To save on training costs, Investment Banks to hire zombies directly instead of human beings

Dedicated to the kid who died after working 72 hours straight at BAML. Satire. 

Reports coming in from IIM campuses across the country suggest that several Investment Banks have decided to stop hiring from B-Schools and instead, are shifting their hiring focus to graveyards. This is reportedly because most B-Schoolers tended to become zombies after working 100 hour weeks at I-Banks anyway and the firms wanted to save time and training cost on the “zombification learning curve.”

“From ten I-Banks coming for placements last year, we now just have two coming,” Pankaj Chauhan, the placement convenor at IIM-A said. “And even the ones that are coming are behaving strangely.”

Even the few I-Banks that did come to B-school campuses for placement tried to recruit people who were already zombie-like in their behavior and bearing.

“I went into the interview and they asked me to impersonate a zombie, walk listlessly from one end of the room to the other and growl lazily at them,” Deepak Chaurasia, an IIM-B student who had applied for one of the I-Banks said. “They were really impressed when I tried to bite one of their old looking senior partners.”

“This is my dream company and leave alone impersonating a zombie, I am willing to have relations with a male camel to get through,” Mr. Chaurasia added pensively. “I really hope I get through.”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/20/to-save-on-training-costs-investment-banks-to-hire-zombies-directly-instead-of-human-beings/

Like Tharoor’s account, sometimes Rahul’s brain also gets hacked: Congress

Satire.

Not willing to let the opportunity to hide behind an excuse go, the Congress party today released an official statement that just like Shashi Tharoor’s Twitter handle, Rahul Gandhi’s brain has also been occasionally hacked in the past. Without naming names, the party suggested that communally active forces that wanted to destroy the country’s unity were trying to get into Rahul’s mind, thereby making a veiled attack at the RSS and the BJP.

“There were several times when he made meaningless statements like his now famous escape velocity, honeybee, etc. speeches and then the ordinance tearing episode,” Manish Tewary, official spokesperson for the Congress party said. “All these times, Rahul baba was not in the right frame of mind as his brain had been hacked by communal forces. All these ideas were implanted there by these hackers.”

“Why would we even try to hack into the guy’s brain?” a spokesperson for the BJP said, laughing, when accosted with the allegations. “Khalee tijoree pe chori karke karenge kya?”

Seeking to learn from AAP, Rahul Gandhi sends a letter with 18 questions to Arvind Kejriwal

Couldn't resist. Mr. Gandhi is my satirical weakness.

Delhi: Reports coming in from sources in AAP and Congress have revealed that Rahul Gandhi has written a letter to Arvind Kejriwal, in an attempt to implement learnings from the Aam Admi Party within his own party. Coincidentally, the letter contained 18 questions- same as the number of preconditions for support Kejriwal had raised in his letter to Congress before taking their support to form his government in Delhi.

Tired after asking questions.

Faking News managed to catch hold of the first page of this letter. Excerpts from the letter and some of the questions as follows:

“Hello Mr. Kejriwal

My name is Rahul Gandhi and I want to learn how to win elections from you. Please answer the following questions in thirty words or less. Too many words confuse me.

1. Who is your favourite animal? Do you like bees?
2. Have you ever attained escape velocity?
3. Who is your mummy? What do you do if she is unhappy about something?
4. Sheila aunty keeps asking me for a job. What should I do with her?
5. If I wear a muffler and cough a lot like you, will people vote for me?
6. Mummy is spending 500 crores on my image makeover. How much for your muffler?
7. My brother in law wants to know if he can get some land in Kaushambi?”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/15/seeking-to-learn-from-aap-rahul-gandhi-sends-a-letter-with-18-questions-to-arvind-kejriwal/

Man arrested for breathing same air as Robert Vadra

It's funny how the Congress never learns from its mistakes. 

Delhi: A day after a man was challaned by the Delhi Police for overtaking Robert Vadra’s car, an FIR was filed by a Congress worker against a man who happened to be breathing in the vicinity of Mr. Vadra. The Delhi Police swung into action soon after the FIR was filed, arresting the man and booking him under ‘violation of damaad’s airspace’ laws.

“A retired teacher called Jyoti Bannerjee was loitering around Vadraji breathing the very air that Vadraji is supposed to be breathing exclusively,” Inspector Rakesh Varma, Station House Officer of the Mandi House Police Station said. “He was also staring at Vadraji a lot causing him a lot of discomfiture and also making him remove his expensive sunglasses to check out the man.”

“We have arrested Mr. Bannerjee,” the policeman continued. “But not to worry, we will let him go soon with a stern warning to breathe more carefully from hereon.”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/13/man-arrested-for-breathing-same-air-as-robert-vadra/

Caught between NaMo wave and AAP wave, man forgets to take blanket during cold wave

Because Narendra Modi is a "polar"izing figure. Satire.

Lucknow: A businessman from UP called Ramesh Shukla was recently hospitalized with severe pneumonia in the state’s capital city of Lucknow.

Apparently the man was an avid watcher of news channels and had been tracking the Narenda Modi wave and thereafter, the AAP wave so intently that he forgot to even take a blanket for several nights in a row.

“He would keep talking about Narendra Modi for hours on end,” Mr. Shukla’s wife, Premvati told this Faking News reporter. “All day, everyday, at lunch or dinner, all he would talk about was how the Narendra Modi wave was going to change India. But then Arvind Kejriwal became Delhi’s Chief Minister and he switched to talking about the Aam Admi Party wave. Frankly, we were getting a little tired of it all. Achha hua bimaar pad gaya.”

When Faking News went to visit the man in hospital, he was clearly quite disoriented because the first question he asked us was, “Election kaun jeeta? Kejriwal ke Modi?”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/08/caught-between-namo-wave-and-aap-wave-man-forgets-to-take-blanket-during-cold-wave/

Sometimes Rahul speaks nonsense due to acidity in brain: Sonia Gandhi

Read "Rahul's best brain farts" somewhere. Inspired me to write this.

New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi has today admitted that her son, Rahul, sometimes behaved weirdly and spoke nonsense due to high levels of acidity reaching his brain. Speaking to reporters from her 10, Janpath residence, Madam Gandhi even went to the extent of apologizing for Rahul’s ‘brain farts’.

“Sometimes, Rahul has terrible acidity of the brain,” Ms. Gandhi said, in her unmistakable inimitable Italian accent which she has somehow managed to nurture even after three decades of staying in India. “That is why he says things like bee hive and escape velocity and tries to tear up ordinances. The Congress party sincerely apologizes to the nation for his actions and words.”

Speculating over the causes of this brain acidity, Ms. Gandhi said, “It is possible it all started when started going to Dalit people’s homes and eating their food. Till then, he had only had food specially imported for him from Italy.”

When asked what the Congress party was doing to solve the problem, Ms. Gandhi replied, “No more mutton or rajma chawal for Rahul.”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/07/sometimes-rahul-speaks-nonsense-due-to-acidity-in-brain-sonia-gandhi/

Indian kabootars better than Amazon drones, claims Rahul Gandhi

 My cousin challenged me to do a piece of satire on Amazon's drones. And Rahul Gandhi helped me rise to the challenge...

Delhi: Speaking to reporters at the Press Club of India, Mr. Gandhi said that Indian pigeons or ‘kabootars’ were far more advanced than the drones Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO had said were in development and would take about five years to bring to fruition. Mr. Gandhi, who has a fondness for taking recourse to animal kingdom analogies to try and explain his thoughts, made the contentious claim while trying to defend economic development under the UPA II regime.

“All this talk of no economic growth and development under UPA 2’s regime is nonsense,” Mr. Gandhi said in response to a question from this Faking News reporter. “Consider this… Amazon is going to take five years to develop drones that can deliver goods. We have had this technology for more than fifty years… by way of our Indian kabootars, who are capable of finding addresses and delivering letters. In fact, I have personally asked all ministries and government departments to stop using un-Indian methods of communication like emails and start using kabootars, which cannot be intercepted by US spy agencies as well.”

“Unlike drones, I believe kabootars have a better chance of attaining escape velocity as well,” Rahul concluded.

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/07/indian-kabootars-better-than-amazon-drones-claims-rahul-gandhi/

After retirement, Manmohan Singh to become a live statue at Madame Tussauds

My most viral post (Twitter wise) on FN. Satire.

New Delhi: Key sources from within the Prime Minister’s Office have revealed that Manmohan Singh plans to work as a “live statue” at one of Madame Tussauds’ museums, post retirement.

“We had been getting requests for Mr. Singh’s statue from various museums across the world and a few Congress state governments as well,” a source from within the PMO said, on condition of anonymity. “But considering that staying silent and doing nothing is what Mr. Singh enjoys doing most, he has volunteered to stand still at several of these locations to earn money after retiring as PM.”

“Even when he speaks today, none of us is able to determine where the sound is escaping his body from,” the source said. “His lips barely move and his expression does not change. His entire body stays still.”

”This will be the best job fit for him,” the source concluded. “We are working on a roster for his deployment as a statue at various locations, post his retirement.”

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/07/after-retirement-manmohan-singh-to-become-a-live-statue-at-madame-tussauds/

What that b**** Rhonda Bryne didn’t tell you

This is going to make very little sense. Or maybe a lot of sense. I hope to leave you mildly intrigued or mildly bored. Like a Chetan Bhagat book.

I read a lot of nonsense; none of which includes any kind of religious or spiritual or self-help psychobabble that other human beings read. I have not read The Secret or The Magic or Seven Habits of Highly Constipated People or Count Your Rabbits Before They Scratch. A lot of people- mostly old, mostly of the female variety- spend a lot of time and money on reading crap like this.

My wife once told me that the essence of the book “The Secret” was that you send positive energy up into the Universe. For example, you whisper to the Universe “I want to have a great day in office today” and the Universe shall listen to you. But if you were to whisper to the Universe “I want that bastard who keeps boring me with lame jokes at lunch every day to get impaled under the photocopier”, the Universe isn’t going to listen to you. Because that’s just not positive.

While you are figuring out a positive way of asking the Universe to ensure certain irritants in your life die painfully, I am left wishing that I could write books containing psychobabble like this; crap that might help people believe they actually have a chance of changing their lives. Like “How to improve your life by wearing odd colors to office everyday”. Or “The eight untold secrets of stress free photocopying”.

But I can’t. And thus I will never be an incredibly successful writer. Perhaps. Because what I am about to do is give it all away for free. Life, the deeper meaning of life, the Universe and everything else. Yes, free! (Feel free to donate to my cause by buying my book which, of course, has nothing to do with this blog post.)

As I said, I read a lot of nonsense. Most of it has nothing to do with the self help variety of literature that people make small fortunes peddling. But I am addicted to reading- I read to fill my mind with stories… fiction, non-fiction, history. And in my endless quest for nothing but pure entertainment of the soul, I believe I have stumbled upon The Actual Secret. If I were marketing savvy, that’s what I would call the book. Or maybe, The Real Secret. Or better still, What That Bitch Rhonda Bryne Didn’t Tell You.

Let me tell you there is no such thing as the Universe listening to you. Or people with seven specific habits being highly successful. (I haven’t read the book and slept through presentations where people spoke of the book; so I am going to refrain from attacking it, for now.) Erm... back to my point- no such thing as the Universe listening to anyone. The Universe barely has time for itself- it’s not going to listen to you. It has galaxies, black holes, comets, asteroids, stars, planets to manage. It is about the rank of a General Manager in the Corporation of Everything.

As I said, when you read as much as I do and you read simply for the guilty pleasure of sneaking a read in your limited leisure time, what you acquire is not knowledge but wisdom. Without sounding too boastful, the rough approximation of this is the attempt for attainment of God through prayer. Pray and you shall hope to find God. Fill your soul with stories and you shall hope to have a mildly intriguing/ boring epiphany.

So now that I have built this up with about seven paragraphs of riff raff, I am going to break it to you. The deeper meaning of life, the universe and everything. And (drumroll…) it is…

The meaning of life is merely the act of forgetting that we are going to die. Everything that we ever do; our education, our love lives, our careers, our families, our children, our fitness regimens- are all a charade to help us forget that we are terminal. When we rue a bad appraisal, when we bereave a dead pet, when we celebrate standing second in a debate, when we cuddle next to a pillow with the flu- all our sorrows, our miseries, our joys- all our senses collude to create an emotional space in which the fear of impending death gets crowded out. Simply put, our everyday gamut of emotions, of pursuits, of little joys and miseries helps us forget- helps us live.

When sages, godmen, demigods, etc. meditate and withdraw to their mythical mountains to ponder on the meaning of life, they are in effect validating my philosophy as well. Their crusade for the meaning of life helps them evade the absolute certainty of death. I believe that their quest for a grand afterlife engages their minds so that they might forget that they too shall be dead in a few years. And thus, their quest for meaning would actually stand as a subset of my “Real Secret.”

And thus like all great stories, I shall finish this with what I started. When I read, when I fill my head with stories- real or fictional, it just helps me forget. And that is the deeper meaning of life. Simply, to forget.

Now if you disagree, consider this… I could have written a book about this. Titled it “What That Bitch Rhonda Bryne didn’t tell you” and made a few million bucks. And that would have made you extremely jealous.

It is another matter that your jealousy would have made you forget about your mortality. But let me not oversell this.

I have not plagiarised this theory but if Einstein or Stephen Hawking or Rhonda Bryne or Asaram Bapu has already written about this, I am going to plead ignorance. I read to entertain; not to educate and have given all these writers a miss.

Manmohan Singh found partying all night on Honey Singh’s songs after announcing retirement

Manmohan Singh's 'retirement' speech was the year's most entertaining for me. So far. I am going to miss him.

New Delhi: An unusually boisterous Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was found partying away into the wee hours of the night after announcing that he was going to retire hurt from politics. The usually silent and wooden Mr. Singh was discovered dancing at a club in Connaught Place under the influence of alcohol to Yo Yo Honey Singh’s hits.

Sources from within the PMO said that after announcing his retirement, Dr. Singh was finally free from the Congress’ diktat of limiting his movements and sounds. His joy was quite visible on the dance floor where he was found doing tequila shots, hitting on women, slurring his words and dancing like an eighteen year old.

“Without discussing the merits of Narendra Modi, I sincerely believe that I am a better dancer,” Manmohan Singh declared in a loud voice, while doing bhangra to Honey Singh’s “Dope Shope”. “While contemporary media may not think so, history will definitely judge me as a better dancer.”

“But Rahul Gandhi has outstanding credentials to be a better dancer, and I hope our party will take that decision at the appropriate time,” he added later.

http://my.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2014/01/04/manmohan-singh-found-partying-all-night-on-honey-singhs-songs-after-announcing-retirement/