A page from Rajinikanth's diary

0615: Woke up the Sun, full three nanoseconds late. Threatened to fire it and replace it with a giant LED. It offered Rajininamaskar though.

0620: Fed eucalyptus leaves to Corny and let it roam in my garden before sending it back to the basement park. Imagine the mayhem if someone sees my pet unicorn.

0645: Went for a walk, the air is so toxic. Breathed in filter mode, knitting my nasal hairs into a thin screen which allows only oxygen in. Sneezed out lumps of crystalised argon. How do ordinary people even breathe?

0715: Had good sparring with Yetim. Five years ago, I absentmindedly climbed Mt Everest and found the orphan Yeti there. Only Anil Kapoor has more hair per inch.

1000: Missed the 9 a.m. pill, so had to time-travel. Memory playing tricks. The other day could not recall the entry on page 456 of Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 33.

1300: Completed morning shooting. Director was yet to script the climax. I told him to shoot my cigarette stunt and take it backwards from there.

1400: Took a nap. A beautiful dream saw me.

1500: Swallowed some sun-rays. I absolutely mean it when I say light snacks.

1600: Called a press conference and made emphatically ambiguous comments about joining politics. Great fun, watching media, especially those in Delhi, run like a headless chicken.

1700: Signed film against Aaradhya Bachchan. Also tweeted my resolve to fight nepotism in showbiz.

1800: A cat startled me. Activated ultrasonic hearing. Earth positively creaked. Need to check the axis tomorrow.

1900: Spielberg called to offer a Hollywood film. I offered him a Tamil film instead. He’ll get back.

2000: Latha’s birthday, so ordered a personal full moon. Also spared her the kitchen chores. Vegetables cooked themselves.

2100: Had a bout of hiccups. Sheep worldwide counting me to get some sleep. Poor animals. Good night.

10 Bollywood Facts I Bet You Didn’t Know

1. Aamir Khan's ears are aerodynamically designed, at an angle to help him slow down when on motion. Just like an aircraft while landing.

2. Income Tax guys once raided Akshay Kumar for disproportionate asset in the form of gum;

3. Anil Kapoor has severe vitamin D deficiency as sunlight can't penetrate his body hair and reach skin;

4. Hrithik Roshan's right hand has a nickname- "Pincode", for it has six digits.

5. Imran Khan uses complex geometrical instruments to get his hairline;

6. No domestic help has ever stolen any cutlery from Kamal Haasan's kitchen. They were never sure if the fork lying invitingly was not Kamal Haasan himself in make-up;

7. Aradhya Bachchan is likely to make her acting debut in a Tamil film against her grandfather Amitabh Bachchan's good friend Rajinikanth;

8. It's gross exaggeration to say Anushka Sharma is so thin that she can pass through the eye of a needle. Her hair tied in a ban, she gets stuck.

9. Shakti Kapoor is an ardent Nabokov fan. #Lolita

10. Shammi Kabab was originally called Prithviraj Kapoor. #ShammiKaBaap

The Doosra Diwali Gift Survey

Social scientists fear it would be incredibly difficult to survive without Google but agree it would be absolutely impossible to survive without domestic helps.

Let’s face it. It’s not the politicians, scientists, IT guys or Rajinikanth but the domestic helps who keep the world going.

The theory may not apply to the West but it has not yet been established beyond satisfaction that West is part of the world. Many Indian tourists in fact exclaim it’s out-of-the-world.

And nothing influences the decision of a domestic help whether to continue her current job or look for a greener pasture than the Diwali gift from her employer, often the female family head, with whom she shares a relation involving diplomatic skullduggery of the highest order.

Indian male family members – universally recognised as easily the selfish, incorrigibly the lazy and absolutely the redundant unit of any household – have no clue about the existential significance of the day after Diwali when the crackers have fizzled out like a Ram Gopal Verma movie at the Box Office and the earthen Diyas resemble one of those once oil-rich nations sucked, democratically, bone-dry by the US.

Doosra conducted a nationwide family survey and came up with some startling facts:

1. 67% male family members said they were not consulted while determining the Diwali gift for the domestic help;

2. 20% male family members said they may have been consulted but don’t exactly recall as the discussion coincided with some football/cricket/tennis/sepak takraw/ muay thai/kalaripayattu thing on TV;;

3. 7% male family members said they were consulted but their Diwali gift suggestion was summarily rejected;

4. 6% male family members refused to comment;

5. Of the domestic helps who reported for duty the day after, 89% sported a sullen look on their face and steadfastly refused to share any neighborhood gossip;

6. Of the domestic helps who did not report for duty, 76% confirmed they were one round of cajoling away from joining back;

7. 76% of the domestic helps who did not join duty, did not take call from their employees, spreading widespread panic and consternation at their workplace;

8. 23% female family heads successfully got rid of old cutlery sets gathering dust in an obscure corner of their cupboard;

9. 79% male members of families hit by domestic help’s absence called their bosom friends to cancel evening gathering citing hostile atmosphere at home;

10. 86% of kids in family’s hit by domestic help’s absence reported above-average scolding and significant rise in slapping, pinching and other popular forms of disciplining a child;

11. 97% apartments witnessed gathering of domestic helps, featuring comparative study of each other’s gifts and assessment of their employer’s character with generous sprinkling of unparliamentary words and phrases.

India outraged at racist attack on Nina Davuluri

So what if Miss America Nina Davuluri has yet to announce chutney-soaked samosa as her favourite snack?

The Indians, including those who can’t tell Nina D from El Nino, are seething in just anger after the Indo-American was subjected to a vicious racist attack for not being a white.

The episode has upset a prominent cricketer-turned-pundit to such an extent that he struggled to make sense:

Oye Nina, chha gaya guru. Ignore yaar. Like a nun selling bun for fun, like a vowel lost in bowel wrapped in towel, like a pig real big eating fig...samajh gaye na? khataak!

There was a palpable sense of anger in Delhi, as evident from what this twentysomething had to say:

#$@&%*! ? I can't believe in this age, people fuss about complexion. #$@&%*! ? This is simply outrageous. Had it happened to me, #$@&%*! ? I’d have just told them: #$@&%*! ?, tu janta nahi mera baap kaun hai. #$@&%*! ?. Well, I got to go dude. Girlfriend wants a fairness cream and she’d be mad if I’m late, you see...

His sentiments found an echo in Mumbai where Bollywood’s reigning star had this to say:

This is shocking, I’d say much more shocking than a Sajid Khan film. I mean how can…hey, hey...where’s the make-up man? Idiot, you call this make-up? I’m not playing Dharamji’s Yakut in a ‘Razia Sultan’ remake. Paint me fair, stupid. Who brings these morons?

The mood in Chennai was no different as this Rajinikanth fan articulated:

Inge paaru, there is nothing wrong with Black. Rather I liked Black, even though it would have made much more sense to cast Nandita Das or even Kajol instead of Rani Mukherjee. What’s the big deal about being white, eh? Rajini Sir showed in ‘Sivaji: The Boss’ how to turn white. All you need is lot of orange skins, mud etc which you put in a tub and you immerse yourself under it for 6 weeks and...

Kolkata, a city renowned for non-violent outrage confined largely to words and gesticulation, was not lagging behind either. Sample this intellectually forthright outburst from a TMC cadre:

Dada, this is a common Commoonist conspiracy, notish the alliteration, to malign didi. No no, not Momota didi, but Nina didi. They are green with envy you see because she waan and green is the TMC colour, notished the paan? Arrey not the paan I’m chewing but the paan I’m spitting out. Paan re baba, P-U-N. Dhyatteri.

(Pix)