Doosra Annual Awards 2016 (UNESCO certified)

1. Human Lacrymal Gland of the Year ~ Aamir Khan. For crying here, here and here. He receives the teardrop-shaped Nirupa Roy Memorial trophy. He'd cry khushi-ke-ansu now.


2. Lord of the Larynx ~ Arnab Goswami. For breaching permissible decibel levels at prime time;

3. Indian With The Cleanest Mind ~ RBI governor Urjit Patel. Post-demonetisation, he changes mind every night;

4. Mr National Eyesore of The Year ~ Ranveer Singh. Some of the outfits he wore would have got him behind the bars in several countries. He gets a jar full of Delhi air;


5. Ms National Eyesore Of the Year ~ Airtel 4G girl;

6. Political Trishanku Of The Year ~ Navjot Singh Sidhu. Paaji left BJP but yet to join Congress or AAP, at the time of going to Press.

7. 'Atithi Devour Bhava' Samman ~ To Ravichandran Ashwin. For feasting on visiting batsmen;

8. Mard Tongue-e Wala ~ Kapil Sharma: For his breathless, mindless and frequently meaningless male chauvinistic jokes;


9. Worst Namer of the Year ~ Saif Ali Khan & Kareena Kapoor. For naming their son 'Taimur', thus exposing the kid to a lifetime of ridicule and ensuring he won't be able to visit a Starbucks for the rest of his life;

10. Yami Gautam Banking Award ~ Axis Bank. For its role to help convert black into white;

11. Wailing Cupid of The Year ~ Arijit Singh. For singing sweet love songs after sweet love songs that left the country's love-struck with emotional diabetes. He gets what he needs most, a shaving set;


12. Frugal Indian Father of the year ~ G Janardhan Reddy. For managing his daughter's marriage with a shoestring budget of Rs 550 crores;

13. Boyfriend Of The Year ~ Virat Kohli. For his stout defending of Anushka Sharma with this SHAME tweet;

14. Pariah Of The Year ~ Cyrus Mistry. From leading Tata Sons to being ousted from the group. He gets an year's supply of Tata salt, to rub on his wound;

15. Enemy Of The Inbox ~ Kangana Ranaut. For sending one mail every six minutes to Hrithik Roshan during their bizarre affair. She will receive medal from the Nigerian Price who spams our mailboxes.

16. Worst Fashion Statement Of the Year ~ Priyanka Chopra. For wearing this t-shirt.


17. Footloose of the year ~ Azam Khan's buffaloes. For their tendencies to go missing;

18. Worst Network Of the Year ~ Whichever Bob Dylan uses;

19. Indian Athelete of the Year: TMC MLA Sudip Roy Barman, who seized the Speaker's mace and ran off in Tripura assembly;

20. Bollywood's Jack-Of-All-Trades of the Year ~ Farhan Akhtar, who seems clueless whether to be an actor, director or musician. He receives Irfan Pathan Failed Allrounder Trophy;

21. National Bank ~ Paytm.

22. Gravity-defier of the Year ~ Dipa Karmakar. She also proved you don't need to jump to conclusions always, you can Produnova to it as well;


23. The Indian Houdini Of the Year ~ Vijay Mallya, for his overnight escape to safety in London;

24. The Indian Christ of the Year ~ Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, for turning wine into water until Patna High Court lifted the liquor ban;

25. 'Invisible Friend of India' Medal ~ The anonymous NASA photographer, who floats in space capturing how India celebrates her festivals and shares it unfailingly;

26. National Appu Ghar ~ Big Boss;

27. Unfaithful Indian Of the Year ~ Sonam Gupta.


28. Guide of the Year ~ Bhagwant Mann, for his guided FacebookLive tour of Parliament;

29. Misquoted Person of the Year ~ Rumi, for the umpteenth time;

30. Disgraced Institution of the Year ~ UNESCO. After countless hoaxes about it declaring random things as the 'best'. Including this post.

10 Things That Have Left Solar System With Voyager I

So Voyager I has left the Solar System. Now what prompted this abrupt exit nobody knows.

Elevation of a younger space probe that hurt the patriarch? Lure of a greener pasture in some other universe? Lack of breathing space in an increasingly crowded space?

We probably would never know. But it's not only the spacecraft which has left.

Below, Doosra lists 10 things that have left Solar System With Voyager I.

1. S Sreesanth's career;

2. L.K. Advani's Prime Ministerial aspirations;

3. Shahid Afridi's birth certificate;

4. Ishant Sharma's skills;

5. Omar Abdullah's baldness;

6. The 'a' from Ajay Devgn's surname;

7. Tusshar Kapoor's tongue, which explains his gibberish in the "Golmaal" series and subsequent trash;

8. Sanity from Rohit Shetty blockbusters;

9. Navjot Sidhu's reticence;

and finally:

10. Arnab Goswami, whose conspicuous absence from Newshour is fuelling speculations that he is actually piloting Voyager I out of the Solar System. "Going by the noise Voyager I is making, that's a distinct possibility which can't be ruled out," a NASA scientist told Doosra strictly on condition of anonymity.

Pix: BBC

Sugarpova Effect: 8 Indian Cricketers And Their Potential Brand Surnames

A recent NASA study reveals only two human voices reach Mars – the first being Arnab Goswami’s when he’s collaring the Newshour debate with aplomb; and the second, Maria Sharapova’s grunt when she is whacking the ball.

The tennis tsarina, and I’m not talking about Mr Goswami, recently appealed to a Florida court seeking to temporarily change her surname to ‘Sugarpova’ for the duration of the US Open before abandoning the marketing stunt.

For the uninitiated, Sugarpova is the candy line Sharapova owns

In the end, Maria Sugarpova didn’t materialise. In fact, the poor richest female athlete pulled out of US Open with a shoulder injury.

Taking it from there, Doosra lists eight Indian cricketers and what should have been their natural brand surnames.




1. Sourav Scholl: When things got tense, Sourav Ganguly chewed his nails as if they were Greg Chappell. Legend has it Scholl patterned their nail-clipper after Dada.

2. Rohit Maggi: The first joke an average Indian kid learns is that you put maggi two-minute noodles on oven when Rohit Sharma walks out to bat and serve it hot when he’s back in the pavilion.



3. Shikhar Moustache: Shikhar Dhawan possesses contemporary cricket’s most famed handlebar and Moustache jeans can’t sign a better person to revive the brand that was fairly popular in small-time towns.



4. Harbhajan KFC: Even his detractors would admit he was a ‘Finger-licking good’ spinner before being reduced to a thumb-sucking has-been.

5. Ajit Nokia: Ajit Chandila has been connecting people so that they could fix IPL matches.

6. Sir Ravindra Good Knight: He is as efficient as the mosquito repellent brand. Has also assumed Knighthood without waiting for the queen to confer one on him.

7. Mahendra Singh Pawan Hans: There is a general consensus even among the armed forces that Dhoni manufactures India’s best helicopters.



8. Virat Cisco: If you closely look at the Cisco logo, it resembles human digits with two rather outsized middle fingers, jutting out as if Virat Kohli’s.

P.S. The Bounce list of T20 cricketers who might change their surnames is here.

Contemporary cricket's 7 most talked-about body parts

Doosra gets physical. Well, make it anatomical. That would not only pre-empt dirty connotations but also lend the piece a rather serious tone.

Much like Stephen Fleming talking about blockhole. Or is it Stephen Hawking talking about blackhole?

Whatever.

Gone off the rails a bit? Well, let me put the record straight.

Doosra goes anatomical. Mind you, that is what we had agreed on. And a bit metaphorical as well.

You'll agree, any blogger worth his salt, sugar and jaggery would do everything to bring Lalit Modi and John Buchanan into the picture and hence the detour.

So here goes the list of contemporary cricket's 7 most talked-about body parts, both figurally and figuratively.

1. Spine: The vertebral column that Virender Sehwag, fed up of the invertebrates, insists on in every Delhi selector.

2. Nose: The Olfactory System belonging to John Buchanan, cricket's own Pinocchio, which has a mind of its own and a tendency to poke itself at the slightest opportunity.

3. Forefinger: The erratic appendix in Rudy Koertzen’s body. Some batsmen are ready to bear the expenses if Rudy agrees to get it surgically removed.

4. Toe: An average cricket administrator's most endangered part when Lalit Modi is around.

5. Ear: The portion of Sachin Tendulkar that the latent Mike Tyson in Phillip Hughes wants to 'chew off'.

6. Heel: The posterior end of the foot that actually belongs to Kevin Pietersen but medics insist on calling Achilles'.

7. Knee: The joint of Andrew Flintoff's right leg, a definitive testimonial of how dud NASA is.

7 Flintoff tit-bits

1. Here is a scoop! In his Test swansong at Oval, wonky Flintoff is toying with the idea of going Sohail Tanvir, i.e. bowling off the wrong, if that helps his case! England think-tank has already okayed it, saying it's upto Flintoff to put his foot down, whichever he prefers. They said as a team, England doesn't want to put a foot wrong and hence it's imperative that Flintoff puts his best, and fitter, foot forward. Well, the bottomline is -- Australia should be wrong-footed in Oval.

2. Flintoff believes NASA is an overrated dud. At best, it's America's answer to the Sivakasi firework factories. The Game Ready Wrap, which allegedly uses NASA spacesuit technology, proved an outright lemon and could not heal Flintoff's ankle. It was such a junk that even Flintoff's dog rejected it, spitting it out after a thorough chewing failed to excite its gastric juices;

3. Flintoff does not Twitter a la Phillip Hughes, Graeme Swann or James 'a bit of a pussy' Anderson. In all likelihood, he doesn't Facebook or Orkut either. Else, his Headingley axing would have been in the public domain long before;

4. Sifting the CVs, Flintoff didn't go beyond the name before appointing Chubby Chandler his agent;

5. Part-fit Flintoff, Flintoff basically, owes his Edgebaston selection to the met office. Torrential rain was predicted for Edgebaston and England think-tank could not afford to ignore Freddie, the lone England cricketer around with a decent experience of rowing pedalos;

6. England and Wales Cricket Board is so worried about his fragile knee that they believe even a figurative knee-jerk reaction on Flintoff's part may aggravate the injury;

7. On the home front, a cautious ECB has urged Freddie's kids to understand the gravity of the situation and learn the multiplication tables strictly at their mother's knee.

Pix: Getty Images

7 cricketers who deserve Doctorate, à la Dr Sania Mirza

As UN names an Intergovernmental Panel to figure out what really provoked the MGR Educational and Research Institute University, Chennai to accord Doctorate on Sania Mirza, Doosra lists seven Indian contemporary cricketers who thoroughly deserve the prefix.
1. Dr Sachin Tendulkar: For his contribution to medical science. Tennis elbow came into being only after Tendulkar was diagnosed with it. Currently, he is playing the game with his second shoulder, third elbow, fourth knee cap and…Also for staying on course to sharing the dressing room with son Arjun.

2. Dr Yuvraj Singh: For his generous contribution to astronomy. NASA scientists just revealed that the six-star constellation over the southern tip of the African continent is actually the six sixes Yuvraj hit off a Stuart Broad over in the Twenty20 World Cup. Scientists blame Yuvi’s fury to the hapless bowler’s father who insists another Doctorate cricketer from Punjab's fertile land, Dr Harbhajan Singh, is a javelin thrower.

3. Dr Harbhajan Singh: For his expertise in Escapology. Throughout his career. Dr Singh displayed an amazing ability to dig a hole for himself and eventually clambering out of it, often creating a crisis that threatened to split the cricket globe.

4. Dr Gautam Gambhir: In recognition of his die-hard optimism that he can do any bodily harm to someone like Shane Watson.

5. Dr MS Dhoni: For covering the entire gamut of coifing and unfailingly coming up with thematic, series-specific hairdos.

6. Dr Virat Kohli: A product of the MSD School of Thought, people need to recognize his state of the head. Come hell or high water, or even a catch in his direction, Dr Kohli always ensured his spiked tuft is intact before making a dash. Upset with the existing helmets, he apparently has sought one with a slit in the middle.

7. Dr Munaf Patel: For his deep understanding of the South African culture and ability to laugh at the popular siSwati, Xitsonga, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu jokes cracked by Gary Kirsten and Paddy Upton.