One, it employs me.

Two, Most news are unappetising.

Who will want to read anything about summit meeting in places like Yekaterinburg, which is where many heads of states, including India’s, recently met? Scheduling meetings in places like Yekaterinburg serves only one purpose: It allows some readers to realise that there exists a place called Yekaterinburg in Russia, which, for all those interested, continue to exist.

When confronted with news of such kind, whose sole virtue is that it can occupy considerable chunk of space on the news columns while exuding the idea that it contains matters of serious importance, people naturally skip over to the entertainment section, which mercifully carry gorgeous pictures of beautiful men and women to ogle at. But even here, the novelty wears off pretty fast. Tell me, what is left in, say, Shilpa Shetty that has not already been seen?

The point is: news has become so predictable that newspapers these days are ready for tomorrow’s edition the day before yesterday. The only way newspapers can become attractive to readers is that it has to find more reasons to feature more attractive photos of Deepika Padukone and Namitha.

No, wait. Newspapers can become passable if only it can find a way to really break the news like:

What’s composite dialogue?

Manmohan stumps Zardari

By Our Correspondent Who Writes Long Sentences

Throwing the international community into a huge crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today frontally confronted Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari with the issue that has locked the two border-sharing nations in combat conflict for years together.

‘What does the composite dialogue process mean? Why is it just never a dialogue,’ Manmohan Singh asked a bemused Zardari, who obviously wasn’t prepared for such a query, as the strict rule for international summits between the two countries so far has been to just pose for furiously clicking cameras and issue statements that the two countries will meet again at (just fill in a randomly generated famous international resort place here) to continue the dialogue process.

Zardari, who generally gives of the impression that he had learnt his English from Wasim Akram, who it must be said had never encountered English in his Urdu classes, was caught off guard by this tactical move from Manmohan Singh.

However, highly placed sources talking exclusively to this newspaper, said Zardari and his team immediately went into a huddle in their rooms and decide on the location of the next meeting place.

The question that Manmohan raised, in fact, has also left the international community and the diplomats in a major quandary as nobody has a clue as to what composite dialogue process actually means. ‘We have been saying it because it was the unwritten rule to say so. But now Manmohan has queered the pitch,’ said a top diplomat dryly on the sidelines of DEFACTO summit, which is being held just to add to the useless acronyms like SAARC, NAM that are already crowding the international calendar.

The diplomat, whose sole purpose is to attend such meetings and collect frequent flyer miles on international airlines, however said that India and Pakistan had arrived at a consensus to resolve and continue their composite dialogue process to find the solution to the vexatious issue of figuring out what the heck is this composite dialogue process.

The United Nations’ chief, whose name can be easily googled and found out, has also summoned his top aides to the nearest holiday resort and issued an important statement in the hope of finding at least a single individual who reads such statements.

Meanwhile, sources in the newspaper industry reveal that the UN chief’s statement was as usual found to be (even without reading) way too boring and absolutely incomprehensible.

And in a rare show of unanimity, the newspaper industry has chosen to replace the UN chief’s statement with the latest photo of Katerina Kaif in spandex involved in physical composite dialogue process with John Abraham.

Last heard the UN chief was googling for the photo.

Inflation moves sideways

By Our Uneconomical Reporter

After giving the tedious economists an excuse to slip into further tedium by slipping back and moving into the negative zone, the inflation this week stumped everyone by edging sideways.

‘This is phenomenal. And it points to the fact that the global economy is turning,’ said Professor V G Popepandavar of the Institute of Boring Statistics and Useless Numbers, the apex body in the industry that has no other sensible work and hence keeps track of things like inflation.

Attributing the sensational phenomenon to the Brownian Random Movement, Popepandavar also provided important statistical details, which is sure to put you into a spell of sleep, and hence we refrain from publishing that and instead we publish here the picture of Preity Zinta with all her vital statistics in clear detail.

The bizarre inflationary movement has had the economists scratching their French beards as it is a strict rule for economists to grow a French beard and then scratch it pensively whenever they have to give off the impression that they are in deep thought.

But sources in the grey market confirm that the economists were scratching their beards to figure out where more photos of Preiry Zinta’s figure could be found.

Dhoni does a Kamal: First ask

hockey teams to start winning

By Our Playboy Correspondent

Turning the tables on all those who were asking why the Indian cricket team was no longer successful, a combative Mahendra Singh Dhoni today retorted to the media: ‘Ask them to win first, then we will win’.

The Tamils in the media contingent immediately understood that Dhoni was sounding like Kamal Haasan in Nayagan (modhalla avangalla nirutha sollu).

The ‘them’ in Dhoni’s reference may have been the Indian hockey and football teams.

The problem, of course, was that there were five ‘official’ Indian hockey teams that are playing in different parts of the world. One of them had been apparently selected by the IHF, another by the IOC (it’s not clear whether it’s Indian Olympic Commission or the Indian Oil Corporation), the other three seem to have gone on their own as nobody had noticed them. Needless to say all the five teams are losing heavily and nobody seems to care.

The Indian Football Association meanwhile was looking for players to fill its five-players-a-side team.

In a related development, actress Lakshmi Rai said she was not dating the Indian hockey team captain, as he was not Dhoni. For proof she also showed a photograph of hers in which there was no one playing hockey.

Actress Shreya meanwhile rubbished reports suggesting that she was seeing the Indian football team, saying that it was news to her that India had a football team and it also had someone to captain.

(This is my column for the publication this week)

©2012 Crank's Corner. All Rights Reserved.

Anyway, cricket is indeed revolutionised if you manage to expand the idea of cricket revolution to include some increase in Ravi Shastri’s vocabulary. Now there is decidedly more ammunition to his verbal arsenal, and it involves dramatic adjectives like ‘DLF’, ‘Citi’.
As the IPL’s sponsors’ list gets bigger, Ravi Shastri’s language is only going to become bigger. And cricket can be deemed to be moving in the right direction when Shastri is stopped from unleashing his ‘went like a tracer bullet’ stuff.

The IPL is also the fitting answer to all those carping critics who never fail to shout that there is too much of cricket, which makes us to think that there may be more critics shouting that there is more cricket than there is actually more cricket. If you have any problem in comprehending the previous sentence, you have every right to move on to the next paragraph.

With the IPL it is less about cricket and more about everything else that is not about cricket and that includes Ajith Agarkar. Just consider this: You see a batsman hitting a monstrous six and they immediately show you the visual of Shilpa Shetty jumping up and down in her seat animatedly in a simulation of emotion that is otherwise possible for others only when their backsides are literally on fire. And when they show a close-up of the Shetty girl, only those not watching the telecast will let their thoughts still lingered on cricket.

Anyway, if they had wanted your mind to remain focussed on the game they would not have trained the cameras on Shilpa in the first place, instead they would have let you ogle at, say, John Buchanan, fingering his laptop with passion.

The thing about Shilpa is that her knowledge and understanding of the game can be easily filled on the back of 25p postal stamp with some room to spare. You don’t have to believe me. Just ask Shilpa what’s the score, she will break out into teasing titters as if you had just recounted to her a spectacular comic line from Woody Allen’s new movie. I don’t blame Shilpa. All actresses do this all the time. They will giggle and grin even when they are crying. It is fair to surmise that in Bollywood, they don’t let you face the camera unless you have smiled yourself silly in every conceivable occasion including funerals and famines.

Another of Bollywood’s fetish undoubtedly is hugging, a practice that I strongly suspect to be the reason for Kings XI Punjab exit much before the semi-finals of the tournament this year. Whoever had the brainwave to let Preity Zinta play the important role of supporting the team from the sidelines surely will not have any worries about getting through the IIM entrance exams. For simply, he or she does not possess the intelligence to even pass the kindergarten class.

There are any number of ways of enthusing a cricket team, like clapping, whistling, shouting encouragements or even jumping up and down with backside on fire like Shilpa. But for some reasons that are difficult to explain in rational terms Preity Zinta resorted to a plan that involved happily hugging all the players in the dugout whenever the team’s batsmen hit a sixer or four. Now if there is a chance of Preity hugging you, will you stay in the middle playing or begin to queue up in front of her? I fully understand why Punjab batsmen were in a hurry to get out. Somebody like Sreesanth even went to the extent of being injured for most of the part of the tournament and staying inside the dugout just to boost the morale of the team by taking on the responsibility of helping Preity Zinta by being the recipient of her embrace.

See, the last few paragraphs have been entirely about Preity, Shilpa and Bollywood. And that is the beauty of the IPL.

And Lalit Modi, the man who has single-handedly taken on the onerous task of changing the face of cricket from being a mere game that people were passionate about to a mass commercial product which everyone flees away from, promises more innovations in the coming IPL seasons. When Modi speaks you better listen to it carefully, especially because his accent is generally difficult to pick.

Talking of innovations, the strategy breaks, which have been introduced this year, could certainly be tweaked. Already the sponsors, for whose benefit the whole extravaganza has been got up, are complaining that it is not working.

There is actually room for Modi to go the whole hog and hold the cricket in the 10-minute strategy break, while leaving the rest of match time to be filled with TV commercials. This can be a double whammy. One, it can satisfy the sponsors, and two, it can also keep the real cricket enthusiasts happy as they will have less of Ravi Shastri and Rameez Raja in the commentary box.

The 10-minute game can be a four over per side, with the batting team being assumed to play from the 16th over with the score reading 120 for two or some number that is deemed par. Of course, this rule will not apply to the Kolkata Knight Riders, who in a 16-over match can be counted to be all out by the 12th.

Modi can also lure sponsors for dropped catches (‘that is a Sathyam moment of failure’) and dubious run out claims (‘It is an Enron moment of shame’). Quite simply, the possibilities are endless and everyone has already started to wait for the next season of the IPL.

But Modi should know cricket is a game of inviolable traditions. In other words, Preity and Shilpa should stay. At the maximum, he can add Katerina.

(This is my column for the publication this week)

©2012 Crank's Corner. All Rights Reserved.