Disclaimer: All names, characters and incidents mentioned in this column, however believable, are entirely satirical. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, organisations and products is intended or should be inferred
Regardless of whoever wins on June 4, you can rest assured that some things will remain the same — prices will increase faster than your income, there will be more and more jobs for less and less people, your crush will leave the country, news anchors will shout, and the real leader(s) of the nation will be more worried about boardrooms than ballots. Having said that, the fate of India matters little, for all eyes are on Rafah.
Meanwhile, zooming out to the larger purpose of elections, here are five best practices from election season that you should apply for greater success at your workplace — promising your manager that you will complete 400 PPTs in a month (bonus tip: nobody needs to do 400 PPTs, not even MBAs), scheduling as many interviews with your HR team as possible right before appraisal season (where they smile and you speak), heading off to meditate for two days (ideally in a cave) before a big pitch, adding “(Insert your boss’ name) ka Parivaar” to all your social media bios, and convincing your company leadership that the colleagues you hate the most require too many perks as they are having too many children.
Elsewhere, a fresh feature in multiple exit polls shows that Kangana Ranaut is the most confident (of all potential MPs) of winning her seat (from Mandi), so much so that she has already signed 18 new films to be shot over the next five years.
Wondering what else happened as your eyes met those of your local MP at your favourite rundown bar? Here’s presenting the top stories from the week that should have been.
May 27
“Sitting on the 30th floor of my complex, I could barely feel a thing,” writes one of the teenagers who is a signatory to the complaint at the IMD TT archives
- Teenagers from south Kolkata register an official complaint at the India Meteorological Department (IMD), citing “misguidance about Cyclone Remal, which wasn’t crazy enough for us to make viral reels for Instagram”.
- With cases of Covid FliRT (named by a group of 124 single scientists) rising across the world, WHO has reassured hypochondriacs that “there’s no need to panic about the new strain of the virus, since it originated in the US free market instead of the Chinese flea market”.
May 28
Rishi Sunak is apparently nervous at the prospect of winning, since it will mean turning down more money than his wife has saved from tax exemptions in the UK TT archives
- Rumours from Downing Street suggest that UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called for early elections because all his 10 job offers from Silicon Valley have a hard deadline to join by the first week of July.
- The much-anticipated Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit in Seoul ends with a whimper as the AI and human conveners of the programme fail to agree on what the main takeaways should be.
May 29
“The trade-off between a bout of Covid and watching me in person is a pretty easy one,” says Lady Gaga, in defence of her decision to perform despite being Covid-positive TT archives
- On the same day that Lady Gaga reveals that she performed with Covid-19 at a concert in 2022, two wooden straws used by the singer at the gala for the same event sell for $2 million each.
- Rohit Shetty files a case of copyright violation against Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga for blatantly lifting ideas from his dreams.
May 30
Radhika Merchant discloses that more than 100 rooms have been booked on her pre-wedding cruise ship to accommodate her outfits, one for every five minutes of the celebrations TT archives
- Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani confirm that they have six more pre-wedding celebrations lined up so that they have ample time to get to know each other’s social networks before finally tying the knot on a floating mandap in the sky.
- In light of the controversy around Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak correcting a questioner’s pronunciation of WEB Du Bois, Ivy League universities accept more than 5,000 PhD proposals revolving around nomenclature and identity.
May 31
Rafael Nadal has told Chanel that the special perfumes smell suspiciously of Novak Djokovic TT archives
- To honour Rafael Nadal’s remarkable history at Roland Garros, Chanel unveils an exclusive range of perfumes made from the Spaniard’s sweat, which has been carefully extracted from Parisian clay since 2014.
- Ahead of their UEFA Champions League final clash against Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund have requested UEFA to compel Real manager Carlo Ancelotti to spend the match wearing a blindfold so as to prevent the Italian “from securing an unfair competitive advantage by means of a raised eyebrow”.