15 More Predictions

1. Mukesh Ambani will buy Greece from an auction outbidding a Qatari royal and bring it under Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation;

2. Farmers’ suicide will finally be a thing of the past as there won’t be any left to attempt it;

3. An Indian will invent a cordless mobile charger which would double up as pajama drawstring;

4. Shoaib Akhtar will pip Rameez Raja to Indian citizenship;

5. Mahatma Gandhi will appear during a joint parliament session, demanding his name is deleted from history, insisting he wants none of it;

6. The UN will ban IPL and all franchise-based sports leagues simply for coming up with such ghastly names for the teams;

7. Trying to create the photographic illusion of touching the top of the minaret at Taj Mahal and similar structures will be declared as mental illness;

8. Eclairs will become legitimate currency;

9. Girls with moustache and guys with pot-belly will dominate the next decade;

10. New breed of hens will directly lay boiled egg.

11. Shah Rukh Khan will lose a Bollywood Dahi Handi competition to Ranvir Kapoor after selecting the likes of Kailash Kher, Aamir Khan and Rajpal Yadav in his team. The human pyramid didn’t come anywhere near the pot;

12. A new Nehru biography will disclose he was actually called "Cha Cha" Nehru for being nimble-footed in that Cuban dance form;

13. Chetan Bhagat will confess his latest books are duds and he buys thousands of them himself to make them best-sellers.

14. Future poll promises by political parties will include offer to help people climb out of their skinny jeans;

15. Death will be optional.

15 Predictions

1. Stephen Hawking will clamber out of that wheelchair and sheepishly apologise for playing the longest practical joke on us;

2. Osama bin Laden will be found alive somewhere along the Sudan-Uganda border, clean shaven and married happily to a Bantu widow with 12 sons from her previous three marriages;

3. Fashion will go out of fashion;

4. Once done with her adoption spree, Angelina Jolie will stage hunger strike in front of the UN headquarters demanding separate nationhood for her kids;

5. Leonardo DiCaprio will name her son Oscar, realising it’s the only way he can have one;

6. Football will be banned after the supporters of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo fight World War III over who is the better player;

7. With nothing left to win in women’s tennis, Serena Williams will play men’s event but would go down to Novak Djokovic in five sets in Wimbledon final;

8. Doctors will reveal Bappi Lahiri’s sunglasses have developed veins and is now only surgically removable;

9. Next UN secretary-general would be a stand-up comedian;

10. Leander Paes will win the 2040 Wimbledon mixed doubles final partnering one of Roger Federer’s twin daughters;

11. One of the south Asian nations will declare Angry Bird as their national bird;

12. Pluto will be reinstated as a planet under ST/SC/OBC/minority/sports quota;

13. India TV will broadcast an exclusive one-on-one with Ajmal Kasab via planchette in which he would deny being served Biryani in Indian jail. Kasab will call it "media propaganda" and vow to break the necks of all misleading journalists, prompting the interviewer to flee studio and the channel to abruptly replace the show with a programme about a ghost which is lactose intolerant;

14. Indian channels will break the exclusive news of Aradhya Bachchan signing her first film against Rajnikant;

15. Kangana Ranaut would reveal she is a cyborg;

Wimbledonitis strikes Indian cricket

Indian cricket's worst-kept secret is out, and remember you read it here first.

Some of the biggest names in Indian cricket have recently been diagnosed with what medics are calling Wimbledonitis -- an irrepressible urge to be at the Wimbledon, especially for the men's competition.

"Wimbledon has become his personal Vaishno Devi," said a family member of one of those cricketers, requesting anonymity.

"It's to him is what Cannes is to Sonam Kapoor. Come July and he wakes up, as if in a trance, takes a shower, puts on his best suit, dangles a tie from his neck and leaves for airport without uttering a word where he is going," she said.

"After a day or two, just when we're on the verge of contacting police, he resurfaces at Wimbledon's Centre Court. We used to panic a lot, but now getting used to it."

BCCI has appointed a leading psychiatrist to look into the case but the mystery rages on.

"I don't want to sound an alarmist but the ailment is spreading like a rumour of salacious nature in a gossip-starved neighbourhood," said Dr Mannjeet Mann, shaking head in disappointment.

"I'm yet to go to the bottom of this but it looks like a Curse of the White and most vulnerable are the recently retired ones.

"Wimbledon's predominantly white dress casts a natural spell on the psyche of the test players. That explains the strong pull they succumb to.

"It's an attraction as strong as the one Odysseus felt passing through the colony of the Sirens who lured sailors with their enchanting music."

Economists have also waded into the topic.

"It's very simple. Considering the food inflation here, it's actually cheaper to fly to London and eat strawberry-and-cream there than buy those here," said one of them.

According to a conspiracy theorist, Wimbledon was merely a ruse.

"The cricketers used it to fly to England and eat Maggi there. Remember, UK's Food Standards Agency has announced it safe," he said.

Dr Mann insisted it would be silly to underestimate the epidemic.

"This year we have had three of them -- Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli at the Royal Box.

"And we have definitive proof now, of how it affects your intellectual faculties. A day after this, Tendulkar found himself lost in an Oxfordshire village and sent frantic SOS to get him out of there.

"It all probably started long back. Remember, tennis elbow didn't exist in India before he developed one."

Why can't we have honest bios like these?

Our strive for transparency should not end in celeb wear. An honest world is a lot more fun place.

Take the citations that go with all government awards. They simply lack soul and sound funereal. Insert some interesting tidbits about the winners and see how honest and fascinating it reads.

Image Bharat Ratna citations reading like this:

Shanthajit Sreechandila, Cricketer

* Rejected six match-fixing offers in a spotless career – either lacking the courage or the offers were not good enough.

* Cried twice on camera when asked about dark past. Would have been tried for tax evasion in any civilized country but used his connections to get away with it.

* Team mates fondly remember him as the stingiest person they shared dressing room with.

* Opponents remember him as a champion sledger with a penchant to involve female family members of his rivals.

* Often found digging nose at the presentation ceremony.

SureshRaja JayaKaruna Prasad, Politician

* In the 1716 rallies he addressed, had 17 chappals hurled at him, was slapped seven times and twice attacked with ink – least among his compatriots.

* Was found sitting through the national anthem on 11 occasions.

* A steady supplier of workforce to the government, he accommodated 136 of his family members in various departments.

* Introduced five different women as his wife at different points of time.

* Used political connections 201 times to get relatives out of jail.

* Set up Hai-Huku Commerce University of Science and Arts to match the institute he had forged his Master’s degree from. Seven of his rival candidates remain missing for over a decade.

RajKaran Verma, Bollywood Director

* More than 50% of his films didn’t attract plagiarism charges, a rarity in the industry.

* Maker of mostly women-centric films with the recurring theme of under-textiled females gyrating in rain under the Duckworth-Lewis method.

* A Bollywood pioneer who rendered plots redundant.

* Got three national awards, using either bribe or threats.

* Have steadfastly refused to be funded by anyone outside underworld. Often takes the underworld’s help to negotiate fees of his actors.

7 Reasons Why Helmets Must Not Be A Must For Bikers

1. It becomes dashed difficult to identify the helmeted person your boyfriend/girlfriend, you chance-discover, clinging to;

2. If anyone is planning to vacate the already crowded planet, we need to honour that sentiment. A biker without helmet should be rewarded and not challaned;

3. Helmets, at best, can temporarily hide baldness but can’t cure it;

4. I have no sympathy for the helmet-manufacturing industry and I resent traffic cops to be reduced to their salesmen;

5. According to a study conducted by a team half of which had their helmets on, 45% of the brain surgeons, along with their family, will die starvation death if helmet is made mandatory for all bikers in India.

6. Helmet encourages reckless biking, convincing the wearer that he/she can emerge from anything with that head intact;

and finally,

7. Anyone who considers helmet a nuisance deserves an accident.