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
As the proudest month of the year approaches its end and brands go back to being monochrome, the UN declares that it expects to recognise more genders than countries by 2030. A record number of pride marches across the world suggests that thousands of teenagers, still unsure of whether they like boys or girls or both or others, are convinced that they hate Israel. This in spite of the fact that Hamas has turned down repeated requests to reveal its pronouns.
Meanwhile, on the 49th anniversary of putting democracy on a ventilator (also known as The Emergency), here are five reasons (in no particular order) why such a period cannot be replicated in modern India — trains have stopped running on tracks (let alone on time), airports collapse faster than protests, the urban youth has ditched JP for JP Morgan, BBC can no longer interview the Prime Minister, and the insistence on infertility has moved from the body to the mind.
Elsewhere, the Society of Sloths-Turned-Sleuths (SSTS) unearths ToppersXI, a game involving the heads of hundreds of NEET coaching centres across India, designed to win money based on a player successfully predicting students’ NEET scores.
Wondering what else happened as you congratulated yourself for ignoring your parents’ advice to become a doctor? Here’s presenting the top stories from the week that should have been.
June 24
“I’m sleeping for only 45 minutes every night to prepare myself for life in Silicon Valley,” admits Rishi Sunak TT archives
- Even though he has already packed his bags to move out of 10 Downing Street, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continues to be on a breakneck election campaign, which includes asking Britishers to reduce their reliance on European imports by taking inspiration from MK Gandhi’s Swadeshi movement. Almost certain of being rejected by voters, Sunak is working extra hard to ensure he does not face a rejection from his father-in-law.
- Donald Trump’s promise to issue a Green Card to every foreigner graduating from a US university results in a quarter of family businesses shutting down in Ahmedabad.
June 25
Julian Assange has been given a special drug to protect him from Novichok attacks in the immediate future TT archives
- The US and the UK drop all charges against Julian Assange, who was facing 128 years in prison for confusing journalism for public service, after the beleaguered Australian proves that he can hack into the servers of the Kremlin.
- The “Big Tech is Big Theft” special committee of the European Union (EU) fails to pass its intended charges related to “unfair monopolistic practices” against Microsoft after its virtual hearing keeps crashing on Teams.
June 26
As of the last week of June, pocket Constitutions are selling more than pocket deodorants in Delhi TT archives
- With Parliament back in session, the Constitution of India, moved from “historical fiction” to “self-help” on Amazon, overtakes the Fifty Shades series to become the highest-selling English language book in the country.
- A pan-India pollution survey reveals that carbon emissions have finally overtaken male entitlement as the biggest source of toxicity on Indian streets.
June 27
“I’m not going to spend more on a sari than what I charge for a film,” clarifies Sonakshi Sinha TT archives
- Sonakshi Sinha’s wedding ceremony with Zaheer Iqbal gets delayed indefinitely after the priest cites “inauspicious omens” on realising that the bride’s outfit has not been designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee.
- “Kalki is erratic, incomprehensible and a colossal waste of time” is Anurag Kashyap’s review of Bollywood’s new dystopian epic, words the director denies copy-pasting from his message drafts from 2015.
June 28
“Nobody takes selfies quite like me. I have the highest conversion rate of selfies attempted by pitch invaders to successful selfies,” boasts Cristiano Ronaldo TT archives
- With no clear frontrunner for the Ballon d’Or, France Football claims that football’s most Instagrammable prize “might once again come down to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and which of the two attracts more pitch invaders this year”.
- Noticing the overnight tightening of security arrangements in Barbados, the Indian players and coaching staff have decided that regardless of the result in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup final (against fellow chokers South Africa), they will not be heading back to the dressing room at the end of the game.