Stand up Routine

By Girish Menon. This is copyright material

Introduction:

S: Daddy, why don’t we make short satirical films  on issues that need some clarity?

D: Why, what’s the purpose?

S: This will give us a chance to explore what we think,  what we see and what it means?

D: I don’t know, son. 

 1.

Son: Daddy, Om Birla says that the names of Adani and Ambani cannot be raised in the Lok Sabha.

Daddy: Yes, I heard it too. He says, it's because Adani and Ambani are not in a position to respond to the allegations.

S: But the BJP always raises Nehru and Gandhi? Can they respond to the claims?

D: They believe the soul of Nehru and the Gandhis pervades parliament and hence can be invoked?

S: Does that mean that Ambani and Adani are soulless, Daddy?

D: I don't know son.

2.

Modiji phones Nirmala Sitharaman, 'Nirmalaji, yeh madhyam varg kyon ro rahen hai?

Nirmala: Sir, in Mussalmano ko rone do, Kuch dere ke baad chup ho jayenge'.

Modi: 'Kya matlab? Inme to koi Mussalman nahi hai'

Nirmala: Sir, yeh log hamare Mussaalman hai. Mera matlab hum shasan mein kuch bhi kar sakte hain aur chunav ke time par agar ham bole ki Hindu khatren mein hai to yeh kamal par angootha laga hi denge.

Modi: Ha, ha, main bhool gaya tha! Lage raho Nirmalaji.

3.

S: Daddy, a 40 year old American woman was found chained to a tree in the Sindhudurg forests for 40 days.

D: Yes, I heard that Lalita Kayi had come to India to learn yoga and meditation.

S: Doesn’t this chaining  require her to intensely meditate about her condition for 40 days, Daddy?

D: I don’t know son!

4.

S: Daddy, you remember the fairy tale 'The Emperor's New Clothes'? hat eventually happened to the truthful child?

D: Why do you ask? I think the child was subjected to severe punishment. Immediately after the parade he was pulled up by the Enforcement Directorate for being anti-national.

S: Did the people honour the child after the emperor was deposed?

D: Honoured? After the emperor was deposed the public pilloried him for destroying their dream.

S: Does that explain your experience with your bhakt friends and relatives?

D: I don’t know son!

5.

S: Daddy, are Indian industrialists as a class really patriotic?

D: Can we paint them all with one brush stroke? In any case, why do you ask?

S: The recent economic survey shows that while corporate profits have  risen significantly they have not invested or created new jobs in the economy? I thought we were doing trickle down economics?

D: So, while what you say is true, what's the question?

S: They also welcome free trade in all sectors but their own. Keep their money abroad and use robots and AI to meet their labour needs. So are they really patriotic, daddy?

D: I don’t know, son.

6.

S: Daddy, can we call Modi 3.0 a UPA 3 government?

D: Why, please explain.

S: Yesterday, both Modi and Seetharaman were comparing their performance with the UPA 1 & 2's performance 2004-2014.

D: But, didn't we vote for Modi expecting a big difference?

S: I don't know daddy?

7.

S: Daddy, most of the friends I meet these days hush hushedly refer to the threat posed by the increasing Muslim population. Is there such a threat to India?

D: I am not sure. I too have noticed more folks wearing the Islamist dress. One good way to know is to conduct a census. India's last census was in 2011.

S: Then, why does this eleven year old government shy away from any census, daddy?

D: I don't know, son

8.

S: Daddy, Rahul Gandhi has emerged as the voice of India’s downtrodden; the Dalits, Adivasis etc.

D: Yes, he appears popular with these groups. So what's your question?

S: Why don’t India’s downtrodden produce a leader from amongst their people?

D: I don’t know, son

9. 

S: Daddy, Rahul Gandhi tweeted the ED wants to question him.

D: Yes, I read that. I think he tweeted that from Wayanad.

S: Do you think the ED wants to know why he’s only visiting Manipur and Wayanad when our Agniveers are struggling in Russia and Ukraine?

D: I don’t know, son.

10.

S: Daddy, is Rahul Gandhi a loser?

D: He went to Manipur, set up a mohabbat ka dukaan and was seen consoling the victims of Wayanad?

S: But, he did not meet the cricket team nor congratulate Ms. Bhaker? Does that make Modiji a winner?

D: I don’t know, son.

11.

S: Daddy, The NGO 'Vote for Democracy' says that in 538 constituencies there is a discrepancy between the number of votes polled and the number of votes counted.

D: Yes, I read this. The discrepancy is to the tune of 50 million votes.

S: Could it then mean that the India alliance won the vote but the NDA won the count?

D: I don't know, son.

India's Middle Class comes armed with Entitlement and little Gratitude

From Girish Menon

Modiji phones Nirmala Sitharaman, 'Nirmalaji, yeh madhyam varg kyon ro rahen hai?

Nirmala: Sir, in Mussalmano ko rone do, Kuch dere ke baad chup ho jayenge'.

Modi: 'Kya matlab? Inme koi Mussalman nahi hai'

Nirmala: Sir, yeh log hamare Mussaalman hai. Mera matlab hum kuch bhi kare aur chunav time par bole ki Hindu khatren mein hai to yeh kamal par angootha lag denge.

Modi: Ha, ha, main bhool gaya tha! Lage raho Nirmalaji.

---

Shekhar Gupta in The Print

With her latest Budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has walked into the nastiest of all hornets’ nests: the Great Indian Middle Class.

Through the week, she and her ministry have been pilloried on social media. Those in the mainstream media are dismayed, but more measured.

There can be reasonable, pragmatic, ideological, and even moral arguments against the new, Thomas Piketty-esque (soak the rich, especially when they earn from their accumulated wealth) changes in the capital gains taxes. It doesn’t justify the kind of outrage it has unleashed, with hundreds of furious, often personalised, memes.

Did the Modi government fail to read the minds of its most valuable constituency, the (mostly Hindu) middle class? Or did it take it too much for granted? In an earlier National Interest published on 6 July, 2019, we had argued that the middle classes were like the Modi BJP’s Muslims.

That somewhat cheeky formulation was drawn from how the government continued to collect more and more by way of taxes on petrol and diesel to fund its humongous programme of direct benefit transfers to the poor. It was a kind of innovative Robin Hood politics. Take from the middle class and give to the poor.

It made the poor, who constitute a vast majority of voters, happy. And if the middle class was fretting, so be it. They were going to vote for the BJP anyway. Our argument was that the BJP could take the middle-class votes for granted like the ‘secular’ parties with the Muslims.

Will this change now? I guess not. This fury will blow over, probably as some ‘corrections’, especially on indexing, are made, and buttons more significant than taxes are pushed: nationalism, religion, the Gandhi family. The usual mix. Many of those ranting now will continue to vote for the BJP. They are not disaffected with Modi, his party, or its ideology. They adore all three. At this point, they are simply like slighted lovers.

What the Modi government got wrong with this Budget and in its economic signalling is in moving away from its generally upbeat, ‘India is on the rise, growth will get steeper, markets are red hot and will get redder’ messaging. A sobering signal from the Budget, if sensible and prudent, is a bummer for the faithful.

The middle class, however, is addicted to good news, hype, even gratitude, and believe each Budget should make them more money.

What they did not want to be told instead was: ‘Listen, guys, you’ve made a lot, especially in the decade’s boom. It’s time you paid back a bit more.’ And maybe that it wasn’t quite virtuous to make even more money on your accumulated wealth.

The rich won’t bother. The middle class, especially those in the lower half of this large socio-economic section who took large EMIs, bought second homes as investments, moved their savings from RBI-guaranteed bank fixed deposits to stocks, mutual funds and debt bonds, are the ones kicking at the government’s shins.

Many of them might’ve lived with increased taxation. They love Narendra Modi and his larger politics enough to be willing to pay some price for it. After all, more than a crore of them gave up their LPG subsidy on his ‘give it up’ call. What’s taken them by surprise is the change in messaging. They probably see this as being told that they’ve done something immoral, made too much money, and the state is reining them back in.

Since reform began in the summer of 1991, successive governments and finance ministers have had one consistent focus: driving those with any financial surpluses towards the markets. That is why capital gains tax breaks were brought in and expanded over these decades. The markets said ‘thank you’, boomed, and rewarded the governments of the day.

Every government in these 33 years, especially the current one, has celebrated the rising number of mutual fund folios, demat accounts and rising indices. Some of the recent nudges, beginning with action on the debt bonds in the 2023 Budget, seem to be directed at bringing the same surplus-generating classes back to bank deposits. They were not ready for it.

Just what is India’s middle class? A lifestyle approach is too amorphous, anecdotal. Do the income tax payers make this middle class? The number of those who actually pay taxes, less than a third of those who file returns (2.2 crore out of 7.4) will not even be a fraction of what has long been on the way to becoming the world’s largest middle class.

It might be safer, instead, to think about what this middle class wants. It wants, and definitely expects, India to be the hottest economy in the world, a leader in fields ranging from economics to science, sports to the military, manufacturing to software, and of course all this with a historically mandated right to sermonise to the world.

They may not use the expression, but they do not dispute the claim or at least the ambition of being vishwaguru. They love to believe the West is in decline and India’s time has come. If I were to record one video saying the dollar is on its last legs, that American power is in terminal decline, that Europe is finished, it would be bound to go viral. Never mind the facts. The scene that most characterises this middle-class mood is enacted every sunset at the Wagah border flag lowering.

Those are the expectations with which they keep voting for Modi/BJP. They see their own growing wealth, the market boom, the world coming to invest in India, as elements in the same package. Ideally, of course, they’d want to achieve all this while paying no taxes. Or Singapore-level taxes. They’d be OK with Singapore-level democracy as well. Now they’re being told to return to bank fixed deposits!

Since it is tempting to get ahead of myself, I will stop here. Let’s just say we still do not know what the middle class is and what it wants. Let’s stick to what we know the Indian middle class isn’t. That is, being grateful.

The heat the Modi government is feeling will cool down soon. But name the one person who’s done more than any other Indian across three generations to create, expand and enrich this new middle class. By deregulating, burning the licence-quota raj, opening imports, cutting taxes and tariffs, and pushing the same middle class towards the markets with generous tax incentives.

Then let us ask who’s the one leader the same middle class has detested most of all since, say, 2011. You’ve guessed right. He is Dr Manmohan Singh. In 1999, he and his party checked out his popularity in India’s most middle-class constituency by fielding him for the Lok Sabha in South Delhi. He lost. What did they expect? A thank-you vote? He’s only got contempt instead. This middle class comes armed with entitlement, not burdened with gratitude.

How Accurate are the Election Predictions of India's Illegal Bookmakers?

Girish Menon

'Satta Bazaar' is the name given to Indian bookmakers. Bookmaking is banned in India, however there exists what appears to be a huge underground network of bookies and punters who take bets on most events where the outcome is unknown. Here, I am going to test the bookies' predictions on the Indian election results with the actual results which will be available to the public on 4 June 2024.

---Also read

Indian Elections 2024 - A Personal Note

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Economic Truism: The Wisdom of Crowds

In economics, market prices, such as share prices in stock markets, are generally considered an accurate reflection of ground realities and available information. This is because share prices are determined by the collective buying and selling decisions of numerous investors, each acting on their analysis of a company's fundamentals, future prospects, and other relevant factors. Similarly, bookmaker odds and prices in betting markets are driven by the weight of money being placed on different outcomes, reflecting the collective assessments and expectations of bettors. Just as share prices adjust dynamically to incorporate new information, bookmakers continuously update their odds based on the flow of bets, aiming to balance their books and minimize risk exposure. This market-driven price discovery mechanism ensures that both share prices and bookmaker odds serve as reasonably accurate reflections of the underlying realities and expectations of market participants.

So let me list the predictions of various Indian bookmakers as mentioned in Times Now's programme on 1 June 2024 around 5-6 pm.

Satta Bazaar on 1 June 2024	BJP Seats	NDA (BJP’s alliance) seats	Actual Results on 4 June 2024
Phalodi	270-300		BJP-240, NDA-293
Palanpur	216	247
Vijayawada	270-290	300+
Hyderabad	270-290	300+
Ahmedabad	301-303
Karnal	235	263
Belgaum	223	265
Kolkata	218	261
Indore	260	283
Mumbai	295-305

Then there are the exit polls, most of them seem to predict a return of the BJP government with probably more seats than in 2019. However, I have preferred to stick to the bookies' predictions because the bookmakers and punters are betting with their money and so it will help me test the economic principle that market prices (satta bazaar prices) reflect reality accurately.

Indian Elections 2024 - A Personal Note

Girish Menon

As the incumbent Prime Minister Modi heads off to Kanyakumari for some much-needed R&R (or maybe just to escape the election madness), I thought I'd share my two rupees on the 2024 Indian election extravaganza. But before you get too excited, let me warn you – these observations are based on the ramblings of biased commentators who probably couldn't tell the truth from a hole in the ground. So, take it all with a pinch of salt (or maybe a whole shaker).

The Election Commission's Impartiality? What's That?

The Election Commission of India (ECI) was supposed to be the impartial referee in this political boxing match, ensuring a fair fight. But let's be real, when has any referee ever been truly impartial? It's like expecting the umpire at an India-Pakistan cricket match to be completely unbiased. The ruling party was pulling all sorts of shenanigans, and the ECI just turned a blind eye. At least in the IPL, every team gets an equal chance to buy the best players in a glitzy auction. But in this election, it felt like one team was playing with a committed umpire.

---Also read

How accurate are the betting markets of India

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The Olympic Games of Democracy? 

Elections in India are touted as the "Olympic games of democracy," a grand 44 day spectacle where all parties compete on an even playing field, much like the athletes gathering for Paris '24. However, the reality is far from this idealized notion. It's more akin to a rigged game where the ruling party shows up with a souped-up, nitro-boosted sports car, while the opposition parties are stuck with rusty old clunkers, and the track is greased with ill-gotten gains, making it nearly impossible for them to gain traction. The opposition faces disadvantages similar to a woman athlete from Afghanistan competing against a well-trained, well-funded athlete from a developed nation. As Donald Trump aptly put it, the entire exercise is a "rigged game," where the dice were loaded long before the race even began, and I haven't even mentioned the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) and the conspiracy theories surrounding it. If the opposition wins then it will be nothing short of an Act of God.

The Mandate Debate: A Never-Ending Soap Opera

Ah, the age-old "mandate" debate. It's like a never-ending soap opera, with the winning party claiming they have a mandate to do whatever they want, and the opposition crying foul. It's a classic case of "he said, she said," and in the end, the only ones benefiting are the lawyers raking in the big bucks.

Expert Predictions: A Game of Darts in the Dark

Then we have the "expert" predictions. Sanjay Dikshit, Prashant Kishore, Yogendra Yadav, and Parakala Prabhakar have thrown out numbers ranging from 180 to 400 seats for the BJP in the 542-member Lok Sabha. That's a wider range than my waistline after a weekend of binge-drinking and snacking. Are these experts consulting some mystical crystal ball, or are they just playing a game of darts in the dark, hoping to hit the bullseye by sheer luck? Who knows, maybe they're just trying to keep their political overlords happy by telling them what they want to hear.

My Two Rupees? The BJP as the Loyal Opposition

Personally, I'd love to see the BJP end up as the single largest party with around 200-210 seats, taking on the role of the loyal opposition. They actually represent only a minority of the Indian population (38% in 2019). They've proven themselves to be quite the watchdogs in the past, barking at every perceived injustice (whether real or imagined). But at the same time, I can't help but worry about the plight of the common folk who've had to bear the brunt of their policies implemented over the last decade.  So there you have it, folks – my completely unbiased (wink, wink) take on the 2024 Indian election circus. Just remember, when it comes to politics, it's always better to laugh than to cry (or maybe do both, just to be safe).

CamKerala3 starts 2021 cricket pre-season with wins

by Girish Menon

The pre-season games played by (CamKerala 3) CK3 on 25 April and 17 April resulted in three wins: one a close 2 run defeat of CK2 and two bigger wins over CK1 and Reach CC’s Sunday 11.

The games on 17 April saw CK3 usurp the title of CamKerala champions after beating CK2 in a qualifier before defeating CK1 in the finals. The prevalent hierarchy in CamKerala was shattered and left the defeated teams thirsting for an urgent rematch to restore what they believe is a 'natural'  pecking order.

Yesterday saw a rather one sided game in the fields of Reach a village 12 miles east of Cambridge. This hitherto 'open toilet' ground now has its own eco-toilet (not usable though!) hence CK3 players continued to discharge water in the open.

CK3 won the toss and scored over 230 runs in a 35 over game. CK3s cricketers with tennis ball training led the way with a flurry of 4s and 6s. Captain Saheer retired after preventing what could have been a collapse and the tail wagged so much that Martin could not get a bat. This led to the revival of the contentious issue whether batsmen should retire after facing a certain number of deliveries.

When CK3 bowled, Saheer set an umbrella field previously seen only when Lillee and Thomson used to bowl way back in the 1970s. There were nearly 3 slips and a gully to Jithin’s good pace and bounce and this writer dropped two chances behind the wicket. When Martin bowled his field was short point, short cover, silly mid off… and Sharad caught two batters at short point off Martin’s ‘moonballs’. Then there was a procession of batters and the match ended 15 overs before time.

The pitch had high bounce and deviation on most deliveries whilst some deliveries crept along the ground giving this writer tremendous difficulty behind the sticks. The match ended with one CK3 player locked out of his car and three team mates with fuel running on reserve wondering whether they would make it to the nearest petrol station without trouble.

There was a lot of laughter and merriment while CK3 bowled which I hope will continue for the rest of the season.

The Straw Man and The Great Indian Kitchen

By Girish Menon

In the introduction to his book ‘How to win every argument’ Madsen Pirie writes:

Sound reasoning is the basis of winning an argument. Logical fallacies undermine arguments…Many of the fallacies are committed by people genuinely ignorant of logical reasoning, the nature of evidence or what counts as relevant material. Others however might be committed by persons bent on deception. If there is insufficient force behind the argument and the evidence, fallacies can add enough weight to carry them through.

The Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen is one such exercise in fallacious reasoning. The film maker sets up and destroys a Straw Man in the form of some highly conservative Sabarimala devotees who are male, upper caste and Hindu­. In such households, the film argues, the women are perennially confined to the kitchen and subject to male whims. Some women have bought into the system while the female protagonist and her mother-in-law take up the feminist cause of subversion and rebellion.

A Straw Man, Pirie writes, is a misrepresentation of your opponent’s position, created by you for the express purpose of being knocked down. This is usually done by over-stating an opponent’s position. If your opponent will not make himself an extremist, you can oblige with a Straw Man.

The Straw Man is fallacious because he says nothing about the real argument. Its function is to elicit, by the ease of his demolition, a scorn which can be directed at the real figure he represents.

This writer carried out a straw poll (not representative at all!) among those who supported the filmmaker’s thesis and not one of them stated that they were aware of such instances happening to people known to them. Instead, most of them pointed their fingers to North Kerala where apparently such practices are rife. I did ask a former resident of North Kerala if such things happened there and his response was that ‘Women everywhere were the same North or any part of Kerala’.

Some feminists I know took up cudgels on behalf of the female protagonist even though their own life experiences did not match the film’s heroine. They quoted some sisters who were treated badly by their husbands, but added that these husbands also wanted to live of their wife's earnings. However, they were not willing to question the failure of the female protagonist, who is depicted as educated and modern, to carry out due diligence before entering into the marital contract.

In this writer’s view, the creation and destruction of the Straw Man is the only protest available to progressives and feminists. Because, despite the Supreme Court’s progressive decision in the Sabarimala case, even the progressive left government has declared its inability to implement reforms to Sabarimala rituals. This is because the majority opinion which includes many Hindu women want to maintain the status quo and are unconvinced by the feminist rhetoric.