Our Take on Baba Ramdev

Recent times have also witnessed the onset of the greatest daring duo on the Indian canvas. That of Baba Ramdev and a certain Anna Hazare, combining to take down the villainous Government of India ( at least that’s what they think). What has actually happened is that a movement that had caught a lot of eyes for its novel message and Hazare’s leadership has been shamefully ground into the dirt by the designer Jaipuri chappals of Ramdev.



This man Baba ‘Badass’ Ramdev succeeded in capturing the nation’s attention by announcing his deep and passionate desire to fight against corruption in India and taking up a hunger strike to achieve that aim (he must have researched feasible causes for which to hunger strike against on Google). The idea of a yoga guy telling economists of the stature of Manmohan Singh how to manage money is about as weird as an anorexic model applying for liposuction. Ramdev says that if black money is brought back to India, poor people will get benefits! This, being said, by a guy who owns a private security paramilitary force, a couple of private airplanes and an island. They say yoga does wonders for you. Now we know what they meant.



Ever heard of the yoga master with political ambitions who went on a hunger strike against black money? Seems like something a stand-up comedian would say? Yup some things can be seen only in India, along with extravagantly moustached terrorists and fearsomely caveman-like cricket players.

Now, since the trend has been set, people can hunger strike to get whatever they want. Because yeah sure, if Gandhi did it why can’t I? Maybe Ramdev will take the next flight to some beach and make salt or buy it from Reliance Fresh or whatever. Crazy guy.

In the midst of the police raid on his loyal followers, what did the heroic, dashing James Bond of Indian yoga do? Attempted to run away draped in a salwar kameez. A cross-dressing revolutionary, no less. Again a first in India. Next time, he will obviously have to keep up to his high standards and so has signed a deal for a supply of Kancheevaram sarees when he takes out his next strike against global warming in 2013.

Ramdev in his detailed and exceedingly insane letter to the premier of India demanded that “ English should be replaced by Hindi in entirety within India “. The letter was obviously written in english by someone who actually knows how to write, definitely not our guy here.

When faced with the fact that his main assistant is an RSS head, his main disciple is in the inner circle of the RSS and the woman who escorted him to stage was a becrazed RSS activist, Ramdev was surprised when questioned if he had any affiliation to the RSS. Oh my god, wonder why anyone would think that.

The cost of the Police raid- 5 lakh rupees.

The cost of the Ramlila Fasting Ground- 1 crore rupees.

The tale of how a glorified fitness instructor held the world’s largest democracy to ransom and became an overnight celebrity- Priceless.

Our Take on Engineering Entrance Examinations

Cut back around 30 years to the 1980’s when a school-kid ran back from school, splashing a few puddles of water, gulped down a glass of tea, ran out into the sun and rain to enjoy a hard-fought game of cricket, got into a couple of fights on the way back, whistled at the opposite sex if you’re a guy, got whistled at if you’re a girl and thoroughly enjoyed being your age.

Now to the present day when kids in standard 6 have to rush back from school to their target-IIT courses (imagine 6^th standard children being seriously told the uses of sine-cosine integration)after which they’l have 2 hours of mind-numbingly boring physics tuition by a spectacled guy who thinks that he invented physics in the first place.

Then some idiot guy on a TV channel will encourage weekend classes at some institute to which all the kids would be sent to, on the assumption that all great engineers and inventors in the world like Isaac Newton and Thomas Edison became great by taking coaching at TIME or MATH-IIT. All of which is to presumably get an engineering degree (whether you’re suited to be an engineer or a cook or a jihadist terrorist, in India, first you have to take an engineering degree).

So after 6 years of experiencing twice the workload of an outspoken Jew in a Nazi camp, the kid finally sees Devil himself looming up before him- the Entrance Exam! Half the world’s rainforests are cut to provide enough paper for 10 lakh kids to pit their wits against each other.

 IIt entrance tests are changed up every year to prevent short –cuts from being discovered. One year there’s multiple choice. Next year they put true or false. The year after that, they brought a 10 option bonanza to choose the right answers and make things as complicated as possible. Soon they’ll add tasks to be done followed by a vote-out with a few bikes thrown around the exam hall.

A friend of this blog-writer has suggested that the Kerala state entrance has given added priority to high school marks presumably to even out the sex ratio in engineering courses. Soon like the badminton federation of India and FIFA’s new rules on woman players, engineering females will have mandatory skirts and all to make the whole thing more glamorous.

 And after 6 hours of soul-splitting torture, the exam comes to an end. Then it is but a short wait to the All India, followed by State exams followed by a thousand other sources of engineering nonsense.

 

Just when peace of mind looks to be around the corner, the results are anounced with all the impact of a coconut on a bald head. The joy of successful parents would suggest they were able to bring down Osama single-handedly and the despairing sorrow of parents who cudn't bring up Einsteins suggest the end of the world as we know it. 
Then it is time for parents to visit their relatives to show them their bespectacled knock-kneed skeleton of a son who huffed and puffed to get to that holy engineering seat. The relatives will then reluctantly congratulate the skeleton while explaining that their kid couldn’t get through because ‘the test had out-of-syllabus questions’, ‘it was raining that day and he got distracted’ or the most ironic of the lot ‘engineering isn’t worth all this hype’. Both sets of parents will exchange nervous laughs and then relapse to awkward silence.

Times when kids smaller than ripe watermelons are made to slave like burdened donkeys. Times when a game of cricket followed by a cold lime juice in summer is a luxury. There are some things more important than 10 percent GDP growth rates J