Dilip Simeon's blog

No, sir, these are difficult times. I'm seriously considering two options to hedge my bets. The first is to install pictures of Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah on my front gate. According to a report in the Jansatta of 19th May, bulldozers stopped their demolition of a house in Delhi's Khichripur when they noticed pictures of these stalwarts on one wall of the house. The photos achieved something even the Supreme Court's stay orders did not, and this is a good low cost option. Why, I may even add a picture of Kangana Ranaut to the photo gallery for good measure- that should stop any bulldozer in its tracks, Avay Shukla: The Bulldozer Blues This last week has been a bit of a traumatic experience for us, the residents of Puranikoti village, as far away from Khargone and Jehangirpuri as Sabarmati Ashram is from the BJP headquarters in Jhandewalan. Now, PK is a tiny village with just 192 "souls" ( as the PWD board proclaims), we don't even have a full time village drunkard ...

The Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law (PMPWBL, Czech: Strana Mírného Pokroku v Mezích Zákona (SMPVMZ)) was a satirical political party in Cisleithania (Austro-Hungary), founded by Jaroslav Hašek in 1911. The party campaigned satirically for election to the Imperial Council (Austria). Due to their dual nature as both a political "party" and a political-artistic "action group", it is often extremely difficult to differentiate the reality from the fiction of the SMPVMZ. The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War According to the statements of the party leader Hašek, the party was founded in 1904 in the restaurant 'The Golden Liter' in Prague's Vinohrady quarter. Other participants were the writer František Langer and the Prague Technikum official Eduard Drobílek, who came up with the idea and served as treasurer. The party name referred to the controversial Imperial Rescript dated September 12, 1871, in which the Bohem...

The largest stadium in the world by capacity is the "Rungrado 1st of May Stadium" in Pyongyang, North Korea. Oddly enough, it isn't named after Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Representative of the Korean People. Luckily for us, the Supreme Representative of the Indian People, unafflicted by bashfulness, stepped up to rename the second-largest stadium in the world (by capacity) after himself. To make room for Narendra Modi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was taken off the marquee and given the important supporting role of naming the sports enclave in which the stadium is set. There is a nice metaphor in that: Sardar Patel as the setting for the solitaire that is Modi, the  Loh Purush  as warm-up act for Non-Stick Narendra. Jonathan Liew: India protests highlight uncomfortable links between cricket and establishment   Napoleon Bonaparte famously crowned himself Emperor of France; Narendra Modi at Motera went one better: he had himself elevated in absentia with the President of the ...

There are two certain ways to lose a friend: one, have an affair with his wife;  two, start a discussion on politics. The first can occasionally be a tempting prospect, for as the wise guy said: all best things in life are either illegal, immoral or married to someone else. Having an affair just got easier too, with the Supreme Court ruling that adultery is not a crime. But a word of caution for my friends in the army who may be breaking out the champagne bottles - the Ministry of Defence has filed a review petition in the SC asking that it should continue to be illegal for army types. Apparently ( the govt. feels) that the Army operates in peculiar conditions and the guys at the borders cannot really keep their sights on the Chinese and the Pakis if they are looking over their shoulders all the time to see who's inviting their spouses for a drink in the oui hours of the night. I agree. The SC does appear to be making things difficult for our Army Commanders- first it amends Arti...

'Should powerful people and institutions show an inability to tolerate rebuke or criticism, we would be reduced to a country of incarcerated artists and flourishing lapdogs'... About his tweets against the apex court, Kamra felt the suggestion that they could shake the foundations of the most powerful court in the world is an “over-estimation of his abilities”....  Such a suggestion by the petitioners, he said, reveals how little faith they appear to have in the people of this country. Public faith, he said, is founded on the institution’s own actions, and not any criticism or commentary. Stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra Friday offered no defence for his jokes to the Supreme Court, saying they were based on a comedian’s perception, and used to make the audience that shared that perception laugh. “There’s no defence for jokes… These jokes are not reality and don’t claim to be so. Most people do not reach to jokes that don’t make them laugh; they ignore them like our political leade...

Ingredients: 1 or 2 bottles of rum 1 cup butter 1/8 tsp. sugar 2 large eggs 1 cup dried fruit 2 cups wheat flour baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda lemon juice brown sugar nuts Directions: Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. Select a large mixing bowl or measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again. It must be just right!  To be sure the rum is of the highest quality, pour 1 level cup of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat With an electric mixer, beat butter in large fluffy bowl. Add flour, 1 seaspoon of thugar and beat again.  Meanshile, it’s important to make sure the rum is of the finest quality - try another cup Open the second quart of rum if necessary. Add 1 arge legg, 2 cups of fried druit and bleat till high If the fried druits tend to shtick in the glades of the bixer, just lusen them with a drewscriver  Before rouring in the pum, itsh very important (hic) to shample it agen for flavour and conshisthency Nexsht, sift 3 cups of saa...

Why should their lordships get so infuriated by a couple of sallies targeting them – he spares no one, not even the prime minister or his pit bull anchor. Kamra  belongs to a hoary tradition of court jesters – recollect Akbar and Birbal, Patch Sexton in the court of Henry VIII (who inspired Shakespeare’s fool in King Lear) – whose job was not only to amuse the king but also to remind him of a few home truths. Comedians are important sounding boards for all rulers, and our legal czars would do well to revisit history, if not the constitution. Calling the Supreme Court a joke is just a joke, your honour, unless you feel in your heart of hearts that it is more than that – that it could be a terrible truth – in which case it is not the court’s honour which is at work here, but a guilty conscience. The question goes like this: Question: What is contempt of court? Answer: A joke.    That’s literally true in the India of today: three jokes on the Supreme Court, posted on Twitter...

One day a Colonel Sa'ab from the Army fell into a well. The soldiers would throw a rope into the well and pull the Colonel Sa'ab out. The moment the Colonel would come up, the soldiers would leave the rope snap to attention and salute. The Colonel Sa'ab would fall back into the well. This happened many times. Someone suggested that a Brigadier  Sa'ab  be requested for help - HE wouldn't have to salute the Colonel. So one Brigadier Sa'ab arrived. He threw the rope into the well and the Colonel Sa'ab grabbed it.  The Brigadier Sa'ab began pulling the rope.  As soon as the Colonel Sa'ab reached the top of the well, he spotted the Brigadier Sa'ab. He immediately left the rope and saluted. And he fell back once more, into the well. There was total silence. Then everyone heard the desperate Colonel Sa'ab's voice from down below  You idiots - get hold of a batch mate !! MORAL OF THE STORY: Batchmates ARE important ! They can save your life!!!  ...

A groundbreaking Arabic satirical news site that skewers the Middle East’s politicians and pieties – dodging the ire of hostile governments and their online supporters – has launched an English language edition. Al-Hudood (the Limits), with deadpan headlines reminiscent of the US publication the Onion, has rankled authorities in the Arab world since  launching  in 2013.  It gives new audiences a taste of groundbreaking humour that ranges from dry ( Students at local school memorise lesson in independent thinking ) to dark ( Intelligence service corrects beliefs of man who thought he only feared God )  to pitch-black ( Syrian dies of natural causes ). “People have gone numb to all the horrors that are around us, and we are trying to get them to look at things from a new angle,” said Isam Uraiqat, the website’s London-based editor-in-chief…. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/20/onion-style-arabic-satirical-news-website-launches-english-edition-al-hudood God re...

In 2016, the Republican candidate for president,  Donald Trump , may have exaggerated somewhat when he declared: “The world is laughing at us. They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity.” No longer. As counting in the crisis-racked North American state entered its 10th day, around the world it  had  become the butt of many jokes. After decades of enduring its hubris and condescension, many are happy to see the self-anointed “shining city on a hill” and self-proclaimed “greatest country in the history of the world” knocked down a peg or two.... The chaotic US election has undoubtedly been the biggest story in the world in the last two weeks. Watching it unfold from over 13,000km away in  Kenya , the election itself – the long queues, the delayed and disputed vote count, impugned credibility – was disturbingly familiar. Our own elections follow a near-identical pattern. The media coverage, not so much. Gone were the condescending tone, the adjective-laden labels and the ...

A gardening firm, situated between crematorium and sex shop, played comic role in final throes of president’s campaign. As Donald Trump’s rise was accompanied by branded  merchandise  – steaks, ties, boxers and red Maga hats – so his descent may come to be known by the stickers, shirts and hoodies now being  sold  by an obscure Pennsylvanian landscaping company that wound up playing a comic and widely celebrated role in the final throes of the president’s re-election campaign. Four Seasons Total Landscaping – a Philadelphia grounds-keeping company situated between a crematorium and a sex shop where on Saturday Rudy Giuliani somehow held a  press conference  about baseless  claims  of voter fraud – has swiftly sought to cash in on its newfound fame, selling merchandise emblazoned with Trump-inspired puns. “MAKE AMERICA RAKE AGAIN”, read one sticker on sale on the company website on Monday. It also featured the phrase “LAWN AND ORDER!” The ...

Since everyone is into kitchen tips, here’s an old Indian specialty. Nobody cooks a woman’s goose like Indian men. Over the years they have added barbaric tweaks, because anyone can robotically follow a formula, but it’s in the personal touch that you really express yourself. Its name is euphemistic, since few Indians like to call a spade a spade (see ‘eve-teasing’ and ‘outraging a woman’s modesty’) . This recipe is so popular that you can be sure that on average 90 times every day—that we know of—some Indian man, somewhere, is cooking a woman’s goose.. The basic dish is simple: Take a woman against her will, dominate her, and pierce her flesh with whatever is at hand—a penis is a convenient favourite, but it could be anything, really. She will release a mix of fear, pain, misery, humiliation, rage, and grief. Check your humanity thermometer—when it hits zero, she’s done. Cover up the whole thing and let the heat subside, and serve up to your fr...

Gongs were also awarded for research into vibrating earthworms, French kissing and bellowing alligators.. The peace prize honoured the governments of India and Pakistan for having their diplomats ring each other’s doorbells in the middle of the night and run away before anyone answered… The annals of science brim with researchers who pushed the boundaries of sense and good taste in a laudable quest for knowledge. With the unveiling of the 30th annual  Ig Nobel awards , another case shall be added.. This year’s awards included a physics prize for work that recorded the shapes earthworms adopt when  vibrated at high frequency .  To test the validity of a story in a work of ethnographic literature, Metin Eren, an anthropologist at Kent State University in Ohio, made a knife from his frozen faeces. He then set about butchering an animal hide, an endeavour that ended in failure. “It’s an honour to be recognised,” Eren said, before the ceremony in which he was honoured for his ...

NB : Faced with disaster and evil doing, we may either laugh or weep. Avay Shukla makes us giggle. PGW would have loved him - in the midst of imprisonment during WW2, he wrote: "I'm being kept in Upper Silesia - if this is Upper Silesia, I hate to think what Lower Silesia must be like". As we continue to enjoy Achche Din, Mr Shukla reminds us that (1) Mr Narendra Modi is the country’s sole post graduate in “Entire Political Science”; and (2), that  Once upon a time there used to be news . Also that he used to play golf but has run out of balls. Cheers Mr Shukla - we'll drink a toast of gau-mutra to you while we wait for the Bright New Dawn. DS ... the government and the BJP are upping the blame game ante. They had begun by blaming the Mughals, then the British, graduated to the Gandhis ( the unoffending poor Mahatma included), moved on to Manmohan Singh and finally settled on Jawaharlal Nehru. But there is only so much earth you can pile on to a person who has been de...

Remember when there was a plot to assassinate the prime minister but somehow only one pro-government private news channel had the mega-breaking-exclusive-explosive details? What do you mean, which time? Every time those fine PR executives think it’s time to distract from the government’s giant cockups.  Anyway, I wish for the PM to remain safe, so I suggest they start frisking the peacocks. I hope you have all seen that painful prime ministerial video featuring peacocks, only some of which were birds, and one of which changed its plumage six times in the course of one minute and forty-seven seconds.  Peacocks seem to be the only living things around the PM, besides the television crew that choreographs his every unguarded moment, whether it is meditating in a cave, doing yoga, or feeding other peacocks. But threat perception is a serious business, and it’s best not to get complacent. If his Twitter account could be so easily hacked, it’s probably just a matter of time before a...

एक बात हमेशा ज़हन में सवाल खड़े करती है। A question that stays in my mind... मोदीजी को गांधी बनना है। Modiji wants to be Gandhi मोदीजी को सुभाष चन्द्र बोस बनना है। Modiji wants to be Subhas Chandra Bose मोदीजी को सरदार पटेल बनना है। Modiji wants to be Sardar Patel मोदीजी को भगतसिंह बनना है। Modiji wants to be Bhagat Singh मोदीजी को शिवाजी महाराज बनना है। Modiji wants to be Shivaji Maharaj मोदीजी कभी सावरकर क्यों नहीं बनते..? Why doesn't Modiji want to be Savarkar? मोदीजी कभी हेडगेवार क्यों नहीं बनते...? Why doesn't Modiji want to be Hedgewar? मोदीजी कभी गोलवलकर क्यों नहीं बनते..? Why doesn't Modiji want to be Golwalkar? मोदीजी कभी डॉ. मुंजे क्यों नहीं बनते...? Why doesn't Modiji want to be Dr Moonje? मोदीजी कभी गोडसे क्यों नहीं बनते...? Why doesn't Modiji want to be Godse? कब तक हमारे "हीरों" को गोद लेकर अपना काम चलाओगे...?  How long will you carry our heroes in your lap?  कभी अपने वाले भी ट्राई कर के देखिए।  Once in a wh...

If we’re talking about culture that makes people happy, we have to start with the works of P. G. Wodehouse. There are two reasons why. One reason is that making people happy was Wodehouse’s overriding ambition. The other reason is that he was better at it than any other writer in history. Some authors may want to expose the world’s injustices, or elevate us with their psychological insights. Wodehouse, in his words, preferred to spread “sweetness and light”. Just look at those titles: Nothing Serious, Laughing Gas, Joy in the Morning. With every sparkling joke, every well-meaning and innocent character, every farcical tussle with angry swans and pet Pekingese, every utopian description of a stroll around the grounds of a pal’s stately home or a flutter on the choir boys’ hundred yards handicap at a summer village fete, he wanted to whisk us far away from our worries. Writing about being a humourist in his autobiography Over Seventy, Wodehouse quoted two peo...

Friends, yeomen, countrymen, Lend me your fears. I come to bury human decency, not to praise it. The evil that left-liberalism does lives on after it, especially on social media; the good is oft interred with its bones. So, let it be with a little damn human decency. The noble Modi has told you that human decency is an outdated speed bump on the road to development and self-reliance, aka doing what he says without asking too many questions—if so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath human decency answered it.  Here, under leave of Modi and the rest—for Modi is an honourable man; so are they all, all honourable people—come I to speak at decency’s funeral. It was a founding principle baked into the Constitution, egalitarian and just to all; but Modi thinks that surprise announcements with four hours’ notice are sexier; and Modi is an honourable man.

"Look, I'm not some stupid librandu who is out of touch with reality. My demands are reasonable. All I want is for 200 million Muslims to leave the country because Aurangzeb. I want 30 million Christians to leave India because Lagaan. I want 23 million Sikhs to leave India because Navjot Sidhu. I want to stop cows from getting slaughtered in India so that they can be exported and slaughtered in Vietnam. I want anyone transporting cattle or eating beef to be lynched by mobs...except in the North-East because we need votes there.  I want India to become a vegetarian country even though 70% of Indians are non-vegetarian. I want Hindi to be the national language even though 60% of Indians don't speak it. I don't want men and women to interact in public or private. I want homosexuals to stay away from same sex and become heterosexual...and when they become heterosexual I want them to stay away from the opposite sex because both straight sex and zigzag sex are against Ind...

From  johnnaughton.substack Lovely  thought-experiment  by a Nobel laureate: “Imagine a world”, he writes, “in which the only way to get a soda is to get your doctor to write a prescription”.  It costs $20 per can. Your insurance company pays.  The economy produces about 100,000 sodas each day. If you lived in this world, do you think you could get people to scale up the production of soda to a level of millions of cans per day? It would be a challenge,  but not because it is hard to produce and distribute soda . This is the point of the thought-experiment. Because they have to keep total costs from running out of control, insurance companies, health care providers, and government regulators have cobbled together a system that limits access to soda. One part of this system is an expensive regulatory process that has to approve: the ingredients in each particular brand of soda; the paper insert that comes with the soda informing patients about ...