Unreal Elections , livre ebook

Penguin Books Ltd - S Krishna C

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

144 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

At the risk of offending you a little, India s funniest bloggers would like to hold forth on: Why Narendra Modi s favourite movie is The Lion King What happens to Arnab Goswami s milkman when he tries to cheat him How Sonia G reshuffles her Cabinet with a little help from Britney Spears Why Kejriwal must wear a shawl in the Delhi summer What fills Manmohan Singh with rage Why Ravi Shastri must moderate the prime ministerial debate And what all of this has to do with the most Unreal Elections of the Summer of 2014 . . .

Sujets

Humour

Informations

Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	15 avril 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789351186885
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

C.S. Krishna & Karthik Laxman

UNREAL ELECTIONS
Contents
About the Authors
Dedication
Prologue
Match Preview

One: The family
Two: The silent leader
Three: The Gujarat lion
Four: The crown prince rises
Five: The visionary socialist
Opening Overs

Six: Her Majesty s agent
Seven: The Queen s fury
Eight: Unstoppable force vs Immovable object
Nine: The masked vigilante
Ten: The Singham s roar
Eleven: The rise of the Gujarat lion
Middle Overs

Twelve: The family s war room
Thirteen: The challenger s war room
Fourteen: The Social Engineer
Fifteen: Lion on the prowl
Sixteen: The dark underbelly
Seventeen: The cobra strikes
Eighteen: The Syndicate meets
Slog Overs

Nineteen: The fourth estate s plan
Twenty: The third dream
Twenty-One: This is war!
Twenty-Two: The contest
Twenty-Three: The contest-II
Twenty-Four: The contest-III
Twenty-Five: India votes
Post-Match Presentation

Twenty-Six: Behind V-man s mask
Twenty-Seven: The Hindu Nationalist s secret
Twenty-Eight: The PM s mission
Twenty-Nine: The visionary
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
UNREAL ELECTIONS
C.S. Krishna is a self-proclaimed legendary development consultant. He wants to make it big as a public policy guru but three years of writing satire for The UnReal Times under the pseudonym Unreal Mama has rendered him incapable of thinking seriously. He has an engineering degree from IIT Bombay, MS from Ohio State University and an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad.
*
Karthik Laxman has a degree in software engineering from BITS-Pilani and an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad. In his career he has taken more U-turns than Mulayam Singh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal put together, transitioning from a programmer to management consultant to development specialist to entrepreneur to sundry other roles, before finding his calling as a house-husband. He also writes for and manages The UnReal Times.
To Dr Kamala Devi, my ever-loving grandmother
C.S. KRISHNA
To Mom, Dad, Priya and Anjali
KARTHIK LAXMAN
Prologue
AUGUST 2012
THE ENTREPRENEUR SAT HUNCHED in the living room of his four-bedroom apartment, his forehead creased with worry. He d just had his fifth fight that month with his wife. She had come home exhausted after a long day at work, and found him laughing with his associates in the hall. What followed was a vicious tongue-lashing delivered to him right in front of his shocked colleagues that ended with her storming off into their bedroom slamming the door behind her.
He couldn t blame her though. While he loitered in the streets and hung around with his friends plotting insane schemes, she handled the household expenses, paid the home- loan instalment and looked after the children.
Suddenly the sky was rocked by the sound of thunder. Smelling rain in the air, he pulled the thin shawl tighter around him, and wondered what the future held in store. Behind him his co-founders squabbled, arguing with each other on what they should name their fledgling enterprise.
It was pouring now. The Delhi NCR (National Capital Region) seemed to have received more than its share of thunderstorms this year. He trudged out into the balcony, rested his forearms on the railing and leaned over, staring emptily into the distance, when suddenly the lights in the streets went out, plunging the neighbourhood into darkness. Typical Ghaziabad, he sighed.
He didn t see the point of going back in and fetching a kerosene lamp. He continued gazing into the darkness which seemed to symbolize his current predicament.
A flash of lightning lit up the neighbourhood. In that millisecond, he saw something monstrous hanging like a bat right in front of him. He leapt back instinctively and crashed into the wall behind him. For a moment, he lay on the floor, legs sprawled, wondering what the hell he d seen.
Lightning flashed again, for him to make out what he thought he had seen earlier. A grotesque-looking creature draped in a dark cape hung upside down from the railings of the floor above.
The creature then unfolded its arms to reveal a fluorescent V etched brightly across its chest. In the dim light of the fluorescent V, the creature extended something towards him.
Take it, the creature rasped.
He swallowed hard, and slowly inched forward with his arm stretched out.
Wh . . . what is this? he managed to stammer.
A gift.
He eyed it warily, and risked a glance at the thing he now held. It was a large folder. Thunder rent the skies once again.
Who are you? he asked, and glanced up. But the creature was gone.
Utterly bewildered by the turn of events, he stumbled back into the living room, sat himself at a small table in a corner, and set down the folder near a kerosene lamp.
Then Arvind Kejriwal opened the folder and began reading the first of several documents, his eyes growing wider by the minute.
MATCH PREVIEW

It s an electrifying atmosphere out there, looks like we have a cracker of a match here, folks.
-Ravi Shastri
One
The family
OCTOBER 2012
THE FARMER STEPPED INTO the dim room, heart in his mouth. The door shut behind him with a click. The blinds of the full-length window on the wall opposite him were drawn, throwing many patterned shadows all around. Near the window stood Ajay Maken, dressed in a dark suit, sipping his glass of red wine. Behind him, in a shadowy corner, Jairam Ramesh sat cross-legged.
In the centre of the room, at an oak desk, a man was reclining on a chair. He wore a black suit and a bow tie. A red rose adorned his jacket pocket. His facial features stayed hidden under a shadow, but the light bounced off his slicked-back oiled hair. A tiny kitten stretched on his lap, pawing at him as he stroked it absently.
The farmer shivered. Summoning every ounce of courage within him, he took a step forward, bowed low towards the man, took his hand and kissed it.
Godfather, the farmer whispered.
Rahul Gandhi looked up at the farmer. The corner of his mouth went up in a half smile. With an imperious wave of his hand that at once screamed power and compassion, he gestured at the farmer to take a seat opposite him.
Beyond the far corner of the room, behind two spyholes, Sonia Gandhi and Ahmed Patel shook each other s hands in excitement.
Your dream is coming true, madam! whispered Ahmed Patel. Marlon Brando isn t a patch on our Rahul baba!
Shh! Let s watch, Sonia Gandhi whispered back, barely concealing her elation.
The farmer sat quietly for a moment and then began.
I believe in Haryana, he said. I raised my son in the Haryanvi fashion. I gave him freedom but taught him never to dishonour the family.
He found a friend, the farmer continued. Not of the same gotra. They went to the movies. They stayed out late. But I didn t protest. Two weeks ago, he told us he ll introduce his life partner to us. We were happy. We were relieved that we didn t have to go to Kerala to find a bride. We eagerly awaited the day my son would walk in with our daughter-in-law.
On the auspicious day, my wife swept the courtyard and prepared a delicious dinner for the couple. I came home from the field and found them standing side by side, holding hands. They looked really happy. But I couldn t stop crying. Our daughter-in-law was a boy.
The farmer choked with emotion. Rahul made the slightest of gestures with his index and middle fingers. A man promptly emerged from the shadows, handed a tissue to the farmer and returned to the shadows. The farmer wiped his tears, struggling to regain his composure.
I went to the khap panchayat, like a good Haryanvi. The two boys were brought to trial. The tau reprimanded them, and ordered them to stop eating chow mein. The farmer s face contorted with pain and anguish. Stop eating chow mein?! They eloped that very day! I stood outside my house like a fool while the entire village laughed at me!
Rahul Gandhi did not betray any emotion. Subconsciously, he scratched under the kitten s ear, listening to the farmer with the unhurried air of a man who knew exactly what he had to do, and when he had to do it.
The farmer s face cleared. He straightened in his chair, and said in a firm tone, Then I told my wife, we must go to Rahul baba. He would know how to handle such delicate situations.
Rahul Gandhi stiffened. The kitten leapt off his lap with a meow, and scampered into the darkness. The aura of nonchalant power abruptly left him. Instead, a vacant expression materialized on his face, and he looked at the farmer blankly.
Uh, can you check with Mummy on this?
Behind the spyhole, Sonia Gandhi and Ahmed Patel slapped their foreheads in unison, and stood looking at each other in frustration.
What do we do now? said Sonia.
Ahmed opened his mouth to reply, when his phone buzzed. Ahmed, he barked into the phone. Yes . . . yes . . . yes . . . WHAT!?
A moment later, Ahmed slipped the phone back into his kurta pocket and turned to his boss. Madam, we have a serious problem.
* * *
Around the time the most powerful woman in the subcontinent was preparing her firstborn to take charge of the family s affairs, trouble was brewing in her backyard. Arvind Kejriwal had torn into her son-in-law, Robert Vadra, demanding a probe into his real estate dealings. The tide of bad press against him showed no signs of abating, with allegations of Vadra s extraordinary feats popping up-such as buying 3.5 acres of land in Manesar for Rs 7.5 crore and then flipping it to DLF 65 days later for Rs 58 crore after the Haryana government allowed it to be developed for residential purposes.
The Congress PR machinery faced an uphill task in dispelling the notion that the first jamai was anything but a dalal who essentially made his money by obtaining regulatory clearances. And as frenzied media coverage reached a crescendo, it became difficult to differentiate between serious reportage and satire, with reports like these going viral on social media sites. (see