Titled descriptively as “Nirlajj Ne Nashe Main Luti Kutiya Ki Izzat” this piece informed us of a horrific act of man-beast interaction that cannot be described in English, an act that led to the dog refusing to eat or drink and ending with the police assuring concerned citizens that the said kutiya will not be produced in court.

Now I would normally just kept it at this tweet and filed it away in a corner of mind, to use this as a cautionary tale to people who are drinking too much, but then thanks to Gaurav‘s Facebook status messages I stumbled across two priceless videos on this incident brought to you by the fearless reporters at Mid Day, the newspaper eulogized in the song   “Suraaj Hua Madhyam”, two videos that so impressed me that I felt I needed to make my point in more than 140 characters.

So what was it about the videos that so moved me? Simply the dedication of the newspaper  in covering the story from all angles. First of all, in the first video, the heroic lady who saved the dog from the man’s amorous advances is asked to give a blow-by-blow or more precisely ungli-by-ungli account of what she saw, all for the purpose of a higher truth.

And then in an even greater Pulitzer-worthy (or at least Howitzer-worthy) bit of journalism (must watch video), the brave crime reporter goes to the police and asks them not only hard-hitting perceptive questions like whether the policeman saw the perp’s trousers unzipped (” Trouser wouser…… kahe rahe ki zip khuli hui thi. Sir kya aap ne khud ne aapne aaankhon se dekha hai?“) but also tries to get into the mind of the criminal. For instance she asks the police officer whether the man’s canine-love act can be explained by the fact that he was missing his wife who was away in the village delivering a baby ( to mere khayal se woh miss kar raha hoga usko yeh ek wajaah ho sakti hain) and tries to investigate whether some movie inspired him to do it (ek do din pahele kuch phillim dekhi thi kya) and lastly asks whether the man was a “psychic” (“yeh pyschic hain kya kuch dimaagi problem“) —-in the process giving a 360 perspective of a story so lacking nowadays.

Since I am not a psychic (nor for that matter a psycho), I wont be able to say whether the bitch triggered off some remembrance of things past or whether the man can read minds or see the future but I may conjecture that he might have seen the movie “Chingari” (review) starring Prabhuji as Bhuvan Panda, the lustful priest where he repeatedly refers to Sushmita Sen (playing his paramour) as a “manoranjak kutiya” before consorting with her in the most bizarre ways possible.

In any case, this has been an incident most foul and all one can do is sum it up with that line from Kaminey “Yeh duniya badi kutti cheez hai”

Commentator 2: Who would have thought that after the whole world stopped touring Pakistan on the basis of some unfortunate minor incidents involving players from Sri Lanka in 2009 that we would be hosting an event like this—the World Cup? Of course India, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Australia, England, South Africa have declined to come and the ICC has refused to recognize this as a World Cup. Just like the world refuses to recognize what our textbooks tell us—that we defeated the Indian army totally in the 1971 Bangladesh war and that India is responsible for terrorist attacks in Pakistan and that India is a failed state. But really who cares what they say? It is the World Cup if the avaam say so.

Commentator 1: Exactly. And its not as if we do not have international teams. There is the Bangladesh team. And one from Swat. And one from the Tribal Regions. And of course one from Afghanistan.

Commentator 2: I think the full house today is sending a clear message to the world. Pakistan is a safe country. And security arrangements as we can see are topnotch, being provided by the world’s leading security organization, the Bangladesh Rifles. Noone messes with these badasses, not even their superiors. Let me tell you that all spectators have been thoroughly searched—-you should have seen the number of belt-bombs they had to confiscate outside the sign at the gate that said “No satellite phones, plastic water bottles and remote detonation devices allowed”.

Commentator 1: True. No effort is being spared by the organizers to entertain the packed house. Just before we came on, there was a public stoning spectacle where two girls from the Swat valley who had dared attend a school were pelted with igneous rock near the practice pitches as the band played “We will…we will…rock you”. Nothing like that to get the crowd going.

Commentator 2: I think the best moment was when the giant scorecard flashed the “Happy 21st birthday Shahid Afridi” message. That sent the crowd wild.

Commentator 1: Haha. I thought that was less because of the message but more because of the unmanned predator drone that just happened to fly across the stadium around that time. But I do agree. Truly a Taliban moment of exhilaration.

[Advertisement for "Mystery Kabul Potion":

Asif: "Mystery Kabul Potion" is the secret of my energy.

Shoaib: No no...our energy... [and starts beating Asif with a bat]

]

Commentator 2: Welcome back viewers. Now coming to today’s match. Your thoughts janaab?

Commentator 1: Pretty even Stevens. Tribal provinces are playing with 17 players which is a big advantage assuredly. Of course as we know that there is no law inside the Tribal provinces and so we pretty much let them do whatever they want to. Including playing 17 players and carrying rocket-launchers into the pavilion. But then the Swat team is very strong, has been extensively training in a terrorist camp and are in prime physical condition. Rumor has it that their coach makes them do catching practice with live grenades.

Commentator 2: So what happens if someone drops a catch?

Commentator 1: Well then that guy is automatically removed from the team. Yes they are that dedicated to the game.

Commentator 2: In all, has the makings of a fascinating contest.

Commentator 1: Before we sign off, remember to watch our lunch-time show where there will be mid-pitch public executions, brought to you by Mullah Omar Records “The music-less music company” Rawalpindi Web Hosting and Hostages “Our customers never leave. Guaranteed” and Jaish Corporate Recruitment Services “Leave the head-hunting to us“.

But what does the man in the street think of all this?

Let’s find out in this exclusive GB TV news report.

[Background music: Satyam Shivam Sundaram. Ishwar Satya Hain. Satya Hi Shiva Hain. Shiv Hi Sundar Hain. A haaa A haaaaaaa]

Samar is 16 years old and is in Class 11. This is what he had to say.

I don’t see what’s wrong in making a few untrue statements in the balance books. I mean come on dude. Everybody does that at school while doing lab reports. I mean how can one really get a straight line graph while plotting V vs I? It never happens. So you massage the data so that it “fits”. The teachers know it. The students know it. The teachers when they were students did it.

Mona is 33. She works in a cell center.

If you don’t have it, you pad it. Be they balance sheets or bra cups. That’s common knowledge. When prospective grooms come to our house, I always wear padded bras. My aunts told me to do so. Are they asking me to cheat? I don’t think so. And just to balance out that exaggeration, I also under-estimate. I say I am 25 years old.

And it’s not just the younger generation who are supportive of the management at Satyam.

Raghavan is 45. He works for the government.

[Angrily]

So what’s the crime here? Using shareholder money to buy shares in the company your son runs at outrageously elevated prices? I mean if you are dragged over the coals for looking after your family, what is a man to do? Apne to aapne hote hain. What next? Ban the Congress Party?

Lalaji is 65. He has run a grocery for 45 years now.

My dad always used to tell me “Before you decide to be Harishchandra, remember what happened to him. And let that serve as a warning.” I have always followed that dictum and every successful business has to. I keep a metal weight below my scales, I put small bits of stone in the rice, I adulterate the cooking oil. I have two ledger books.

It’s not just me. The dairy-boy who my wife buys milk from has more water than milk. The asli desi ghee I buy is hardly asli. Everyone is tampering with numbers and ratios. Thats how it always has been with dhanda-giri.

There is just one crime in business. Just one.

And that’s getting caught.

Not everyone was so outspoken however. When we asked Ajay, 53, himself an accountant how despite audits by a major accounting agency, nearly ninety four percent of the cash on Satyam’s books just does not exist, he merely smiled and said.

Magic !

In other news, unconfirmed reports suggest that the embattled CEO has been seen in half-sleeve shirts and suits and is reportedly currently working on developing 8 pack abs. This has lead many to speculate whether a “Ghajini” defense of anterograde amnesia may be mounted against a 7 year jail term, a defense that is intensely popular among powerful business owners. Viewers may recall that such a defense was successfully used by Sanjay Singhania, the telecom giant, to get an acquittal after he went on a murderous rampage for which he was not only accused of mass murder but also of gratuitously breaking all the laws of Physics and of good cinema.

Fade out music: (paraphrased song from movie “Gunda Mawali”) Raju awaara barsaat main, chori chori kya kar baitha…..

By a staff reporter:

Noida police (the world’s foremost investigating agency famous for cracking the Aarushi  Talwar murder case in mere hours), who had been called in to solve the sensational murder of Julius Caesar, the Roman emperor, made their first arrest today. In a sensational early morning swoop in front of television cameras, Julius Caesar’s wife Calpurnia Pisonis was taken into custody by the Noida police.

Sardar Stroke Singh, supremo of the Special Task Force, in front of a packed press conference revealed that Calpurnia Pisonis had been having an affair with Ceasar’s trusted lieutenant, Mark Anthony. And that Caesar had been murdered because he had come to know of this scandalous secret. Earlier the police had said that this murder could only have been done by a doctor, a butcher or a wife.

The Noida police have based their hypothesis on the suspicious behavior of Calpurnia on the day of Julius’s murder when she kept on talking about “ill omens” and in general kept on preventing him from going to the senate.

When the inconsistencies in the police’s case was pointed out—namely that if Calpurnia was indeed the murderer why the body would be found in the senate where only senators are allowed or why thirty five strikes of the sword were found on the Caesar’s body, the investigating officer said that all angles of the case have yet to be established. And that everything will be clear once narco-analysis is performed on Calpurnia and Ceasar’s CPU analyzed.

However he did point out that the police were hoping to make further arrests in the case specially in relation to two mysterious men who have been reported to have been talking to Calpurnia. Their sketches are provided below.

Mark Antony, accompanied by his wife Jennifer Lopez, made a statement later in the morning, exclusively to NDTV, stating that there was no illicit relationship between him and Calpurnia and asked the countymen to “lend him their ears” at this time of crisis.

Our inside sources have revealed that much of the police’s case is based on the testimony from one of Caesar’s best friends, Cassius.

In a related development, another of Caesar’s closest associates, Brutus, came out with an official statement: “I am shocked at Bhabiji’s arrest. Though I fully believe in her innocence, I am sure that the law is taking its proper course.”

The arrest of Calpurnia has thrown the media into a frenzy. CNN-IBN has been covering the case 24/7 with Sagittarius Ghosium asking the nation, every 3 hours, ” Has urban Roman life made people more bloodthirsty” ? NDTV’s “Are Romans overtly hedonistic”, anchored by Bore-Kia Dutticus garnered record viewership.

Meanwhile, parents are struggling to explain this incident to the little ones with one small kid called Nero taking an obsessive interest in this case.

Caesar’s friends have rallied around their dead compatriot with Servilius Casca honoring the emperor by naming a salad after him—Caesar’s salad.

The nation meanwhile waits for justice.

Indian democracy was assaulted by Jihadi cowards.

July 26, 2007.

The Indian way of life itself came under attack, with catastrophe being barely avoided through some judicious phone-tapping.

Himesh Reshammiya, the Voice of the Nation and the Janooo of the masses narrowly survived an assassination attempt by Ejaz Lakdawala’s gang, thus proving again, the age-old adage: “If God loves you, no-one can kill you or make your movie, no matter how crappy it is, a flop”.

Some of the facts about this conspiracy are very sketchy. A few sources say that Ejaz Lakdawala became pissed after Himesh had refused to dignify the mighty don with a call back after the don had called him to ask for some spare change. Enraged, Ejaz put a posting on the “supari”vine asking for a killer with not only proficiency in the handling of a gun but also extreme musical talent. Why? Because the plan was to get the assassin as a contestant on Sa Re Gama where he would Shakalaka Boom Boom the judge Himesh on the sets itself in true filmi style. However like most job seekers, the candidate selected as the melodious murderer had embellished his resume—-while his shooting skills may have been adequate, he could not sing for his life. As a result, he could not get past even the preliminaries thus putting an end to possibly the most optimistic murder plan I have heard in a long time.

Another story doing the rounds was that the contestant was a mafia mole who was being fixed to win the contest so that the don could infiltrate the entertainment world—in true “Departed” style. But Himesh, refused to play ball and hence this act of revenge.

Unconfirmed sources also claim that the assassins (one of whom had the last name Radiowala) were simply lovers of music and movie critics for whom the recent announcement of Aap Ka Surroor sequels and Himesh’s assertion that there is no role he cannot play were the proverbial last straws on the camel’s back.

As an aside, for those who thought that the “talent show” genre on Indian TV could not get any murkier after the Bhappi Lahiri-Abhijeet showdown (for those not in the loop: Abhijeet accused our desi photocopier Bhappi-da of being shameless [besharam] and Bhappi-Da sued Abhijeet for defamation asking him to prove his assertion, in the process ironically proving the accusation of shamelessness himself) this attempted murder on the sets will surely serve as an eye-opener.

Media watchers say that the winner in all this is of course, to no one’s surprise, Himesh. Not only has he proven his indestructibility to all but has also extended the “Aap Ka Surroor” myth into the real world. With this incident, his image will become that of an uncompromising superman prepared to risk his life to uphold his musical “zameer” (conscience) — which coincidentally serves as a suitably apposite plot kernel for the upcoming sequel to the Moviee.

As for me and many other Himesh fans, we are spending “sleepless nights” like our PM-ji just thinking about the tragedy that was averted.

[Thanks to Nishit Desai for informing me of this and the illuminating discussion on Gtalk]

What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good.

 
As Good As It Gets

As I laboured through Cho Seung-Hui’s final video testament of how all those rich kids with their trust funds and Mercedeses and their debauchery had brought this divine retribution on themselves and how he like Jesus Christ was going to inspire generations of the weak and defenceless, I felt revulsion and pity for that asshole in equal measure.

Revulsion that this rabid, delusional sub-human who had snuffed out the lives of 32 innocents in a few hours of bloody mayhem, was ultimately, through the offices of an exceedingly irresponsible NBC, getting the attention he so desperately craved, with possibly a few similarly sick degenerates looking at the footage and thinking “Wow, even I can be famous”.

Pity because as the unexceptional son of poor Asian immigrant parents, his life had been and was likely to be a litany of rejections and taunts. (“In high school, Cho Seung-Hui almost never opened his mouth. When he finally did, his classmates laughed, pointed at him and said: “Go back to China.”)[Source]

Desperately wanting to be a part of the tantalizing world of hot chicks, fast cars, secure futures and happening parties and yet consigned, on account of his ordinariness and pedigree, to standing on the sidelines ‘to look but not touch’ (he took pictures of girls with his cellphones), his hatred for everything that lay out of his reach had increased proportionally to his desire for it till one day he went round the bend.

People who seek to protect the world from the depredations of sin and corporeal pleasure are not rare: we see them everyday in the newspapers. They come out on the streets, offended at every peck, kiss and Valentine’s Day card; frothing at the mouth like Cho Seung-Hui about decadence and moral corruption when it is plainly obvious that the reason they are so pissed off is because they are excluded from the pleasures of the “debauchery” they profess to despise.

But at least in India, the extent of the nuisance these farts cause is marginal: forcibly making people tie rakhis, burning Valentine’s Day cards and the like. And that’s because they are unable to walk into a store and come out with a shopping bag full of automatic weapons.

In USA, however that is not the case. Propped up by the billions of dollars from the powerful gun lobby and provided protection by the literalism of conservatives who consider the Second Amendment of the US constitution (A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed) sacrosanct even though the historical reasons (the prevalent lawlessness of the times) for which the founding fathers advocated such a measure has long ceased to be relevant, objective conditions continue to exist in the country for loons like Cho Seung-Hui , after being subject to minimal background checks, to get their hands on enough hardware to fight a small war.

And for this reason, I am unable to decide who to despise more: the rambling idiot holding the gun and looking into the camera, or the vested interest fat-cats who put the gun in the pervert’s hand and profited off the lives and families destroyed by this most random and senseless act of violence.

Times of India reports:

Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav on Thursday raised eyebrows by describing the grisly murders of children in Noida as “small and routine incidents”.

“Such small incidents keep happening,” Shivpal said.

Yes indeed. Such small incidents keep happening. Especially to migrant workers from other states, too poor to bribe the police , too disenfranchised to have a political voice and too unlucky not to be from Mulayam (and his brother Shivpal Singh)’s caste.

From NDTV:

When Jatin and his wife had pleaded with the police to find their daughter the cops dismissed them. “Your daughter is a pretty Bengali, and an immoral woman. She must have just run away with a man,” they said to him.

Kindly note the logical consequence from “pretty Bengali” to “immoral woman” coming from a representative of the Uttar Pradesh administration.

From Rediff:

Sub-inspector Simranjit Kaur, who was looking into the case, drove down to my village Pipalia in Uttaranchal and told the village headman that my daughter (Payal) had gone to Mumbai and was happily married,” Lal, said.

And this was after Payal had already been killed.

These above are not just a few isolated voices. Each victim (and there are many) tells the same story. The very same.

That of the police protecting the killers.

Whether it is apathy, laziness, regionalism, feudalism or baksheesh from people with secrets to hide is of course open to conjecture.

So will there be any investigation into the collusion between the police and the murderers? Well according to our wise Supreme Court, no independent enquiry by the CBI is needed as “the matter was already being looked into by various agencies including Uttar Pradesh police“.

And we know how eager the UP police must be to see that justice is meted out to employees of the UP police.

Mulayam Singh has also gone on record saying that a CBI probe can be done later, presumably once the evidence has been suitably cleaned, scapegoats identified and the aggrieved intimidated.

Mind you I am not saying that the CBI is above board. It’s just that at least in this case they will certainly act more independently than the UP police.

But of course, we should not be too concerned about such trifles.

After all as the line from “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” goes: “Senorita, baray baray deshon main aisi choti choti baatein hote raheti hain”.

[Addendum: In more festive fun from the patriots at Samajwadi Party (the party that supports SIMI) , a tourist bus is stopped and the passengers beaten up in protest against the hanging of mass murderer and torturer Saddam Hussain.

Watch and applaud as a man in India, with blood trickling down his temple, is forced to shout "Saddam Hussain Zindabad".

Bravo Mulayam Singh, protector of SIMI, Saddam fans and child rapists.

Picture courtesy: IBN]

–DC Holocaust Museum

There are few things that horrify us nowadays, inured as we are to the pain and suffering of others. Exposed to movies like SAW where people are shown having their arms pulled out of their sockets and to television images of men with half their brains blown off, a whole generation of violence zombies have been created for whom cruelty to human beings leaves as much effect as that of watching the blood of aliens being splattered in video games.

Of course there are times when people are able to rise above their apathy and ennui as in the case of the Priyadarshini Mattoo case and force the hand of justice despite the attempts of the high-and-the-mighty to twist it for their advantage. Those are indeed, empowering moments—-when we as a people realize that we are not as powerless as we like to believe and that the sons of politicians and policemen are not as above the law as they like to think.

Of course these moments come few. And far in between.

But even in such moments of hope, there are dark, uncomfortable realizations. The realization that whether in life or in death, we are not created equal. Sad though it may be, the press coverage that led to justice in the Mattoo case and a re-opening of Jessica Lal case is because of the profile of the victim and the accused—beautiful, educated, women butchered by the villainous son of police/politician. With a failed star caught in the crossfire. The media frenzy was as much about justice as it was about drama and good copy. Sadly so.

This glaring inequity becomes evident when once reads about this. An incident that happened less than 800 kms from Mumbai.

There was always a gaping silence in this village, even before September 29 when an upper caste mob, according to eyewitnesses, paraded a mother and her 17-year-old daughter naked, raped and killed them. Two other members of the family, brothers aged 19 and 21 too were murdered. Their bodies were dumped in a canal.

Thirty eight men have been arrested and they are being held under police custody. The gruesome incident occurred 780 kms from Mumbai, too far out it appears to muster national outrage. The news of this brutality did not enter the mainstream news in any significant fashion.

Why did it not? The facts (the details of the rape just too sickening) are shocking enough to provoke even the most jaded of us. The perpetrator here is not a spoilt politician’s son who knows that the law works for him. No it is an entire village.

Surekha, and 17-year-old Priyanka, a 12th standard topper, were paraded naked through the village. According to eye-witnesses, one of them was even strapped to a bullock cart.

They were then taken to a crude open-air theatre stage where, according to villagers, people yelled to the sarpanch to let them sexually assault the women. Meanwhile, Priyanka’s brothers, 21-year-old Sudhir and 19-year-old Roshan, were murdered. After Priyanka and her mother were raped, they too were murdered.

It does not take a smirking politician’s son to be smug about the fact that he will never be punished. An entire village’s male population is pretty sure about that too—-more so because these are poor people who are being raped —people for whom neither the police (because the perps are politically connected BJP activists) nor the press (because they are not newsworthy people) really care for.

Because if you look, the story is almost the same as that of Mattoo and Lal—police trying to cover up[kindly read the article to know more about this] , evidence vanishing , fraudulent post mortems. Some people have been arrested but it does not take a rocket scientist to realize that there will be no evidence to hold them: the police is taking care of that.

There is also another regrettable concomitant of an incident like this. The need to politicize. The need to portray this as part of a larger caste-war in India. Regardless of the fact that similar atrocities have been perpetrated by animals of various political hues on various castes of people, unified only by their poverty. [Caste and poverty are strongly correlated in rural India which is why incidents like this are always politicized as part of a larger Dalit genocide being perpetrated by Brahminical Hindus. However what makes a large section of people vulnerable to barbarities of the worst kind is their economic marginalization rather than just their caste identity]

All this finger-pointing and blame-apportioning ends up obfuscating the main point.

Which is: Politically well-connected men in collusion with the administrative machinery get away with the most barbaric acts of rape/murder taking advantage of civil society’s apathy towards atrocities committed on poor people in villages.

We can only hope that this changes. We can hope that the rape and murder of class-topper Priyanka, her mother and her two brothers will touch as many people as Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lal did. That the next round of frenetic SMS-ing and email forwarding, spots on CNN-IBN and NDTV , signature campaigns and other instruments of media mobilization be used to make sure that the entire village, which yelled asking for permission to rape the women, does not get away.

And that justice be finally served.

For all.

But will it?

A software engineer was arrested by the Saki Naka police on Tuesday for threatening to use the “latest technology” to put up nude pictures of his neighbours on the Internet.

Raju Srivastav (39), who worked in a private firm in Bangalore until recently and lives in Andheri, was charged with sexual assault by Manjeet Singh and other neighbours on July 31.

The women say that Srivastav would pick fights with them when they passed each other in the building, and then threaten to morph their faces unto nude bodies and make objectionable films with them.

Srivastav was produced in court on August 2, and has been remanded to judicial custody till August 17.

“The neighbours say that he threatened to picture them nude and distribute the CDs for free, but no pornographic material has been found in his home,” said senior police officer J Khandagale of Saki Naka police station.

Srivastav’s lawyer claims that his client has been framed. “My client is a software engineer and wouldn’t stoop to such low levels. The neighbours have been provoked by his ex-wife,” he said.

It is reportedly that his wife divorced him because she couldn’t handle his harassment. However, Srivastav says she was having an affair with their driver, and floated the harassment rumour to get rid of him.

Srivastav had reportedly got the driver to confess to the affair, which he later showed his then wife.

What pleased me no end was the statement by the lawyer :

“My client is a software engineer and wouldn’t stoop to such low levels”.

That is if the guy was a chemical engineer or perhaps a lawyer, then surely he could do something this retrograde.

But a software engineer: oh no no—-as we all know, they are paragons of virtue and moral rectitude. Plus they would be the last persons on earth who would know anything about image morphing.

And another thing. What kind of a software engineer is this guy by the way? The cops drop in, uninvited to his house, seize his machine and find no porn on it !

Is there any self-respecting software engineer (guy) out there whose home machine (as opposed to the office machine) would throw up no porn when subject to a surprise search ?

I think not.

I remember the time when as a PhD student, a newly arrived Desi (who had yet to tour the computer science department from where he was to get his Masters) asked me whether the computer labs are open through the night. On being told they were, he asked me whether there are a lot of people around at that time and followed it up with whether the machines were all “open” or in private cubicles.

Needless to say, I understood the question he actually wanted to ask.

But that was natural. This total absence of porn is not.

Based on the blandness of his hard drive, I would think that the prosecution has ample opportunity to cast doubt on whether this guy is a software engineer at all.

And once it is proved that he is not a software engineer and hence a man capable of such a dastardly act, his case totally collapses.

Damn I should have been a prosecutor.

Paidal chal raha hoon, ek gaari chahiye,
Jeevan ke safaar main ek sawari chahiye,
Akela hain Mr. Khiladi,
Miss Khiladi chahiye. —Mr and Mrs. Khiladi

All you hot “babes” (as per Hindustan Times lingo)—it’s time that you used your mini-skirts, tank tops, assorted accessories and most-of-all your knowledge of the Page 3 side of the force for the good of the country.

How?

By going on a date with this man. And his other cohorts.

A little background.

After the Mahajan affair, the police have decided to keep strict tabs on the happening parties and clubs in Mumbai (link courtesy Rajeev)—so as to get to the real big users of the drugs Sahil Zaroo peddles.

The Delhi police, starting today, will watch all Page 3 parties in Mumbai very closely. A three-member team headed by Station House Officer of the Connaught Place police station, Suresh Kaushik, arrived in the city yesterday. They will visit parties at short-listed pubs and discos where drugs are taken.

But as it usually happens, getting into the Page 3 circuit isn’t easy. Even for the law. In a sequence straight out of “Police Academy” this is what happened:

The cops did a recce last night, but hit upon a stumbling block. They were not allowed to enter clubs in Colaba, as they were stags. “We will sort out this problem tonight,” the sources told MiD DAY.

So as you can see, these men need dates in order to bust the drug dealers. And these dates for obvious reasons cannot be the Mayawati-Mamata soulsisters employed by the government of India to drag away screaming lady protesters—–they would stand out in a strapless gown in a not-very-complimentary way.

Of course it can be argued that the man in the first picture would also stand out in a group of meterosexual models and gay fashion designers but then again not all gentlemen on the Page 3 circuit are “lookers”. Nor do they dress particularly well.

Coming back to the main point it is fairly evident that the cops needs pretty ladies from the civilian population, well versed in the art of bitchy chitchat and possessing sound (un)dressing sense, to bump and grind against them as they hobnob with the glitterati and surreptitiously search for clues —-of course the fact that the face of one of these investigators being in the papers may slightly hamper the “secrecy” of their investigations is something that should be forgotten.

Remember ladies that the real ACP Rathores of the world are likely to look like the man in the first picture rather than like Aamir Khan. Consequently, they are likely to be lonely men who will get turned away by bouncers at each and every club while the dilettantes snort contraband stuff and engage in mind boggling debauchery inside.

Unless you step up to the plate. And take a “hit” for the country.