obscene performance at a show here on October 28.

Chief Judicial Magistrate (Patna) Sushma Sinha admitted the complaint filed by advocate Sruti Singh and transferred the case to the court of Shahaab Kausher, a magistrate, for further hearing to be taken up on November 10.

In her complaint, Singh alleged Rakhi’s performance here on October 28 violated the Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act of 1985 and the Domestic Violence Law for women that came into effect from October 27.

She charged the obscene performance before a gathering of 3,000 or more was prohibited under these laws.

She filed the complaint under Sections 160 (punishment for committing affray), 253(a) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 290 (punishment for public nuisance in cases not otherwise provided) and 292 (sale of obscene books) of the Indian Penal Code.

RTDM’s legal correspondent informed us that there is some confusion whether the case is going to Shahaab Kausher, of whom little is known or Shabab Kissher, who is known to be very lenient in these matters, being very “shababi” and “kababi”.

Our legal team is also stumped as to why a obscene performance before a gathering of 3,000 or more is prohibited by these laws but not for a gathering of say 2,999.

With the Bihar government ordering a total media blackout, the only person who could bring us more news was the redoubtable Lara Larani of IndiaDaily, the recent winner of the Greatbong’s Howitzer award for excellence in journalism. In a typically crisp headline that hits us where it matters, Ms. Larani says in the IndiaDaily editorial:

Rakhi Sawantr went topless while performing – lands in trouble with a criminal complaint
Lara Larani
Nov. 4, 2006

The glam girl who wants to sell sex on the screen is now in trouble again after making truce with Mika the kisser of the year.

She was performing on October 28 and for a little time she started teasing the males with her exposed top. That brought attention of authorities.

A criminal complaint about an obscene performance by her has been filed in a court here. Her fans were chanting “do Rakhi do” but the local authorities are eager to “stop Rakhi stop”.

We are still trying to get more information about whether the audience, while shouting “do Rakhi do” meant “give Rakhi give” or “two Rakhi two” or “do (it) Rakhi do (it)—all of which make perfect sense given the context.

Advocate Singh who had filed the complaint refused to speak to media but RTDM found out from sources close to Ms. Singh that she took this step not because she is a person with too much time on her hands and a desire to see her name in the media but because Bihar is known to be tectonically active and it has been proven in Pakistan that obscene performances set off earthquakes.

Garhi Habibullah — Four people handed over their television sets for setting on fire after the Imam (prayer leader) of Eid Gaah, Garhi Habibullah, issued a call to the general public to destroy their TVs to put an end to ‘increasing obscenity’.

Prayer leader Shafqat-ur-Rehman, when contacted by this reporter, said he had issued the call to general public for putting their TV sets on fire because he believed that obscenity being spread through cable networks was responsible for the devastating earthquake.

“I made a call to this effect during combined Dua following Fajr prayers on Monday (Oct 10, 2005)” said Mr Rehman, adding that “the destruction caused by the earthquake was God’s wrath for the obscenity promoted by cable networks”.

Panic about imminent earthquakes was fanned by malicious rumours of Manisha Koirala doing a dance performance in Patna.

We will keep this page updated as details DO emerge.