Friday, May 16, 2008
Mischief: The Forlorn Lover
The Targets:
1. Soumya choudhury a.k.a. Babusona
2. Durba Mukherjee a.k.a. My Little Sis
3. Barsali Bhattacharyya a.k.a. Tinni
4. Rishav Mukherjee a.k.a. Tumtumi
5. Alapan De a.k.a. My Genius Pal
6. Pushan Sen a.k.a. Pussycat
The Passive Accomplices: (who knew about this from day 1)
1. Soumyajit Ghosh a.k.a. Rahul
2. Jisha Chakraborty a.k.a. My Good old ‘didi’
3. Sady (Rishav’s College Friend)
The Adversely Affecteds:
1. Sambudhha Mukherjee (Durba’s Boyfriend) a.k.a. ‘Bua-da’
ABOUT MY VICTIMS…
Soumya Choudhury: The resident big guy of our para, who makes me feel at least 60 pounds lighter, happens to be a very good friend of mine… even though we have an age difference of about two years. From his Puja antics (that ranges from getting caught using the metro premises as a spittoon to getting sick after the voluntary over-administering of you-know-what last year… something which I missed witnessing first-hand!) to acts of getting cold sweat (literally) on his forehead on seeing a particularly attractive lady, woman… or girl! The passionate foodie, (one of the reasons I avoid going anywhere near a restaurant with him…) he has the habit of forcing a free treat down your throat (which is really nice, but you see, I’m trying to loose my weight!) anytime he feels like! The highlight, of course, is his apparent shyness in front of girls… I remember him returning from college with me and Durba (since he’s an Asu student as well) and even though Durba tried her best to start a decent conversation with him, he wasn’t very comfortable with the idea!
Durba Mukherjee: She’s my li’l sister, from day one, I guess! And as a result, she’s been the constant butt of my mean jokes! From her dumb acts of befriending each and every guy with blind trust to her ‘Byabsa Bandh’ antic at Nandan! I guess I just HAVE to elucidate! It so happened that this sister of mine was looking for a place where she could get a BSNL top-up from (for a SIM of the WB Circle). There happens (or, happened… I think I should use the past tense) to be a retailer of BSNL services on the Nandan premises itself! But for some reason of the other, the retailer stopped his business but didn’t have time to remove the signboard while carrying on a parallel venture of some sort! Durba approached the man and asked him, “Can you make a BSNL top-up?” “No.”, the man answered, “The business is closed (Byabsa bondho ache!)” Durba asks again, “Can you make a top-up of the West Bengal circle?” the man replies a little strongly, “Miss, the business is closed!” and then my innocent sister asks innocently, “Byabsha kobe khulbe?” (When will the business re-open???)
Barsali Bhattacharyya: Ironically enough, I became great friends with this school-mate of mine after I left school! In school, our conversations were restricted to this: she asks me, “Kire, English-e koto peli?” I tell her the marks. She says, “Wow!” I ask “Ar tui?” She tells her marks and I say, “Wow!” End of story! A little quirky (her email id says she’s a crackhead… I’m not about to argue with her on that!), pleasant, friendly… I’ve used a lot of adjectives right here! An avid Jane Austen fan, a passionate feminist, slightly hot-tempered… maybe all this doesn’t sum her up, but since this article is aimed at highlighting the negative aspects of my victims (since this has an underlying motive of defending my prank!), this will be just enough for sweet Tinni! And I guess I HAVE to mention one more thing! She’s waiting for the arrival of a suitable boyfriend in her life, but I didn’t think the proposal of an unknown suitor will make her very happy… and that’s where my prank stole the show! Thank you very much!
Rishav Mukherjee: My oldest friend from my locality! I took admission in the same school (Holy Home, Kolkata) as he used to study in, back when I shifted to Kolkata permanently in 1997. So I guess he’s been my friend for a decade now! And has he changed in all these years? He’s still the meek, innocent-looking, really nice and friendly guy that he used to be, apart from being a menace when he wanted to be one! But recently, he has acquired this totally crazy habit of collecting girls’ cellphone numbers from anywhere and everywhere imaginable! He tries to woo them through the phone, and he’s got addicted to that, if I’m not mistaken! He has befriended a few of his cell-mates (wow, I guess life is a prison!) but is still carrying on his befriending act in full fervor! What started off as a search for a suitable girlfriend has ended up as an addiction… well, the good, sane friend as I am, I decided to give him a reality check… FINE, I admit… I just wanted to have some fun teasing the hell out of him with all my other local friends when the prank got over!
Alapan De: I know him since 1999. Actually, no! I know him since 2005, after we became proper friends in Class XI! Before that, in every conversation that we had (cannot be more than ten!), I was greeted by a myriad of well-chosen demeaning slangs… and I guess I wasn’t the only one! My old friend Prashanta once made a comment, “Shit! I’m not gonna sit nowhere near these guys (Alapan and his bosom buddy Debarun). Galagal diye gushtir shostipujo kore debe!”. Well, the transformation that started somewhere in the middle of Class X (when I realized that he was actually a nice guy… there was one incident… I dunno if even Alapan remembers that!) took a massive form in Class XI, when he became the resident mad genius of XI Commerce… from being the teacher’s pet to the victim of an imaginary rumor (who started it?) involving him and Barsali! The only good thing that came out of it was that the two became good friends! Well, with all these transformations and everything, another change crept onto him… he started becoming very touchy about things! He started worrying even in the most trivial of matters… and that’s what prompted my prank!
Pushan Sen: And last but not the least, Pushan! The resident Pussycat of our college! Girls think he’s handsome, he gets depressed at girls’ proposals! There’re actually several hindrances of being Pushan’s friend! Girls have often approached me (or any other friend of his) to introduce them to him! Imagine if the girl requesting this happens to be ‘hot’ and you happen to be a guy who wouldn’t mind dating a ‘hot’ girl, especially since you’re currently dating no one… well, dear Pushan, life’s hard that way! Anyways, I’m glad he’s my friend. He happens to be a very good listener (something some of my friends have said I am too… well, friends have to have something in common, isn’t it?) and a very loyal friend… apart from being a miniature version of Alapan when it comes to worrying and getting upset at the slightest provocation!
day one
may 1st, 2008
I got hold of the infamous SIM that was about make life a little ‘more’ difficult for a few people. I mean, I got myself a brand new Vodafone SIM, which I was planning to use full-time after it assisted me for some time in torturing (that’s an exaggeration!) some of my very good friends! I began the ritual with a harmless missed call to all my targets.
Well, before my live commentary bores the hell out of you, let me give you my blueprint of terror, or as I like to call it, “La Blueprint Amour” (If I had ever studied French, my French teacher would’ve murdered me by now, I guess!) It was actually quite plain and simple- just call (well, I may be a good actor on the phone, but I think I suck at voice modulation! So, I better keep my mischief (as much as I can) to text messages!) or message these people… posing as ‘Neel’ for the girls, and ‘Nilanjana’ or ‘Sanchita’ for the boys… and see how much I can stretch them to the point of reciprocating totally invisible love or, in cases of Tinni and Durba, how mad can you go???
My project started with our revered friend and dada Babusona-da. Well, to start with, he had a friend called A (can’t disclose the name for privacy purposes), who he happened to like, but the girl never gave a damn about him and didn’t even bother to be in touch. I simply posed as A and sent him a text, saying ‘this is my new number and if you need to get in touch with me, call/sms on this number and not my previous one since I’ve given that to my sister!’. Well, I had thought that my dear friend would lose himself in a web of painful retrospection and would then, call me up and tell me all about it… and that maybe his feelings for A were returning! But I daresay he shocked me! Within a few moments of me sending him that sms, he called A back… and as I said, I wasn’t too keen on talking to any of my targets… let alone talking to him in a woman’s voice… but after repeated calls, I had to receive the call, posing to be some guy other than me… and telling him that this is A’s phone, do you want to talk to her? (Coz I was sure that the prospect of talking to A will make my friend terribly uncomfortable!) but then, as I almost pulled off my first stunt, my mom came into the room, and though she didn’t address me by my name… well, let’s just say I was busted! My friend called me up on my Airtel number, and well, I had to give in, of course! Such a terrible setback… such an ominous start to such a grand project like this! Well, he promised not to disclose this number of mine to anyone till I completed my project with Tumtumi, who’s a common friend of ours. I was fairly dejected, to say the least!
Night came, and I was bidding my time to pounce upon the rest of my targets when dear Barsali called me for a little chit-chat! Oh, I hate lying to my friends…
Around midnight, as I sent Barsali my first text-message with a self-scripted third grade Shayari and a story of how ‘I’ had seen her on Jan 20th at the Kunal Ganjawala show at Swabhumi, my other target Durba, a good friend of mine from college, started messaging me herself as I had given her a ridiculous number of missed calls by then. She had asked me to reveal my identity or stop disturbing her… and I actually did neither… just sent her stupid sms-es like ‘guess me who I am!!!’ and ‘I wanna be your friend’ and stuff like that, to which she angrily replied, ‘I don’t talk to strangers!’ Wow, at least someone remembers what her mother taught her when she was two!
Incidentally, Soumyajit called me up in the meantime and I mentioned the tale of the new SIM and the amorous sms to Barsali… and at least we had a fun time laughing about and wondering how she’d react when she woke up the next day and saw that fateful sms in her inbox!
DAY TWO
MAY 2ND, 2008
(Mid-morning)
Success!!! Partially, yes! But success nevertheless! All thanks to my little sis Durba, dear friends Rishav and Alapan, although Barsali caught me a little off-guard! First up, Durba: I sent an sms saying sorry and introducing myself as Neel… saying I saw her near Tollygunj metro one day and have been in love with her ever since (talk about lying with a straight face! Well, since I was sms-ing, I should probably name this ‘Lying with a straight finger!’) She was actually pretty cool about everything and asked me about ‘me’! And I said ‘me’ was a 2nd year Physics student in Xavier’s… I had my parents at our home in Golf Green, alongwith a big sis. We chatted, she told me about her boyfriend… that she was dedicated to him (Sambuddha happens to be a local friend of mine! I’m just waiting for the moment when Durba will tell him about Neel!), and Neel expressed his regret… that he must be crazy to have fallen in love with a person who was destined not to be hers!
Again, since Barsali was unusually silent after last night’s stupid shayari, I sent her another message saying how unlucky Neel was to be ignored by her dream woman after he had spent months trying to get her number from somewhere. At last, she replied saying that she wasn’t at the TTIS carnival (Kunal Ganjawala show) on the 20th, which was a shocker since I know for a fact she was there! So she was playing a game, huh? Well, I’m not too far behind, dear Tinni! I sent her a message asking her whether she was sure about this, and whether she was the one with the glasses, and the cutest smile (well, let’s face it: she does have a cute smile!) and to introduce a little vagueness into the account, I mentioned that I saw her near golpark one day… and wasn’t her name Varshali?? Well, I’m still waiting for a reply to that thing… hope it’ll come sooner than later! And what a timing, old friend… as I’m writing this, she’s calling Neel… and hell, Neel’s not ready to talk to her now!!! Sorry, I had to end your calls like that… hope you’ll take it all in good humor when this is over…
And how can I forget my dear pal Alapan? His freaked out reaction when that fateful sms from Nilanjana that read something like ‘Hi, I have fallen in love with you… and I know you study in city, and I want to meet you, what about today, near Planet M in Golpark?’… The reaction was ‘Who are you? Where did you get my number? If you call or sms me again, you’ll be in a lot of trouble. Tell me who gave you my number. Don’t tell, and you’re still in trouble.’
And last but not the least, precious Rishav… who took the pain to contact me (that sounds so weird!!! Nilanjana!!! He took the pain to contact Nilanjana… not me!) from a friend’s number since he did not have adequate balance in his cell! He was so good to Nilanjana… I wonder how he didn’t manage to get a girlfriend by now! He even tried calling Nilanjana, but alas, since she wasn’t there, I didn’t pick up the call… Nilanjana wrote that this was her mom’s number and that she didn’t have the privacy required to talk to him!
(Late afternoon)
I just talked to Durba… in a falsely (and ill-done) accented voice… and what a performer am I! If there was some kind of an award for flirting on the phone, I would’ve breezed through with the first prize. God, I just can’t believe I’m writing this about myself! I sounded dejected when she blabbed on about dear Sambudhha… but I was a little taken aback when she told me her little brother’s name was Neel as well! Seriously, sister, I didn’t know your bro’s name was Neel! But anyways, it helped me to deliver a pretty catchy but clichéd phrase: ‘Although my name is Neel Mukherjee, too, don’t you start regarding me as your brother as well!’ Well, I’m seriously not the type who boasts too much about oneself, but I was absolutely mind-blowing! I mean, the fact that we haven’t talked much on the phone helped, but I was cool nevertheless! I’m still not too confident about taking on Miss Barsali one-on-one, though, coz for starters, she won’t be very keen on starting a ‘friendship’ with a complete stranger (who distantly sounds like a friend of hers… yup, I’m talking about someone called Jagannath, or Jesse… for the umpteenth time, Tinni, NOT JOGA!) and since this is the first acting that I’ve been doing in my entire life… i.e. acting after putting myself in someone else’s shoes, the Durba-ish attitude of ‘Okay, I accept you as my friend… so tell me about you!’ helps rather than the probable Barsali snap of ‘Go to hell, buzz off! I don’t know you, I’m not Varshali!’ Sure I know you’re not ‘Varshali’, dear friend! But nevertheless, a word of advice from big bro to little sis: Durba, don’t accept unknown people as your friends so easily, even if they appear ‘not hyprocritical’, ‘straightforward’ and blah blah blah!
On the other hand, Alapan, after having freaked out after my sms-es, tried calling Nilanjana from his mom’s Airtel number repeatedly, I reckoned he suffered enough… after all, at the end of the day, he was a good friend who was only too fond of freaking out even in trivial matters! As I called him on his usual number, his mom (surprise?? Nope!) picked up the call and asked me who I was… I said it was me and Alapan started with a grudging ‘Eta kintu bhalo korli na, dekh!’ he seemed to get a new life, after having spent the entire day in mute tension… wondering if it was someone from college, or was it me… and he was actually not putting it past Varshali (oops, Barsali) either! He even went on to say that he was thinking of calling customer care and lodging a complaint, and block my (Nilanjana’s) number altogether! As a small snippet of info, he casually mentioned that the thought of calling 100 had crossed his mind as well! Well, apparently, he was stuck by a small bout of fever (I sincerely hope it wasn’t caused by me… if it was, I’m terribly sorry, Alapan!) and he went on to add that it wasn’t the result of Nilanjana’s proposal! Anyways, I told her about my blueprint, and even he (yes, of all people!) got excited when I told him about my small project! He went on to say that I (Neel) was free to tell Barsali that it was Alapan who had given me (Neel) the number… let’s say I’ll think about it!
My other victim today was Pushan. An sms went to him saying ‘I am Sanchita and I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a long time. I’ve fallen in love with you, will you please meet me?’. His reaction was reported to me by my angry ‘didi’ Jeesha (I hadn’t even given her a few missed calls from my new number… and my call was picked up by her father!!! I had to give up!) Apparently, Pushan was very ‘dejected’ at this prospect of a newfound love interest in his life with S (again, privacy restrictions!) and apparently, he had switched his ‘mood’ off.
In case you’re wondering how long this is gonna continue… (till I exhaust my balance, maybe?) I’m gonna stretch it till I feel like they’re gonna crack! Like in Alapan’s case… I had indeed called him up at the right time! I’ll let Pushan out of this soon, too, he gets upset real easily! But I’m not so sure about Barsali, Durba and Rishav! I have a text-chat date (wow, that sounds sick!) with Rishav tonight and another one with Durba as well (eww! That’s sick too… she’s my sister!)… and I’ll continue my efforts to woo (oh boy, this is so damn funny!!!) dear Barsali as well…
Footnote: I was actually thinking of troubling dear Shuvra as well… but he has his WBJEE and every alphabetical exam coming up… so I shouldn’t bother him now… but I would’ve had the most fun with him… after all, he would’ve loved to chat with someone called Ishita…
To me, this is a lovely escape from my boring routine of preparing for CLAT and my University exams and the private tuitions that I give in the evening! Our college has given us an over-extended, unwanted vacation. Life’s a real bore. Hey, Barsali, Durba, Rishav… and everyone else, I know you guys have exams coming up too, okay? (Alapan was especially freaked out because of that!) But I sincerely hope you won’t mind me taking a little time of yours… come on, you guys are sporting, right?
(Night)
Game, set, match… it’s really an amazing feeling to be successful… and I guess what transpired at around 5-30 in the evening was the sheer height of success in my little project! This is the show of the phoenix, my friends… and the rest will be just afterburns! There is a fat chance that this mischief manuscript will have an anti-climax of sorts after what I’m about to jot down!
Drumrolls please… to begin with, I didn’t buzz off even though Tinni asked me to! And I pressed on to confirm (since she was denying being Varshali!) that whether she indeed was ‘not’ Varshali! She convinced me (like I needed convincing!--- man, I just can’t stop laughing!) that she wasn’t and that she didn’t know anyone by the name Varshali! Okay… I seemed to believe her… so I tell her ‘you broke my heart, pretty lady! U sure you don’t know anyone by the name Varshali? Her number was given to me by a friend of hers called Alapon (sic) (Ya, I granted Alapan’s little request! You see, I’m such a nice guy!) but maybe he gave me the wrong number. I’m really sorry if you are not Varshali. Have a nice life, whoever you may be!”
As the delivery report of that message came my way, I realized that I had just dropped a bombshell! And soon enough, sooner than I had expected… the fire was seen in the distance! Varshali oops… Barsali called me on my Airtel number… and asked me if I was at home so she could call my mom’s Vodafone number (since Tinni has a Vodafone number as well!). I was a little taken aback! Mom’s Vodafone SIM was actually replaced for the time being by the ‘infamous one’, and I made up something like, “Okay, wait a sec, my cell isn’t functioning properly, so I took mom’s cell…’ and blah blah blah… I was afraid she’s do a simple calculation of 2+2 (Since she’s quite good at maths! After all everyone doesn’t get 98 in their ISC exams!) and bust me! (In my hurry, I dunno what happened but my phone, my beloved Sony Ericsson indeed went dead for about half an hour after that! Call that creepy!) Anyways, after sometime, she was able to call me up… and she recounted the tale that made her call up her friend from TTIS: Zainab at 2 in the night, or is it morning? (She had thought that some TTIS friend must’ve given Neel her number!) She recounted, a little excitedly, how the guy had been sending stupid sentimental sms-es all day long! And she gave me a few examples (I am innocent as a daisy… I didn’t know… so I wanted to know…) of those sms-es and I gasped and laughed and acted surprised wherever my own script (enacted by Barsali, who wasn’t acting, and therefore was brilliant in enacting my script!) demanded so! And then came the drumrolls… the last fateful sms that mentioned Alapan! And Barsali went like, “Okay, I’m reading this out, okay? Listen to this…You won’t believe this!” (She reads the message) I cleared my throat indicatively at the ‘broken heart’ part! I laughed at the ‘pretty lady’ part, and… with the lofty ambition of dropping my own bombshell on me… she announced the Alapon part! And I went “WHAT! You gotta be kidding me! April’s gone, and are you trying to make me a May fool or something?”
As I told ya, I’m pretty darn good at this acting on the phone thingy! And I daresay Tinni was fooled! Simply put, fooled! Now, she said that she has been trying to call Alapan for the last few minutes (who, as I had told him to, didn’t pick up Barsali’s calls!) and since she wasn’t been able to get through to him, she called me to check whether I knew anything about this whole freaking business (since I’m supposed to be the closest friend of Alapan’s from school. Or is it Adrish, what do you say, Tinni? Science City auditorium still fresh in the mind!--- this is a private joke, you won’t understand if you aren’t one of the four!) and she was not at all sure whether this guy was serious or this was a prank… which of course it was! Anyways, I beat about the bush for a few minutes… but then reckoned that I had achieved the height of my success as far as this prank on this particular lady was concerned! I had fooled her totally, and well, I know where to draw the line!
Well, I guess she’s the first girl in the world to call me an ‘asshole’ and that’s saying something since I have indeed gracefully received a plethora of such praises from a number of girls… but no one thought I was worthy of that particular one before! Well, Tinni, you know how a guy playing villain in some movie takes curses from viewers as??? Of course you know… and in this case, thanks for calling me that! I took it as a praise, and I really admire the way you came to appreciate this whole thing later on, after you cooled down considerably, of course! She was brave enough to share her ‘Yeaaa!!! I became a fool’ story with Adrish as well, who was only too pleased to hear it all!
Anyways, after this business with dear Barsali got over, it was time to turn to dear Rishav! And boy, oh boy… what lengths will a boy go to befriend a girl… I mean, come on Rishav! Well, I have actually befriended Rishav’s friend from college Sady (who was trying to befriend my sweet innocent Nilanjana as well, I guess!) and told him that I was trying to make Rishav the ‘Murga of the year’… and he was totally cool with it and promised he won’t tell Rishav anything! I think he’ll keep his promise! It’s funny, I’ve never even seen this Sady- I just heard about him from Tumtumi himself! And now… well, I chatted with Rishav for about an hour before I got rather tired! Phew! It’s hard being so many people at once! And an over-excited Tumtumi is sending Nilanjana so many sms-es like ‘Is any of my friends bothering you? Plz dnt mind if they are doing that… chat wid u at 11!’ and ‘Dnt get angry at me if any of my friends sends u any message. Plz! Chat with you at 11!’ Boy, how desperate can you be? And aren’t you like chatting (not dating, yet!) regularly with this girl from Howrah? Come on, man! Learn to be a little loyal! Anyways, I am going to end this business with Rishav tonight itself… which will mean I will only have Pushan and Durba to deal with tomorrow! But not before I send another set of lovelorn sms-es to my little sis! (Boy, I sound real sick! And hell, I can’t stop smiling!!!) phew! Still so much to do tonight! And it’s already 10:10! Good night!
DAY THREE (HOPEFULLY THE FINAL DAY!)
3RD MAY, 2008
After that brilliant climax that was gifted to me yesterday by the incomparable Tinni, I was preparing myself for an anti-climax of sorts… because matching THAT would be the biggest challenge ever! Well, let’s forget about the future for a second and concentrate back on the past… time-traveling a mere 10 hours or something!
Apparently, Jisha rescued Pushan out of his mental agony by telling him about my little stunt! And I received an sms from him that said, “Khub rege geci tor upor. Bas, ar konodin kotha bolbo na. Jisha ke khub jherechi, ja toke ar kichu bolbo na! phone korbi na ekdom hanuman!” wow, Asshole, Hanuman… such lovely words only for me!!! I’m so touched!
Anyways, as soon as the Pushan episode came to a close, another prepared to reach its crescendo! My good friend Rishav! He was waiting ardently to chat with Nilanjana, wasn’t he? Now, I (rather, Nilanjana!) had introduced herself to be a student of Presidency College, 1st year, English honors! And to make matters a little vague and yet more complicated, I (Nilanjana) wrote that she had seen him when he had gone down to College Street with a few friends!
Following are the excerpts of our (I mean, Rishav and Nilanjana’s) colorful text-chat:
On Nilanjana’s regret that she doesn’t get privacy since she has to sleep beside her mother:
“Don’t worry, amio mayer kachei sui! Jhar khai phone niye sms ba kotha bolle rattirbelay kintu setatei amar maja!”
When Nilanjana said she saw him first near her college one day with his friends:
“Bujhlam! Tobe amar baki friends-ra thakte amar number tai nile keno? Nischoi kichu mone hoeche? Achha tumi khub taratari rege jao na? kokhon rago?”
When Nilanjana says she gets angry when Rishav asks him stupid questions like these… and confesses she liked him!
“Achha amar ki dekhe tomar eto bhalo laglo?”
When Nilanjana says it’s his smile:
“Just smile! Sotyi?”
Nilanajana asks, “Tumi ki amake jera korcho naki?? You are very suspicious!”
Rishav replies: “Are na jera korchina! Tumi rege jachho keno? Ami jiggesh korchi sudhu smile! Asole amar smile niye sobai amay khapay toh tai… please reply koro… rege jeo na… sorry sorry sorry sorry!!!!”
Rishav on himself:
“Ami kintu khub chup chap jano ki? Ar ektu-te senti kheye jai (sentimental hoye jai!) Bujhle? Bolle na amar modhye ki like korle tumi?”
There were other things as well. Like his story (probably, no… definitely fiction) of some girl betraying him, the name of whom Rishav wasn’t too keen on disclosing! I dunno if that is true… but Rishav didn’t tell Nilanjana details about that! Even if he had (and if that would’ve been true!), I wouldn’t have mentioned it here! He’s my friend, there’s a limit to how much I’m going to make him look like a fool! Anyways, after the above-mentioned sms that I listed in the excerpts, I reckoned I had enough, and seriously, I was running out of sms-es as well! So, I revealed my true identity last night itself… and he paid me a visit in the morning, along with a few other guffawing friends… well, I guess Rishav would dearly like to pay me back in my own coin someday… by making me a laughing stock… which he was (and will be again in the evening when we meet up with the rest of our friends) today!
(Afternoon)
Man, I’m under so much stress right now… a betrayal out of nowhere messed up my grand plans for the climax… and I’m not sure if I can pull off a recently-made plan B! Well, what I did in the morning was set up Neel’s meeting with Durba at a specified place, and I was preparing to fool her in public (I know its mean… guess I am a mean guy!) until Jisha, who happened to know that Durba was being set up to become the ‘Murgi of the Month’, decided to betray me and spill the beans! Durba, as a result, started sending provocatively amorous messages (and text kisses) to Neel’s number! And quite naturally, Neel, I mean me, was largely taken aback and I was not sure what was going on… until I suspected the obvious for some reason… which will serve as my climax, I hope!
I don’t know… my plan B requires me to trust (probably I’m making a mistake here!) Jeesha again, and also my good friend and Durba’s boyfriend Sambudhha, who might need to play a little role in this whole drama to bring the curtains down in a respectable manner for the director… that’s me! Dunno… probably I’m making yet another mistake by trusting the fickle Jisha and rather trustworthy Sambudhha, but since he’s Durba’s boyfriend… I don’t know… let’s see what happens!
(Night- At the end of it all…)
Well, I decided to ditch Plan B… I had a bombshell careful tucked under my sleeve… you know, the secret about “How the hell did I come to know about the whole ‘Jisha spilling the beans’ thing and stuff…” and I knew I’d be able to prove Durba to be a fool even to her, who thinks she’s one of the smartest people around… I bet we all think that about ourselves, don’t we? Anyways, after an eventless afternoon came a subdued early evening… and I finally revealed myself to Durba (after giving Plan B a little shot, but dropping it at almost the next instant!). And then came the hardest (or was it?) part! She ranted on and on about how the joke was on me… and she was laughing… with her boyfriend Sambudhha in the background… and I dropped the bombshell on Sambudhha first… his reaction is natural, “She does that often!” he said… and then, it was time for Durba to listen to the inconvenient truth…
“You know how I came to know that Jeesha has told you all about my grand endeavor?”
“How?”
“You sent me an sms on my Airtel number… which you were actually meaning to send to Jeesha… in which you had carefully given the details of what Neel’s reaction was after you professed your undying love for him… knowing perfectly well that it was your dear bro you were dealing with!”
Well, she was preparing to gift me a ‘lebu’… thinking ‘the joke was on me’… I think I’m right to say that… ‘The lebu is on her…”. As the call came to an end, I could still hear my sis muttering stuff like, ‘Oh god, I’m so stupid! Why do I do things like these? Why?’…
Well, I’m kinda exhausted! It ain’t so easy to fool people, you see! But I’d love to try it again sometime!
END OF MISCHIEF MANUSCRIPTS. PROJECT: THE FORLORN LOVER!
STANDS AT THE END OF THE GAMBLE:
MY SUCCESSFUL TARGETS:
1. ALAPAN DE
2. BARSALI BHATTACHARYYA
3. RISHAV MUKHERJEE
4. PUSHAN SEN
5. DURBA MUKHERJEE
MY UNSUCCESSFUL TARGETS:
1. SOUMYA CHOUDHURY
MY PASSIVE ACCOMPLICES:
1. SOUMYAJIT GHOSH
2. SADY
MY FICKLE PALS:
1. JEESHA CHAKRABORTY
MY SUFFERER FRIEND:
1. SAMBUDHHA MUKHERJEE (Who ended up having a row with his girlfriend over Neel! Sorry about that!)
AND A FINAL WORD… HERE’S AN OPEN CHALLENGE FOR YOU: PAY ME BACK… IF YOU GOT THE GUTS TO! GOOD LUCK!
T20 WORLD SERIES OWNERS’ INTERVIEW WITH SRK, PARIS HILTON, BRANGELINA AND SALMAN RUSHDIE.
The T20 spirit, after storming U.K., the place of its inception, places like the West Indies, South Africa and of course, with the ICL and IPL in India, is ready to hit the world circuit big time, and this time, it’s even bigger than the World Cup! The T20 World Series, a battle between thirty-two teams from all over the world, is ready to get underway in Orlando, Fl, USA where cricket caught up with the sports-entertainment fancies of football, baseball and basketball with it’s fair share of ‘home runs’ (sixes) and bubbly cheerleaders! The tournament will of course be played over a span of two months in every major city of the United States with teams from all over the world and owners ranging from former cricketers and businessmen and politicians and authors to movie stars looking for a tad more attention! Our representative Jesse Jobless caught up with the owners of the clubs belonging to Group A of the competition: The Kolkata Knight Riders, LA Adopteds, Paris Chihuahuas and Satan’s XI, the owners being Bollywood superstar and the King of Indian cinema Shah Rukh Khan, Hollywood Heavyweights Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Billion-dollar heiress and socialite Paris Hilton and Booker Award winning author Mr. Salman Rushdie, respectively.
JESSE: Well, most of you are relatively new in this venture of cricket, except you, Shah Rukh! So, what are your expectations from this thing and what drove you to this venture? All of you!
SRK: The betterment of cricket, of course! And also, to contribute, as much as I can, to this beautiful game. Of course the rumors have been going on that since my last three movies: Mohabbatein re-incarnated, Om Shanti Om re-reincarnated, and Dhoom 3 (I still don’t understand how the movie failed with my twelve packs on display! Maybe it was Abhishek…) failed to do much at the box office, I have removed John Buchanan and taken up the role of the owner-cum-coach-cum-publicity manager-cum-mascot-cum-jumping jack-cum-head cheerleader-cum-non playing captain of the team. Frankly, it’s not a lot of work! All I do is show up, recite my dialogues from Chak de India (WITH English subtitles for Ponting and co.), wave to anyone and everyone and display my dimpled smile, shake a leg and shoot a few ads, and I’m done!
PARIS: You see, this game… (what d’ya call it again?)… I bought a team for my boyfriend Brett Lee, who’s good at throwing the ball, I guess, who wanted me to be the owner anyways! So… I kinda thought… okay! And he wanted me to name it, and make the outfits for the players… so… I named them after me (Paris) and my pet Chihuahua… (isn’t that hot?) and I wanted to design real hot outfits for them too! I had this skin-tight thingies for them, with shorts… all in soothing pink… but they say they need baggy jerseys… and I said that’s totally last year… and they say, it’s not only last year, it’s been going on for the last century or something (that’s so like… old!) and I’m like… can we keep the pink? So, we’re keeping the pink! Pink’s hot!
JOLIE (Bracketed lines belonging to PITT): I was motivated to popularize this game in this part of the world after watching the madness over it first hand when I went to India for shooting ‘A Mighty Heart’ about a decade ago. But without any disrespect to anyone, I don’t approve of the prevalent idea of bidding for players. That was one of the reasons I started adopting players (Kids!), yes, kids, from all over the world. We sort of had the vision of forming a World XI, which is going to have representatives from all over the world. We went to Africa, Asia, Europe… (Not to mention our own children)… and now, we have our very own (Pitt-Jolie) cricket team… the Adopteds! (LA Adopteds)…
RUSHDIE: I had relatively indifferent (or rather, negative) views on cricket until the other day before I was approached by the idea of this wonderfully troubled and supposedly iconic cricketer called Sachin Moneykar. A multi-faceted character who’s a world-famous cricketer in his early-50s, has scored over 50000 runs in international cricket, but still has about another 50 years of cricket left in him. The only living cricketer who I thought could come anywhere close to this character was Sachin Tendulkar, and for purely research-oriented purposes, I went to Mumbai to gather some information when he asked me to buy off the Mumbai Indians team, whose owner The Reliance Industries, (after it’s mobile network went dead for 2 years at a stretch) was finding it difficult to continue sponsoring it after its continued losses in all previous IPL and other competitions. I figured that by being with this team, I would not only acquire every detail I needed about this game for my book, but also renew the bond with my city of birth, Bombay. So I decided to buy off the team and rename it, Satan’s XI (without meaning to create any controversy, so the riots in parts of India which have reduced the iconic status of Sachin even if only a little, aren’t my fault!)
Jesse: That’s very candid, thank you! Now, Shah Rukh, coming back to you, what do you have to say regarding your much-hyped fall-off with your former captain Saurav Ganguly? Was it really the clash of egos that the media are trying to portray, since Saurav’s debut movie ‘DADA’ (Duniya Ab Dewaana Apna) with Saurav and Sania Mirza in the lead, was a bigger hit than Om Shanti Om?
SRK: DADA was a great movie, a great concept, and Dada acted really well, considering it was his debut movie! And about this overblown fall-off story which was probably the product of a bored Bollywood columnist never happened in reality. Saurav simply said he wasn’t willing to be involved with the Knight Riders anymore since he was planning to start a team of his own: the Bengal Tiger’s Army! We said ‘best of luck’ to one another and went on our ways.
Jesse: But your constant involvement with your team, isn’t this going to hamper your upcoming Bollywood projects? Two months isn’t exactly a small amount of time.
SRK: I have this upcoming home production ‘Hit toh Khushi, Flop toh Gham’ which will be directed by Farah Khan. It would’ve been ready to release by the end of this year had Farah not decided to have a second set of triplets at this very time. I’ve told her to go for quadruplets the next time around! (laughs) And then there’s this project with Karan, which won’t have Karan in the lead beside me and which won’t be a Bollywood remake of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ as reported in some delirious filmy magazine, but will be a typical 4 and a ½ hours KJo flick with a million songs, I’ll be playing a teenage college-goer, the movie will be shot in the US or UK, with NRIs being the target audience, and I think it’ll be called ‘Karan Johar Ki Typical Formula’, armed heavily with bagfuls of tears and emotions and mindless comic situations, and I’m thinking of putting in an item number featuring me and a number of hot American girls! You know, Dard-e-Disco revisited…
Jesse: Enough about movies, let’s come back to The World Series! So the Knight Riders have their first game three days from now in Austin, TX against Rushdie’s Bombay Satan’s XI. You squaring off against Sachin again, huh? Old times!
SRK: Yes, old times! But it’s actually the first time I’m squaring off against him after my daughter ran off with his muscle-flexing, lousy-haired, no-gooder son without my consent. And being the loving dad that I am and always was to my daughter, I couldn’t bear to see her ruining her life in the company of that stupid boy! You know, he even has that stupid womanly voice like his dad, says ‘ayilah!’ whenever he’s confused, and decided to flunk his higher secondary exams. And my daughter fell for that copycat-of-daddy-Sachin! I would’ve been glad, though, with the relationship if that boy was even half as good a cricketer as his dad is. But he never even got selected for his school team!!! And I’m mostly angry at Sachin since he declined my request to return my daughter to me. He said, “Ayilah Shah Rukh, main to DDLJ dekh kar hi inspired hua hoon, main kaise doh pyar karte huye dil ko alag kar sakta hoon?”. I never regretted doing a movie in my life, but I think I do now!
Jesse: Well, it sure is personal, then! And we have a match on our hands! Thank you so much for sharing your time with us… and of course, best of luck! Any final words?
SRK: Yes, my vice-captain Ricky Ponting gave me an interesting proposal the other day, and said that I should try my hand at wicket-keeping, since I’m quite good at jumping, you see! So I’m considering being the playing captain for a change… but as of now, I’m yet to take the final decision… all I can say is: never fail to expect surprises from King Khan! And support the Knight Riders!
JESSE: Well, most of you are relatively new in this venture of cricket, except you, Shah Rukh! So, what are your expectations from this thing and what drove you to this venture? All of you!
SRK: The betterment of cricket, of course! And also, to contribute, as much as I can, to this beautiful game. Of course the rumors have been going on that since my last three movies: Mohabbatein re-incarnated, Om Shanti Om re-reincarnated, and Dhoom 3 (I still don’t understand how the movie failed with my twelve packs on display! Maybe it was Abhishek…) failed to do much at the box office, I have removed John Buchanan and taken up the role of the owner-cum-coach-cum-publicity manager-cum-mascot-cum-jumping jack-cum-head cheerleader-cum-non playing captain of the team. Frankly, it’s not a lot of work! All I do is show up, recite my dialogues from Chak de India (WITH English subtitles for Ponting and co.), wave to anyone and everyone and display my dimpled smile, shake a leg and shoot a few ads, and I’m done!
PARIS: You see, this game… (what d’ya call it again?)… I bought a team for my boyfriend Brett Lee, who’s good at throwing the ball, I guess, who wanted me to be the owner anyways! So… I kinda thought… okay! And he wanted me to name it, and make the outfits for the players… so… I named them after me (Paris) and my pet Chihuahua… (isn’t that hot?) and I wanted to design real hot outfits for them too! I had this skin-tight thingies for them, with shorts… all in soothing pink… but they say they need baggy jerseys… and I said that’s totally last year… and they say, it’s not only last year, it’s been going on for the last century or something (that’s so like… old!) and I’m like… can we keep the pink? So, we’re keeping the pink! Pink’s hot!
JOLIE (Bracketed lines belonging to PITT): I was motivated to popularize this game in this part of the world after watching the madness over it first hand when I went to India for shooting ‘A Mighty Heart’ about a decade ago. But without any disrespect to anyone, I don’t approve of the prevalent idea of bidding for players. That was one of the reasons I started adopting players (Kids!), yes, kids, from all over the world. We sort of had the vision of forming a World XI, which is going to have representatives from all over the world. We went to Africa, Asia, Europe… (Not to mention our own children)… and now, we have our very own (Pitt-Jolie) cricket team… the Adopteds! (LA Adopteds)…
RUSHDIE: I had relatively indifferent (or rather, negative) views on cricket until the other day before I was approached by the idea of this wonderfully troubled and supposedly iconic cricketer called Sachin Moneykar. A multi-faceted character who’s a world-famous cricketer in his early-50s, has scored over 50000 runs in international cricket, but still has about another 50 years of cricket left in him. The only living cricketer who I thought could come anywhere close to this character was Sachin Tendulkar, and for purely research-oriented purposes, I went to Mumbai to gather some information when he asked me to buy off the Mumbai Indians team, whose owner The Reliance Industries, (after it’s mobile network went dead for 2 years at a stretch) was finding it difficult to continue sponsoring it after its continued losses in all previous IPL and other competitions. I figured that by being with this team, I would not only acquire every detail I needed about this game for my book, but also renew the bond with my city of birth, Bombay. So I decided to buy off the team and rename it, Satan’s XI (without meaning to create any controversy, so the riots in parts of India which have reduced the iconic status of Sachin even if only a little, aren’t my fault!)
Jesse: That’s very candid, thank you! Now, Shah Rukh, coming back to you, what do you have to say regarding your much-hyped fall-off with your former captain Saurav Ganguly? Was it really the clash of egos that the media are trying to portray, since Saurav’s debut movie ‘DADA’ (Duniya Ab Dewaana Apna) with Saurav and Sania Mirza in the lead, was a bigger hit than Om Shanti Om?
SRK: DADA was a great movie, a great concept, and Dada acted really well, considering it was his debut movie! And about this overblown fall-off story which was probably the product of a bored Bollywood columnist never happened in reality. Saurav simply said he wasn’t willing to be involved with the Knight Riders anymore since he was planning to start a team of his own: the Bengal Tiger’s Army! We said ‘best of luck’ to one another and went on our ways.
Jesse: But your constant involvement with your team, isn’t this going to hamper your upcoming Bollywood projects? Two months isn’t exactly a small amount of time.
SRK: I have this upcoming home production ‘Hit toh Khushi, Flop toh Gham’ which will be directed by Farah Khan. It would’ve been ready to release by the end of this year had Farah not decided to have a second set of triplets at this very time. I’ve told her to go for quadruplets the next time around! (laughs) And then there’s this project with Karan, which won’t have Karan in the lead beside me and which won’t be a Bollywood remake of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ as reported in some delirious filmy magazine, but will be a typical 4 and a ½ hours KJo flick with a million songs, I’ll be playing a teenage college-goer, the movie will be shot in the US or UK, with NRIs being the target audience, and I think it’ll be called ‘Karan Johar Ki Typical Formula’, armed heavily with bagfuls of tears and emotions and mindless comic situations, and I’m thinking of putting in an item number featuring me and a number of hot American girls! You know, Dard-e-Disco revisited…
Jesse: Enough about movies, let’s come back to The World Series! So the Knight Riders have their first game three days from now in Austin, TX against Rushdie’s Bombay Satan’s XI. You squaring off against Sachin again, huh? Old times!
SRK: Yes, old times! But it’s actually the first time I’m squaring off against him after my daughter ran off with his muscle-flexing, lousy-haired, no-gooder son without my consent. And being the loving dad that I am and always was to my daughter, I couldn’t bear to see her ruining her life in the company of that stupid boy! You know, he even has that stupid womanly voice like his dad, says ‘ayilah!’ whenever he’s confused, and decided to flunk his higher secondary exams. And my daughter fell for that copycat-of-daddy-Sachin! I would’ve been glad, though, with the relationship if that boy was even half as good a cricketer as his dad is. But he never even got selected for his school team!!! And I’m mostly angry at Sachin since he declined my request to return my daughter to me. He said, “Ayilah Shah Rukh, main to DDLJ dekh kar hi inspired hua hoon, main kaise doh pyar karte huye dil ko alag kar sakta hoon?”. I never regretted doing a movie in my life, but I think I do now!
Jesse: Well, it sure is personal, then! And we have a match on our hands! Thank you so much for sharing your time with us… and of course, best of luck! Any final words?
SRK: Yes, my vice-captain Ricky Ponting gave me an interesting proposal the other day, and said that I should try my hand at wicket-keeping, since I’m quite good at jumping, you see! So I’m considering being the playing captain for a change… but as of now, I’m yet to take the final decision… all I can say is: never fail to expect surprises from King Khan! And support the Knight Riders!
GEORGE W. BUSH ON HIS ‘WAR AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING’
5. 16. 2010: It has been seen, down the years, that US senators and former Presidents have embarked upon social duty way beyond other’s expectations (and let’s face it: their capabilities!) after they resign or alienate themselves from their high-profile jobs. Almost following in the footsteps of compatriot Al Gore, who lost to him in the 2000 elections, former US President George W. Bush has decided to launch his very own movement in ‘saving the environment’- calling it “War Against Global Warming”. But unlike Mr. Gore, who received support from all quarters for his persistent efforts at educating people about Global Warming and its possible ill-effects, Bush is receiving widespread condemnation for his speeches and actions. Here’s what Mr. Bush had to say to our special correspondent Laura Ozone in an exclusive interview.
Laura: Thank you so much, Mr. Bush, for taking out your time for us and our readers.
Bush: (smiling) It’s entirely my pleasure.
L: So, Mr. Bush, have you been surprised at the disapprovals your policies have faced in the recent past regarding your “War Against Global Warming” movement?
B: Surprised, no! I have experience of facing disapprovals for my policies before… it wasn’t a surprise, actually!
L: But it must have been a little unnerving since Al Gore received so many accolades for his work! He even won the Nobel Prize!
B: Yeah, well, firstly, I’m not doing this for any prizes or anything! I’m doing this because I love the env—(pauses) envirom—(fumbles)
L: Environment-
B: Yes, that! And it doesn’t matter to me whether I win any Novel prizes for that!
L: But surely, such a show of respect and appreciation like the Nobel prize acts as a wonderful motivation. After all, who doesn’t like a thumbs-up for a job well done?
B: (A little confused) Wait a minute, here… are you sure Al Gore won the Novel Prize? Don’t you have to write a novel for that? I mean, (a little smug) I know people think I’m stupid and all, but that’s just a common misconception, you see!
L: (taken aback) Well, let’s move on to our prime questions, shall we? Let me begin with the accusations poured against you- to start off, your move of approaching the Congress for attacking Iraq (again) for environmental reasons was considered to be the joke of the century!
B: (pointing a finger at Laura) Listen to me, dear… I’m not the sort of person who do (sic) something without thinking about it twice. I know for a fact that the Iraqis, under their new US-supported regime, is (sic) concealing WMDs a.k.a. Weapons of Mass Degradation! They’re planning to pollute the world’s water bodies by administering hydrogen oxide in abnormal quantities. I’ve got material proof to show they are planning a… (thinking for a term!) homicidal attack on the environmental… (thinking for a term, again!) people… you know, the plants and fish and animals and horses and African Americans and Mexicans… and we, the humans as well… us Americans! They’re launching a dual attack on man and nature alike… and it’s time we join forces to stage a counterstrike!
L: (cautiously) Mr. Bush, you do realize that Hydrogen Oxide is actually water itself, don’t you?
B: (confident as ever) Ah, come on, Laura! You are a journalist. Don’t try to be a scientist, for god’s sakes! And you do need to brush-up your high school science facts. Hydrogen Oxide is an acid! And Hydrogen Chloride happens to be water! (He ends, smiling)
L: Okay… (barely restraining herself) so, moving on, what weapons do you reckon the Iraqis have to kill “the plants and fish and animals and horses and African Americans and Mexicans… and we, the humans”, quoting you of course!
B: Well, we don’t know for sure, of course! The Iraqi government is refusing my environmental soldiers of “War on Global Warming” to penetrate the veils of their regime and unearth solid evidences to prove them guilty! But we still have, from and inside, patriotic and highly reliable source who has internetted (sic) us pictures of those weapons! (Bush pulls out a picture and gives it to Laura) You can publish that if you want to!
Laura looks at the picture! It’s an advertisement picture of Bush holding a globe and smiling, with the caption reading, “Save earth with me, donate money to our trust fund by calling 1-800-Bush-Sucks”!
B: Oops! Wrong one… was supposed to be for publicity, but had to cancel it for the spelling mistake. It spelled Sucks instead of Bucks (he pulls out another picture)
It’s evidently a picture of a child’s plastic toy machine gun! And an Indian looking kid is stylishly posing with it, with his mother cuddling him fondly! Inadvertently, the gun is pointing towards a flower vase on a nearby shelf in the picture!
L: (had almost enough) This… is… your evidence?
B: I know, it’s shocking! Little kids being encouraged by their mothers to destroy the earth (sigh!). We are yet to identify the lethal effects of this particular weapon that’s put on display by the child terrorist, because we still don’t have direct access to Iraq as such. But I’m optimistic. Hope isn’t lost yet, as long as we wage on the War against global Warming!
L: Okay, Mr. Bush, to round it off for today, what can you tell me about your other plans regarding War on Global Warming?
B: We have quite a few agendas on our hands. We have planned a way to reduce the effects of Global warming by installing an air cooler in every home in even the third world Asian and African countries like Mexico… and again, it’s been said that major cities of the world will be submerged in a few decades. We have a way of countering that, of course! We will propose to launch a new war… and this time, we’ll call this “War against engulfing Oceans!” Pretty catchy, isn’t it? (Bush winks.) Finally, we will be petitioning the Congress to send an expert team of experts to mend the Ozone layer… you know, fill up the CFC hole and stuff, the way we dig and fill up holes to bury dead horses in my Texas ranch… and my friend Frederick Wilson’s company would be glad to do it at a very reduced price… (Bush, the soon-to-be savior of the world, smiles)
Laura: Thank you so much, Mr. Bush, for taking out your time for us and our readers.
Bush: (smiling) It’s entirely my pleasure.
L: So, Mr. Bush, have you been surprised at the disapprovals your policies have faced in the recent past regarding your “War Against Global Warming” movement?
B: Surprised, no! I have experience of facing disapprovals for my policies before… it wasn’t a surprise, actually!
L: But it must have been a little unnerving since Al Gore received so many accolades for his work! He even won the Nobel Prize!
B: Yeah, well, firstly, I’m not doing this for any prizes or anything! I’m doing this because I love the env—(pauses) envirom—(fumbles)
L: Environment-
B: Yes, that! And it doesn’t matter to me whether I win any Novel prizes for that!
L: But surely, such a show of respect and appreciation like the Nobel prize acts as a wonderful motivation. After all, who doesn’t like a thumbs-up for a job well done?
B: (A little confused) Wait a minute, here… are you sure Al Gore won the Novel Prize? Don’t you have to write a novel for that? I mean, (a little smug) I know people think I’m stupid and all, but that’s just a common misconception, you see!
L: (taken aback) Well, let’s move on to our prime questions, shall we? Let me begin with the accusations poured against you- to start off, your move of approaching the Congress for attacking Iraq (again) for environmental reasons was considered to be the joke of the century!
B: (pointing a finger at Laura) Listen to me, dear… I’m not the sort of person who do (sic) something without thinking about it twice. I know for a fact that the Iraqis, under their new US-supported regime, is (sic) concealing WMDs a.k.a. Weapons of Mass Degradation! They’re planning to pollute the world’s water bodies by administering hydrogen oxide in abnormal quantities. I’ve got material proof to show they are planning a… (thinking for a term!) homicidal attack on the environmental… (thinking for a term, again!) people… you know, the plants and fish and animals and horses and African Americans and Mexicans… and we, the humans as well… us Americans! They’re launching a dual attack on man and nature alike… and it’s time we join forces to stage a counterstrike!
L: (cautiously) Mr. Bush, you do realize that Hydrogen Oxide is actually water itself, don’t you?
B: (confident as ever) Ah, come on, Laura! You are a journalist. Don’t try to be a scientist, for god’s sakes! And you do need to brush-up your high school science facts. Hydrogen Oxide is an acid! And Hydrogen Chloride happens to be water! (He ends, smiling)
L: Okay… (barely restraining herself) so, moving on, what weapons do you reckon the Iraqis have to kill “the plants and fish and animals and horses and African Americans and Mexicans… and we, the humans”, quoting you of course!
B: Well, we don’t know for sure, of course! The Iraqi government is refusing my environmental soldiers of “War on Global Warming” to penetrate the veils of their regime and unearth solid evidences to prove them guilty! But we still have, from and inside, patriotic and highly reliable source who has internetted (sic) us pictures of those weapons! (Bush pulls out a picture and gives it to Laura) You can publish that if you want to!
Laura looks at the picture! It’s an advertisement picture of Bush holding a globe and smiling, with the caption reading, “Save earth with me, donate money to our trust fund by calling 1-800-Bush-Sucks”!
B: Oops! Wrong one… was supposed to be for publicity, but had to cancel it for the spelling mistake. It spelled Sucks instead of Bucks (he pulls out another picture)
It’s evidently a picture of a child’s plastic toy machine gun! And an Indian looking kid is stylishly posing with it, with his mother cuddling him fondly! Inadvertently, the gun is pointing towards a flower vase on a nearby shelf in the picture!
L: (had almost enough) This… is… your evidence?
B: I know, it’s shocking! Little kids being encouraged by their mothers to destroy the earth (sigh!). We are yet to identify the lethal effects of this particular weapon that’s put on display by the child terrorist, because we still don’t have direct access to Iraq as such. But I’m optimistic. Hope isn’t lost yet, as long as we wage on the War against global Warming!
L: Okay, Mr. Bush, to round it off for today, what can you tell me about your other plans regarding War on Global Warming?
B: We have quite a few agendas on our hands. We have planned a way to reduce the effects of Global warming by installing an air cooler in every home in even the third world Asian and African countries like Mexico… and again, it’s been said that major cities of the world will be submerged in a few decades. We have a way of countering that, of course! We will propose to launch a new war… and this time, we’ll call this “War against engulfing Oceans!” Pretty catchy, isn’t it? (Bush winks.) Finally, we will be petitioning the Congress to send an expert team of experts to mend the Ozone layer… you know, fill up the CFC hole and stuff, the way we dig and fill up holes to bury dead horses in my Texas ranch… and my friend Frederick Wilson’s company would be glad to do it at a very reduced price… (Bush, the soon-to-be savior of the world, smiles)
STEVEN SPIELBERG AFTER THE SUCCESS OF HIS 3RD MOVIE WITH TOM CRUISE: MULTI-OSCAR WINNER “SPEECHLESS”
3. 4. 2011: The success of the Steven Spielberg movie “Speechless” and the Oscar winning actor Tom Cruise has received for his role in the movie as “the invisible guy who can’t talk”, had left the Academy Award winning director speechless. Apparently, he suffered from temporary speech disorder for several months after the movie was released. He recovered only after the Academy Awards were declared last night and Mr. Spielberg chose the Badmovies.com journalist Katie Kidman to give his first interview to. Here are the excerpts:
Katie: Mr. Spielberg, how do you feel right now?
Steven: Well, I’ve been better of course. But I feel great! It’s kinda like the feeling when you are drowning in a barrel full of slimy stuff and suddenly wake up to find out that you were just having a bad dream!
K: Have you ever had any nightmares like that?
S: Not specifically, no! But one time, Tom tried to drown me in a barrel full of slimy stuff which were going to be used as alien blood… it was worse than a nightmare, actually!
K: Oh, my gosh! Why on earth did Tom Cruise try to drown you?
S: It was nothing, actually! Tom was in a usual schizophrenic fit again when he assumed that every woman in the set was Katie Holmes. So, he started kissing anyone and everyone. He touched a nerve when he started jumping on the delicate sets of my movie, assuming them to be couches on the “Oprah Show”, of course! That’s when I tried to stop him. He assumed me to be Christian Bale (you know, the guy who played ‘Batman’ in “Batman Begins”) and tried to drown me… all the while yelling “You kissed my wife… you kissed my wife!” But after a while, he recovered and became the same old Tom again, “innocent and stupid.”
K: That’s the thing we like about him, don’t we? Tell us about working with him in “Speechless”?
S: Oh, it was a great experience. We had some rifts and issues during the shoot of “Minority Report” and “War of the Worlds”, but “Speechless” was completely different. We bonded beautifully on the sets. He’s got a great sense of humor! He didn’t create a single problem during the entire shoot (which, frankly speaking, I thought was beyond Tom’s capability). He arrived on time, didn’t bring Katie like a backpack and didn’t even argue with me when I took prescription drugs for depression (because the movie was turning out to be a disaster, of course!).
K: Wait, you told me in your last interview that Tom wasn’t needed during the shooting of the movie at all?
S: Of course he wasn’t needed! In fact, he was off to the Vatican to supervise the shoot of Katie’s new film… aah, I’m forgetting the name… it’s got the word “virgin” in it, that’s why Tom’s letting Katie do the movie, I think… anyway, he was off to Europe… and that was the only reason I liked Tom so well this time, you know!
K: And how did you think Tom acted so well in this film? After all, all we thought he was good at was marrying women taller than him, splitting with them after ten years and being a part of superflops?
S: Yes, those are a few things he’s great at. I never thought acting was his forte, but I daresay, he proved me wrong this time around. I remember this particular scene where he’s sitting at an old armchair and is smoking (the viewers, of course, can only see an empty, rocking armchair, a cigarette hanging in mid-air and an occasional puff of white smoke), thinking about the woman he loves. We can’t see his face… but any viewer with a great sense of imagination (or an undying adoration of Tom, like the person reading this interview) can picture Tom’s silent, yet tragic expression… he’s a great actor (and I’m the greatest goddamn visual effects genius), that’s all I have to say.
K: How do you rate Tom as a person? Off the sets, of course!
S: Apart from being a loving father, a weird husband and a lousy actor, I think Tom has a great business sense as well. I was in total awe when he divorced his wife Nicole Kidman just before their marriage could be a decade-old. He not only got rid of the tall Australian, but also saw to it that he didn’t have to pay her anything (because their marriage had not crossed the ten-year mark, of course). He’s a genius… a complete genius!!!
K: Any plans of a future project with Tom?
S: Of course, I’m going to do a special feature (sort of like a documentary) that will be titled “Working without Tom”. It’ll be a tribute to the great actor that he is not! We’ll be highlighting the advantages of not taking Tom Cruise in a movie. The movie is guaranteed to be a success, simply because we are not casting Tom Cruise, you know!
K: Finally-
S: No more, please! I have to leave for the “Oprah Show” right now! See you later, okay?
K: Wait, is Tom going with you?
S: (smiles) Of course he is. After all, he is the star of the movie. But I can’t risk another “Oprah Show” fiasco, so I’m taking the “invisible and silent” version of my dear friend Tom. Have a nice day!
Katie: Mr. Spielberg, how do you feel right now?
Steven: Well, I’ve been better of course. But I feel great! It’s kinda like the feeling when you are drowning in a barrel full of slimy stuff and suddenly wake up to find out that you were just having a bad dream!
K: Have you ever had any nightmares like that?
S: Not specifically, no! But one time, Tom tried to drown me in a barrel full of slimy stuff which were going to be used as alien blood… it was worse than a nightmare, actually!
K: Oh, my gosh! Why on earth did Tom Cruise try to drown you?
S: It was nothing, actually! Tom was in a usual schizophrenic fit again when he assumed that every woman in the set was Katie Holmes. So, he started kissing anyone and everyone. He touched a nerve when he started jumping on the delicate sets of my movie, assuming them to be couches on the “Oprah Show”, of course! That’s when I tried to stop him. He assumed me to be Christian Bale (you know, the guy who played ‘Batman’ in “Batman Begins”) and tried to drown me… all the while yelling “You kissed my wife… you kissed my wife!” But after a while, he recovered and became the same old Tom again, “innocent and stupid.”
K: That’s the thing we like about him, don’t we? Tell us about working with him in “Speechless”?
S: Oh, it was a great experience. We had some rifts and issues during the shoot of “Minority Report” and “War of the Worlds”, but “Speechless” was completely different. We bonded beautifully on the sets. He’s got a great sense of humor! He didn’t create a single problem during the entire shoot (which, frankly speaking, I thought was beyond Tom’s capability). He arrived on time, didn’t bring Katie like a backpack and didn’t even argue with me when I took prescription drugs for depression (because the movie was turning out to be a disaster, of course!).
K: Wait, you told me in your last interview that Tom wasn’t needed during the shooting of the movie at all?
S: Of course he wasn’t needed! In fact, he was off to the Vatican to supervise the shoot of Katie’s new film… aah, I’m forgetting the name… it’s got the word “virgin” in it, that’s why Tom’s letting Katie do the movie, I think… anyway, he was off to Europe… and that was the only reason I liked Tom so well this time, you know!
K: And how did you think Tom acted so well in this film? After all, all we thought he was good at was marrying women taller than him, splitting with them after ten years and being a part of superflops?
S: Yes, those are a few things he’s great at. I never thought acting was his forte, but I daresay, he proved me wrong this time around. I remember this particular scene where he’s sitting at an old armchair and is smoking (the viewers, of course, can only see an empty, rocking armchair, a cigarette hanging in mid-air and an occasional puff of white smoke), thinking about the woman he loves. We can’t see his face… but any viewer with a great sense of imagination (or an undying adoration of Tom, like the person reading this interview) can picture Tom’s silent, yet tragic expression… he’s a great actor (and I’m the greatest goddamn visual effects genius), that’s all I have to say.
K: How do you rate Tom as a person? Off the sets, of course!
S: Apart from being a loving father, a weird husband and a lousy actor, I think Tom has a great business sense as well. I was in total awe when he divorced his wife Nicole Kidman just before their marriage could be a decade-old. He not only got rid of the tall Australian, but also saw to it that he didn’t have to pay her anything (because their marriage had not crossed the ten-year mark, of course). He’s a genius… a complete genius!!!
K: Any plans of a future project with Tom?
S: Of course, I’m going to do a special feature (sort of like a documentary) that will be titled “Working without Tom”. It’ll be a tribute to the great actor that he is not! We’ll be highlighting the advantages of not taking Tom Cruise in a movie. The movie is guaranteed to be a success, simply because we are not casting Tom Cruise, you know!
K: Finally-
S: No more, please! I have to leave for the “Oprah Show” right now! See you later, okay?
K: Wait, is Tom going with you?
S: (smiles) Of course he is. After all, he is the star of the movie. But I can’t risk another “Oprah Show” fiasco, so I’m taking the “invisible and silent” version of my dear friend Tom. Have a nice day!
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