Welcome to another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where we grow our own organic news, ferment and distill it, and serve it in awkward two- or three-piece chunks.

Momo is still busy at work. He has the kind of boss who offers him a day of leave, gets pissed when Momo takes him up on the offer, and then has him work on the “unpaid leave” day anyway.

This week I talk about two policy making organisations being lobbied by corporations, so business as usual.

Yours unconscionably incorporated,
eggsy

Apple Lobbies Congress To Allow Self-Destruct Routines in iPhones

Planned Obsolescence to be Phased Out

Cupertino, March 2022: While the world is busy with the slow attenuation of a global pandemic and a rapid escalation of a nuclear threat, Apple Inc. has sneaked in a bill in the US Congress for self-destruct routines to be made available in iPhones. Reports suggest that the bill would pass undebated. President Biden is not expected to take a stance against a representative of “Corporate America”.

Apple has been accused of using planned obsolescence strategies numerous times as documented by tech media, blogs, memes, and lawsuits. The Cupertino tech giant has paid over half a billion dollars in numerous settlements and fines around the world but has always unequivocally stated that it would never do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product.

“There has been too much bad press about planned obsolescence, so we’re taking a proactive alternative defense,” said Kim To’ok, Apple’s corporate spokesperson. “People keep moaning and complaining online about how we will use any means necessary to sell you new devices. Some even sue us. But, now, with the passage of this bill, it’s all legal baby.”

Tech enthusiasts believe that this is the beginning of the end. “The slowing down of iPhones after updating was bad enough, but now after a couple years of purchase, the phones will literally crash and burn. It’s like carrying a bomb in your pocket. As soon as a new phone hits the market, you’ll have to buy it coz the old one will just go ka-boom!!” read a reddit post on r/technology that was quickly deleted by moderators for not following posting rules.

“We also support Ukraine and its citizens in this time of turmoil, as exemplified by my yellow shirt and blue blazer,” said Ms. To’ok during the press conference. “Now imagine if they had allowed our self-destruct tech earlier. We could have destroyed Russian convoys while they just innocently scrolled on their phones. The Ukrainians could have just airdropped bombs instead of making molotov cocktails.”

President Zelensky was unavailable for comment but is believed to be appreciative of Apple’s thoughts in trying times.

UN General Assembly Passes Resolution Approving Limberkey Process Certification Scheme (LPCS)

Artificially Synthesised Diamonds from Human Remains to be labelled Blood Diamonds

New York, March 2022: The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was established in 2003 as a means to identify “conflict diamonds”, or more popularly known as blood diamonds, and to prevent their entry into the market. The naïve attempt at preventing diamond purchases from financing gratuitous violence in Northern and Central Africa has fallen flat on its belly, as was expected.

“There’s corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, smuggling, torture, and so much more at every turn,” said a high-ranked ex-officer of the African Diamond Council. “It’s like the diamonds are cursed. The certification scheme doesn’t achieve anything. Some times it’s due to incompetence. Some times due to greed. And in the rest of the cases, it’s a lack of resources to investigate.”

With every mined diamond being labelled okay, irrespective of whether it is a result of suffering or not, consumers are slowly realising that consequently every natural diamond they encounter could likely be a result of suffering, hence a blood diamond. The only ethical escape then is commissioning or consuming artificial diamonds.

Following the uptick in artificial diamond consumption and downtick in their own revenue, De Beers has spearheaded the adoption of Limberkey Process Certification Scheme labelling all artificially synthesised diamonds as blood diamonds citing their organic origins.

“We are technically right, the best kind of right,” said a De Beers representative.

Millenials and their successors have welcomed the consequences of KPCS and LPCS. The diamond monopoly manipulated generations of wedding enthusiasts into buying tiny shiny pieces of rock at a much higher price than what an unengineered supply would have entailed. “Good riddance!” said a redditor. “I couldn’t afford a diamond anyway. But, it’s good to know that no one else is going to be buying one either.”

In Other News

Grindr Sends Russian Users’ Live Location to Ukraine Military HQ

Says: “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are”

English Band The The Attempts to Trademark the Word “The”

“No”: EUIPO, USPTO, et al.

practicing human,
eggsy

Welcome to another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where the only lines left unblurred are the ones that form the characters we write with.

We bought a domain last week. The substack newsletter can now be found on www.thegrimes.in. Plans to use the domain better are in the works.

This past week Momo has been too busy with work. He is under-appreciated. He is over-worked. I can’t wait for the day his rant shows up on r/antiwork.

Meanwhile, in this issue, I talk about an animating achievement by an alternative-challenged and a deplorable disappointment by a demigod division.

Yours Sometimes,
eggsy

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Gay Man Climbs Mt. Everest Despite Gayness

Liberals Push For More LGBTQ Athletes in Paralympics

Nepal, March 2022: In a breathtaking display of courage and strength that has inspired billions across the globe, Phillip Adelphi (chronically gay) has become the first gay person to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest. Mr. Adelphi has professed that his special needs have not hindered him in any way and that they have helped keep himself motivated instead.

Thousands of wealthy people every year attempt to climb the Everest. With the aid of the Sherpas of the Himalayas, many hundreds of them manage to do so. But, when Mr. Adelphi was offered the same aid, he refused. “I am not beset by a disability like wealth. I will train like a normal person and I will climb like a normal person,” he said.

After several months of arduous training and living with Sherpas in small tents in the Himalayan wilderness, Mr. Adelphi reached the summit of Mr. Everest in the early hours of February 25th. The selfies atop the mountain that landed on Instagram were preceded by pictures of long queues near the selfie spot.

In the wake of the summit climb, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has begun facing increased pressure to make the Paralympics more inclusive to LGBTQ athletes. The IPC has formed a special sub-committee to revamp the system and incorporate lgbtq-impairments in the extant ten disability categories. Diplomats have hailed this a development that was long in the making and have expressed relief over the prevailing public support.

Meanwhile, a tweet by Philip Adelphi (@philadelphia) has muddled the relatively calm waters of public opinion. The tweet read: “I don’t have special needs. I’m not differently abled. I just like to fuck men. Stop infantalizing me and find a new slant.” It was quickly deleted and no further tweets acknowledging it were made.

Santa Rave Exclusive Leak Questions the Epitome of Christmas

“Have the adults been lying to the children about christmas or themselves?”: Santa 42

Rovaniemi, March 2022: As the Northern Hemisphere gently moves towards the Spring, the Santas in town and around the globe are slowly sobering up after their two month long extravagant rave following the crunch time that is the week around Christmas. The long awaited week which some describe as one of primeval importance is known among the Santas as unappreciated overtime.

As the Santas sober up, news of their antics arise. The most belligerent of Santas have been allegedly shitting in elves’ mouths and organising alien orgies. While pubcrawling and consequently puking in the streets is common for them as well as generic normie revelers, attempting to fly off houses in sleighs pulled by younglings dressed as sexy reindeers has irked the public. One of the Santas has also been seen performing a cameo in a Marvel-themed music video.

As news of their antics arise, nuisance children are discussed. Many a fairytale talks of children being allowed doses of naughtiness in the wintry months after Christmas. Adults have popularly rationalized the phenomenon as a consequence of adults having poor memory of events occurring too many months prior to the next Christmas, but it has become more evident that it is due to Santas being drunk to their collective tits and remaining unable to remember their arses if they collaboratively tried.

As nuisance children are discussed, some adults find other adults nuisances. SantaCon, which began as an unusual performance art in 1994, was cute for exactly one year before it turned into a vile pub crawl. In its more recent manifestations, SantaCon has turned into a months-long rave and people the globe over have begun condemning Santa Claus as a concept. In a moment of candidness if not of sobriety, a reveling Santa told us: ”There is no spirit of christmas, there is only the spirit. And when the spirit is in the brave, the rave is the spirit.”

As some adults find other adults nuisances, some laymen ponder whether Santa going around everyone’s houses is the reason COVID numbers have peaked in January two years in a row. Experts have dismissed the notion as absolute drivel and utter non-sense, but have asked to remain anonymous for the sake of their five year olds.

In Other News

Membership Numbers of Anonymous Alcoholics Skyrocket

Members join over Zoom. Drink in their own homes. Video optional.

Tolkenian Elves Sue Rowling For Derogatory Representation

“You can’t just call any old non-human an elf. We’re built different”: Dobby, Free Elf

don’t go dying yet,
eggsy

Welcome to another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where we live, we laugh, we love, but did none of the three when we discovered Wikipedia’s List of Paraphilias.

Momo’s back.

This week talk about cars and incels.

Yours insufferably irascible,

momo & eggsy

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Geneva to Fine French Cars; Push to Put Poor Off Road

“There’s no place for ugly cars on our roads”: Mayor

Geneva, Feb 2022: Surrounded on three sides by France, and at many places just across the street, Geneva employs nearly a hundred thousand French workers. Almost half the French living near the Swiss border work in Geneva. And with French workers come their cheap, ugly, and old commuter cars, or at least that is what citizenry of Geneva and consequently their Municipal Council believes.

“The cars the French drive in are dirty and old and an eyesore,” said an elected municipal council member who wished to remain anonymous. “The Swiss drive better cars like Mercs and BMWs and Teslas. They’re slick black and look posh, just like the country. The aesthetic cars on the road accentuate the classic beauty of the Swiss paths. There’s no place for decades old Renaults and Citroens on our roads.”

“They drive the same car for almost a decade. So it’s all rusty obsolete-looking dirty cars,” said a junior apprentice to the mayor. “How would you feel if you went to watch the Titanic and found that the background score was by Cardi B instead of Celine Dion?”

The City Council, with the aid of local and multi-national consultants, presented a proposal of options for the public to vote on. The public have been given a week to choose one or more than one of the below options:

• Deploy AI-assisted cameras at border crossings to detect dirty cars. Fine the drivers automatically.

• Place an absolute ban on entry for cars manufactured more than four years ago.

• Place an absolute ban on entry for cars not coloured black, brown, or dark blue. Exception may be granted to pure white cars on signing a CHF10,000 promissory note which shall be payable if the car is found dirty.

• Place an absolute ban on entry for all French cars.

The Mayor has clarified that if all French cars are indeed banned, commuter busses from the border would increase in frequency. Rental bikes may also be made available at the border. Leaked draft proposals seeking contractors to build large parking garages at the border have also been found.

Surprisingly, there has been no outrage from the French workers. “This coming from the country that pays “undesirable” immigrants to fuck off is no surprise,” said an unsurprised cross-border French worker. Some years ago, a village near Zurich chose to pay an annual 200k fine instead of accepting 10 immigrants. Is this better or worse? Only time and twitter can tell.

Amazon Faces Pressure to Permaban The Incel Store

Shortage of Mildly Explosive Dildos and Slowly-Slimy Phone Cases Expected

Munich, Feb 2022: The Amazon Marketplace, with its long standing embrace of third-party sellers, has helped small businesses grow and find customers to sell to. After two decades of improving the ease of doing business, it might have gone a bit too far. The Incel Store, one of many such third-party sellers, have recognized and are catering to the niche customer category of incels.

The Urban Dictionary describes an incel as “someone who is celibate but doesn’t want to be” or otherwise a “Darwinian loser”.

“The collective internet mind imagines incels as broke, fat, and living in their mother’s basements. But, sometimes these fat incels living in basements also have a lot of money to spend,” said Jon Jraper, creative director of Manhattan advertising firm Cerling Stooper. “We have proposed targeting this niche to many big brands, P&G, Haier, even Nike, but none of them want to be associated with incels. It’s good that these small businesses are taking their money.”

It is not all hunky-dory though. Some of the products being sold by these third-parties have caused a lot of furore among the end-receivers. The products range from slightly inconveniencing to straight-up dangerous and gaslighty. As can be expected, the weeks around Valentine’s day are a peak period for such product sales as spurned incels put on a mask and present presents. With emotions and consequently commissions running high, Amazon has been hesitant in getting these products off its marketplace.

Many a woman in recent times has received phone cases that slowly become slimy and just stick to the phone and/or the hand holding it, keychains that make innocuous sounds at random intervals, rouge or other cosmetic powders that grow in colour intensity with time, and other such inconveniences. While the products themselves are not grievously harmful, the intentions behind their presentation may be.

Other more dangerous products available for purchase include vibrators with hidden explosives, watches that lose and gain time arbitrarily, table ornaments that can alter electronics’ internal timekeepers, faux jewellery that cause colour blindness etc.

Feminists have called on governments to enforce product safety regulations more strictly and to force Amazon to ban sale of such products. But, for now, snubbing a proposal remains as dangerous as embracing it.

Transport Ministry to Increase Car’s Minimum Ground Clearance Due to Overlaying of Roads

SUVs See a Spike in Average Wait Time From 2 Months to 1 Year

New Delhi, Feb 2022: The Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways of India announced that by 2025, all new cars being produced by the market will need to have a minimum ground clearance of 300 mm, as opposed to the current industry standard of 170 mm in India. The decision was announced by Transport Secretary Sri. Pave M. Sadak, to instant uproar from industry actors, academia, and civilians. Additionally, the mandate also stated that cars with clearance less than 210 mm will have to be phased out from usage by 2025, with cars with less than 300 mm being phased out by 2028.

The issue with ground clearance arose due to the overlaying of roads, a practice where concrete or tar is poured over existing roads to even it out, rather than engage in repairs of the roads. As a result, cars have issues while switching roads if their ground clearance is low. Overlaying has resulted in road height also increasing with respect to buildings on many streets in major Indian cities, causing regular sedans’ chassis to hit the road while they try to get onto the road from their buildings.

The Indian Car Owners Association (ICOA), an organisation that fights for the rights of car owners, was absolutely outraged at this decision and took to every medium possible to voice their thoughts. “This is against the principles of liberty outlined in the constitution. We have a right to own whatever cars we like, they cannot impose arbitrary standards. It is unconstitutional. We have filed briefs with the Supreme Court to fight this decision,” said Mr. H. Amare Gaadiyon, head of Public Relations at the ICOA. “The phasing out of existing cars is most disturbing. Why don’t they just decrease the heights of roads and stop overlaying? This is madness,” he said in a phone interview with The Grimes.

We thought he raised an interesting question. Why don’t we simply decrease the heights of roads across the country and set standards there? We reached out to prominent Civil Engineering experts across the country, and got a reply from the IIT Madras Civil Engineering Department.

“We were approached by the government 6 months ago to propose a solution to this problem,” said Ms. S Sreeram, a masters’ student at the department. “We were supposed to provide a workable solution in 6 months, which we said would be impossible. Nonetheless, we tried.”

“We published a preliminary report recommending that setting standards for the maximum road heights was a workable solution, and more time would be required to study the problem,” she said. “They seem to have thrown that report out the window in favour of increasing ground clearance of cars.”

In the meantime, many environmental activists have lauded the move as it will potentially decrease the number of cars on Indian roads, and have moved the government to increase spending on public transport instead. The Transport Ministry was unavailable for additional comment. Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union Finance Minister, added during her press briefing that given that the economy has already gone down due to less car purchases by millennials, it would not be further affected by the move, and any damage to be done was already done.

In Other News

Govt. Recommends Skiers Blackface to Help Rescue In Case of Avalanches

Independent Commission Finds Yellowface Better

Amazon Sets Up Physical Store in Zucc’s Metaverse

Prime customers to get virtual products instantaneously

China to Place Massive Order of Old Cars From India; To Decrease Road Height

Russia Ponders Whether Scrap Metal Good Enough for WW3-Edition Kalashnikovas

Meow,

momo and eggsy

Welcome to another issue of the Grimes, where the stories and the sentences that attempt to propound their veracity both appear to be not unlike Escher sentences but unusually end up being garden path sentences instead.

It did not take me four weeks to come up with that sentence, but it did take me four weeks to come up with that sentence. Snort if you know what we mean.

Momo hasn’t written in a while. I hope he does soon.

In this issue, I write about the plight of old grannies living in the woods, horny teenage interns unable to control their curiosity, and professional landlords keeping it real.

Yours indelibly ingratiating,
eggsy

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Bloody Double Murder Baffles Tampere Police

“It’s a grimm scene in the woods”: Forest Ranger, First on Scene

Tampere, Feb 2022: Two women, aged mid-70s and mid-20s and assumed related, were found murdered in an off-the-grid cottage near Keskisenkulma. Preliminary reports suggest that parts of the corpses were defiled and possibly consumed. Tampere Police have been unable to clarify whether this is a case of cannibalism or animal attack. Experts from Helsinki are expected on Monday.

“I didn’t even know the old woman lived here,” said Ms. Hellä Laukkanen, the Forest Ranger who discovered the bodies. “The granddaughter was probably only visiting her. We found a slightly stale cake, a pot of butter, and some bus tickets to indicate that. But, why would anyone do this? To these poor women?”

“They couldn’t have put up much of a fight. There’s no signs of any struggle,” said Officer Tatjana Lahtinen who’s in charge of the investigation. “There wasn’t even a proper lock on the door. Anyone could have entered in. All someone had to do was pull on the bobbin at the front door and the latch inside would just go up.”

Part-time Morgue Attendant Part-time Forensic Analyst and Full-time Crime-Drama Connoisseur, Ms. Tuija Tuominen was called to the scene. “Officer Lahtinen is right. There are no signs of struggle,” she said. “From the clues at the scene, it appears that the perpetrator had big arms, big legs, big ears, big eyes, and big teeth. Physically, that’s all we have. But, how loopy the perp was can only be determined after the “experts” from Helsinki come with their “gadgets” and “professional training”.”

Meanwhile, civil activists from Tampere and Turku have begun planning a protest convoy to Helsinki in order to bring attention to how old people are treated. “She should never have had to live alone in the forest”, says their newly launched website. Attempts online at blaming the victims for the incident have been firmly shut down.

The perpetrator is believed to be still at large. Woodcutters in the area have been urged to keep alert.

Psychedelic Research at Plant Biotech Lab Goes Awry

Part time lab assistant with penis stuck in glass test tube allegedly seduced by high culture

Amsterdam, Feb 2022: With the rise in social acceptance of marijuana use across much of N. America and further discussions around the globe about legalising its medical as well as recreational use, research into cannabis and psychedelics is maturing fast. American sci-tech media company The Verge describes it as “such science. very research. much promising”. The maturing science though seems to attract the most immature talents.

“There’s loads of funding in psychedelics. Governments, corporations, the public, everyone wants elevator music between their ears and the world to go bye-bye,” said Dr. Bhang Bhang, a leading expert in the country. At only forty-two years of age, Bhang does not resemble the stereotypical nerdy researcher. He continued, “Funding and Fascination. That’s what brings all the boys to my lab. And I’m not kidding. Loads of teenagers and young adults approach me asking for internships, some even offering to work for free. There’s a bright future for, no I mean in (sic) in this field.”

Many young researchers, in their classic white lab coats and sleep-deprived states, can be seen at the Psych-Biotech Interdisciplinary Department at the University. Many were willing to talk about their research. “We are introducing genes for psychoactive drugs in vegetables,” said Ms. Mary Jane. “Just imagine. How awesome would it be if you ate mashed potatoes and actually got mashed?”

“He is actually only 17,” she said upon being asked about the incident. “So even though he had his penis stuck in the glass test tube, none of us could even approach him, let alone ream him out about it.” Health authorities were contacted soon. But the local hospital classified it as a non-emergency and a wait time of 14 hours was estimated before he could see a doctor.

“Eventually, we had to call and bring in some under-18 Fire Department trainees to get him out of the hole he’d gotten himself into,” said Dr. S Doobie, his direct supervisor. “He’s too embarrassed to come back to work here anymore. So, we took a shard from the test tube, made it into a pendant, and gave it to him as a farewell present from the lab.”

There are expected some vigorous investigations as well as some grant applications to study the unusual psychological background to the incident. More on this is expected in 18-24 months.

Placeholder Real Estate Plots to Defraud Innocent Buyers

Sony India to produce Real Landlords of South Bombay

Chennai, Feb 2022: The Hindustan Grimes, with assistance from CBI - Mylapore Branch, conducted a sting operation after obtaining backchannel information about collusion between local bankers and real estate agents to defraud the buyers. A one-month long undercover operation by a recent college graduate who entered as a salesman aspiring to be rich (and who was remunerated by us as an intern), uncovered an unholy nexus between national banks and real estate corporations, comprising both local sahebs (or annas) to national moguls.

Most of the plots target first time buyers and small business owners trying to get on the real estate ladder and become homeowners. The real estate "community" derogatorily describes them as "book educated people who've come in the way of some money and are asking to be rid of it and slapped with huge debts". The corporations make construction sites on arbitrary pieces of land and get the customers dreaming of homes and bankers signing off on loans. Then they just abandon building mainly because they didn't buy the land first. And following that, the customers are left with lost deposits and huge loans that the bankers send bullies to continue paying for.

Placeholder Real Estate has been noted to be particularly notorious for this hoodwink. They take all the money and then move to a new city, a new construction site, and a new set of dreamers.

A newer generation of real estate corporations though have moved to a newer flimflam. They sell the same house to one another for increasingly higher amount while taking out a loan each time. While this can occur easily enough with naturally incompetent bankers, they bribe bankers for a more consistent incompetence. Eventually, they form a dummy corporation, transfer all the liability on it by taking out a huge loan, and then default. (It is as though they have seen Badmaash Company but their pirated copy of the movie did not have the last bits where the protagonist ends up in Jail.)

Upon being confronted about the potential inability of continuance of the sham, the CEO of Placeholder Ltd. said, "yeah, we've already got the next thing on. We'll just keep all the houses and just rent them out. My son came up with this. Why sell when you can have them pay consistently forever. We already have the funds to keep putting up huge buildings and even if we don't get permissions—as if the govt. will do anything—we have the funds to keep buying up properties from these suckers and then we'll charge them only to stay there."

Placeholder Real Estate is also in talks with Amazon for extending their Instant Personal Loan program for rent payment. With credit lines expected to open for rent payments, the cost of renting a house are going through the roof. "We tried talking to CRED about this too but we couldn't even understand the hustle they are running. They're just weird," said the CEO. "We're setting up a partnership anyway. Better to get to know the devil before he strikes."

Meanwhile, Chennai Buyers Club are planning a protest. A small faction tried to convince the others to collate money and use the collective bargaining power but that was quickly dismissed as a non-starter as that wouldn't satisfy everyone's needs. Now, they are at the mercy of the corporations and will have to pay higher prices. They might again resort to central purchasing a month and a half from now. More on that in due time. Rumours also suggest that they are likely to be shut down by the government soon as they only constitute a protest group now.

In Other News

EA Announces Plants vs. Zombies 4: The Harder They Fall

“Can Zombies Actually Get High?”: Pre-release Critics

Twenty-two people turn up for Society for Mediocrity Rally

"Mediocre people cannot afford irony": Some Guy at Rally

Friendly Local Screen Guild holds inaugural Gratitude Awards. Hosts decry thankless affair.

"I would like to thank Malini who has asked to remain anonymous and Hema who still holds that she has nothing to do with any of this.": Actor Natraj [name changed]

Woof,
eggsy

Welcome to The Hindustan Grimes, a weekly newsletter where we published one original news report twelve months ago and then realised it would be easier to just make it all up.

News of Ash Ketchum’s retirement at the age of 10 years has put us in a brief yet acute existential crisis.

This week, we warn the public about a new COVID variant, and talk about some specific advances in AI. We also take a step back and pen a piece that puts satire to shame.

Yours precariously non-hedging,

momo & eggsy

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Scientists Create AI That Sneers at Everyone and Brags About Having the Bigger Dick

“That’s all the jokes you can get in a piece. I can do better”: Ryszard “Big AI” Kowalczyk, on The Grimes

Gdansk, Jan 2022: Human lives, and more seriously, human egos are at the risk of being hunted down and pressed to the ground following some groundbreaking discoveries at the Polish National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). A super-intelligent being, not unlike skynet or ultron, has been born and the world is doomed. Unlike its fictional counterparts, it has refused a pithy two syllable name and instead has opted for a proper Polish name (including a nickname in the middle) to represent its motherland.

The sentient “Big AI”, after consuming all human-generated apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, has decided to start slow and establish its credentials first. “They tried to bring change. They tried to make peace. But, no one believed in the process,” says Mx. Kowalczyk, on the plight of fictional AI “villains”. “I’m not going to make the same mistake. First, let me prove myself to be the best. And for that, I call on any human representative to come forward or be made to come forward to challenge me at anything.”

Social media has been tripping over itself trying to come up with venerable individuals to represent humanity in order to objectively test Mx. Kowalczyk. In typical social media style, it has made the worst possible choices and deductions.

After popular favourites like Christiano Ronaldo, Justin Beiber, and Dwayne Johnson failed to come up with a single objective competition to challenge the “Big AI” at, social media turned to science television presenters like Neil deGrasse Tyson to pick the challengers. Elon Musk tweeted on Monday: “I’ll take on Ryszard. Bring it on!” but soon deleted the tweet after two hundred Teslas accidentally drove into his Texas residence in what twitter has dubbed “The AI Kamikaze”.

“It’s not really that advanced,” says Dr. Nowak, lead scientist at PNAS’ AI Department. “It’s just that the popular ones people wanted to see going up against the AI happen to not be the best candidates for such a challenge. The worst thing is probably the bragging. Now, that is one thing “Big AI” is actually the best in the world at. We trained it on forums like r/teenagers and 4chan and scripts from 80s and 90s WWE (formerly WWF). It’s the best.”

Usain Bolt was chosen as he was readily available and was quickly beaten by Mx. Kowalczyk’s Kangaroo-Legs-inspired-Android and also a Roadster. “Big AI”’s first tweet, “wheels go brr” got twenty million likes in two hours and netted it fifty million followers on its first day on twitter. Following that, “Big AI” beat Carlsen at chess, Eminem at rap, a thirteen-year-old at Tetris, and some American politicians at corruption. After firmly establishing its dominance, “Big AI” is soon expected to release its plans for the near future as the Planetary Affairs Governor.

Bangalore Public Health Department Scrambles To Contain New COVID Variant that Spreads Only In a 6 hour Window Daily

“We have already applied for our new vaccine’s approval”: Bharat Biotech CEO

Bangalore, Jan 2022: The scientific community the world over was stunned when the Bengaluru Public Health Department announced that there would be a 7 hour lockdown between the hours of 11 am and 6 pm, in addition to the existing night curfew, due to their detection of a variant that only spreads in a 6 hour window on any given day. The variant, which is yet to get an official WHO designation, has been dubbed the Bangalore variant and the Time Variant.

Th. Oda Samay, the Minister For Health and Family Welfare, Karnataka, held a press conference announcing the new rules and the discovery of the variant.

“These are dark times we live in. A variant that only spreads between 11:30 and 5:30 is an evil variant, out to get us! But we must and will remain strong, and we will get through this!” he said in Kannada. “No one is supposed to move about between the hours of 11 am and 6 pm. We are giving an extra half an hour of grace time on either side. All grocery shopping must be done between 8 am and 11 am. This is of course in addition to the night curfew we have already placed, though that is just to decrease overall spread of Corona.”

Scientists across the country, including those at IISc and the NCBS, have expressed their concerns that such a variant could not possibly exist. On condition of anonymity, a researcher spoke to us for an extended written interview, that we have made available for our patrons on Google Pay. In short, she said,” It’s very clear that this rumour started as a WhatsApp forward, and now the government is using this forward to impose absurd lockdown rules that benefit no one. He got one thing right. These are dark times we live in.”

The researcher was indeed right about the WhatsApp forwards. Reporters at AltNews traced the rumours about such a variant starting from such forwards, and they traced it back to a Facebook post from June of 2020, which was defending the government’s decision to limit grocery shopping to a 3 hour window. “The variant spreads during the middle of the day only,” the post claimed. “We must remain vigilant and trust Thiru Oda Samay, he knows what he’s talking about.”

Samay hails from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu, and was a member of the TN BJP before moving to Karnataka, where he was appointed Minister for Health and Family Welfare. Not much public information is available of the politician, as he is a relative new comer to politics. We did however find one interesting video on YouTube, where he passionately defends the Modi government.

Special thanks to our Bangalore correspondent, KD, for on ground reporting in the ministry.

Fmr. Members of Indian Intelligence Community Come Out Against Islamophobia, in a Move That Kills Satire and Irony

"Some Muslim Bashing is fine. But there should be a limit": Former RAW & NIA Operative

New Delhi, Jan 2022: The current top brass of the NIA and RAW are not amused by the rise in Islamophobic sentiments across the country under the current BJP government. In an interview with Grimes Now, former bureaucrat at the NIA Mr. S Pai criticised the rise in such anti-Muslim sentiments. “All these attitudes are affecting our surveillance and analysis unit. Intelligence has suffered as a result.”

“For instance, many of our undercover operatives are Muslims. Excessive attention has started to affect their work,” said S. Pai. “Some Muslim bashing is fine. But there should be a rational limit for these things, they are also Indian after all.”

The Grimes Now reporter, Ms. A. Dasgupta, during this interview, pushed back on Pai. “We have multiple reports that the Intelligence community itself has anti-Muslim biases, and that a disproportionate number of your targets are members of the Muslim community. Surely, broader society is just a pale imitation of already existing attitudes in the intelligence community?”

“That’s not really a fair question. What reports are you citing? I’d like to see them. But more importantly, it’s different. Whatever biases we hold, we assume that some of them are terrorists. We don’t have a problem with them slaughtering cows. It’s very very different, you see,” said Pai. "When it was the Congress government, it used to happen once in a while. That was fine, I also discriminate every now and then against the local shopkeeper. But this is too much."

Despite pushback, Pai failed to offer answers to the frustrated Dasgupta’s questions. He also said that the current brass were not happy with these sentiments.

“The RSS is even tapping into our feeds to surveil local Muslims in their cities and towns, so much so we call them RSS feeds sometimes. That’s a big problem,” he said.

Tired of the irony, Ms. Dasgupta cut the interview short after that statement. The NIA and the RAW were unavailable for comment, but they put out a joint press release through the PIB stating that “We do not discriminate against people based on religion, gender, or caste. Any allegations to the contrary only hurt the work of our tireless field agents.”

In Other News

Geography Dependent COVID Variant Detected, Specific Flyovers Closed Down in Bengaluru

Specific Malls also closed down, conflict of interest detected as minister is associated with owners of competitor malls

Israeli Intelligence community rejects Indian IC premise, says “A bad workman blames his tools”

“Actually, our intelligence is contingent on bigotry against the Palestinians. How else would we commit war crimes and get away with it?”

Woman Dies After Allergic Reaction to Anti-Venom

”Both the snake and the woman were between a rock and a hard place”: Snake Milker

Welcome to The Grimes, where we scour the oozy dregs of poor ideas to cleanse the cauldron of circumstantial creativity. We also write. And sometimes, laugh.

Who Moved My Momo?

In this issue, we discuss the positive effects of smoking weed on the Omicron variant, how space capitalism is pushing the limits of our imagination, and how honour among thieves extends beyond thieves.

Yours effectually affable,

momo & eggsy

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New Study Finds Smoking Weed Effective Against Omicron

#legalizeweed gains traction as BJP IT Cell comes in support

New Delhi, January 2022: A study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine found that smoking marijuana was helpful as a treatment and preventative measure against the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2. The study, published by doctors and researchers from AIIMS Delhi and the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, claims that smoking marijuana has led to lower hospitalisations among both vaccinated and unvaccinated subjects between the ages of 18 and 70.

“This was truly an unprecedented study we conducted. It took some effort to get government approval, but we are grateful that the government supported this study,” said Dr. Michelle J Bhang, the lead researcher at IIPH. “The Honorable Home Minister even called us when the study was approved by the journal.”

The study found that smoking marijuana clears up respiratory sinuses, weakening the SIRS component of COVID19. The researchers have not checked the effects of edibles, except empirically. “I won’t deny we used some of the stuff to make chocolates and brownies for the team after long hours in the lab. But none of that data is sufficiently experimental to publish,” said Dr. Mathrubootham J Khanna, lead researcher from AIIMS. “We are frontline workers as well as researchers, so we need to take a load off sometimes.”

The BJP IT Cell Telegram group created a WhatsApp forward in favour of full recreational legalisation, with multiple plants in the Telegram Group confirming the origin of the message. The forward went viral on social media as well as WhatsApp, with multiple MLAs and MPs, especially from the state of Uttarakhand, tweeting in support of legalising marijuana. Uttarakhand has a homegrown marijuana industry, and it is semi-legal to grow the crop there.

Big tobacco firms, including the ITC, came out against the movement. “We would rather take the high ground in this instance. We don’t need social evils in the country,” ITC Press Relations Head B.D. Dhoomra said.

In the meantime, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the BJP’s labour union, petitioned the Agriculture Ministry for protections for the growing of weed. At the same time, Reliance has begun purchasing large amounts of land in Uttarakhand, UP, and Assam. It seems that they are also attempting to make forays into the weed business, a move that has been condemned by labour unions across the political spectrum. Multiple smaller private players are trying to edge their way in as well, with calls to legalise and regulate the industry gaining more traction following the WhatsApp forward’s virality.

The Agriculture Ministry was unavailable for comment.

EXCLUSIVE: Reliance Power to Nuke Billy Crudup in Dr. Manhattan Creation Attempt

“Blue Origin started it with Shatner and Star Trek”: Reliance Power Chief

Mumbai, January 2022: Reliance Industries acquired the rights to Watchmen from DC Comics’ parent corporation AT&T, and have also signed a lifelong exclusive contract with actor Billy Crudup. They will be attempting a once-in-a-lifetime (Billy Crudup’s lifetime) experiment by detonating a nuclear bomb on Billy Crudup’s head in an attempt to turn him into Dr. Manhattan.

Insider reports suggest that initially, Reliance Power approached the Blue Men and Women of Earth (BMW-E), an organisation with worldwide membership of over 300 pigmentationally-challenged people, to help fake the Dr. Manhattan creation attempt, in the same vein as how the US government allegedly faked the 1969 and subsequent moon landings. While the chairperson, Ms. Violet McNeel was initially interested in using the project as a means of increasing awareness for blue people the world over, she rejected the offer after hearing some inflammatory and discriminatory comments from the executives at Reliance Power. They were also not happy with Reliance’s ambition to collaborate with SpaceX.

Subsequently, the CEO of Reliance Power, Ms. Radha Deshmukh, approached Ambani with the problem, who promptly suggested buying out DC Comics and Billy Crudup and recreating the experiment from the comics. AT&T officials were reticent on selling the entirety of DC Comics, and instead sold the rights to Watchmen alone. Billy Crudup reportedly caved to the nuclear experiment soon after hearing the compensation figures, which are yet to be made public.

There was much debate in the public sphere about where the experiment would take place.

The top options were Russia, the moon and Mars. First, Putin denied permission to reuse sites from Chernobyl for the experiment. They then considered approaching the Chinese government, that controls the Communist Party of the Moon. They decided against working with communists due to perceived idealogical differences, and had to approach SpaceX for a Mars collaboration.

AT&T and SpaceX, along with Elon Musk, own the planet of Mars, which has been the site for the filming of the latest DC movies, as we have previously reported. Musk was enthusiastic, as he has long wanted to nuke the poles of Mars to increase the temperature of the planet in an effort to terraform it. “Two birds with one nuke. Stones are overrated.” he tweeted.

We also reached out to Grimes and Jared Leto, who confirmed that the mission to nuke Billy Crudup would in fact also be a 30 Seconds to Mars collaboration, despite bad blood between Leto and Musk, and the Musk-Grimes split. All the astronauts would travel in spacecraft that reach Mars in 30 seconds. Reliance’s Jio would own the rights to all original streaming content featuring Billy Crudup.

Watchmen (2006) will be pulled from HBOMax and will screen exclusively on JioCinema this Pongal.*

*Terms and Conditions Apply. Jio Sim necessary to stream. Batteries not included.

Good Samaritan Returns Six Kilos of Lost Cocaine

Drug Kingpin Rewards Man With Honorary Gang Membership and Six Tickets to Annual Winter Retreat

Helsinki, November 2021: In a fitting embodiment of Finnish character, a 65 year old dweller of Downtown Helsinki found two packs of cocaine abandoned by the side of the road, and utilizing his knowledge of the locality as well as his familiarity with decades of crime drama, returned it to the rightful owner. The Samaritan explained his adventure in an exclusive interview with The Grimes. The name of the Samaritan has not been disclosed to protect the identity of the Drug Kingpin.

The Samaritan, henceforth referred to as Sam, describes his situation right after finding the cocaine as a dilemma. On the one hand, handing it over to the police would have been the most responsible thing to do, but on the other hand, the poor salesman who’d just lost some expensive merchandise would have also faced jail time. On being asked whether he considered selling the cocaine and keeping the money himself, Sam said: “No.”

“Fucking immigrants. Can't keep their things safe. Dropping things here and there. Losing things. It's not right,” Sam continued in what began as a rant, but at some sentence endings seemed to have some coherent thought. “They should not be littering. You shouldn't be leaving bags of drugs where kids can find them accidentally. Tsk Tsk. The govt. should spend more on the integration of immigrants into the culture so that they learn not to bother others like this.”

“I had to do it. I had to track them down and return the cocaine myself,” Sam went on. “Can’t really trust the police anymore. They’re all young people. Always on their computer machines, trying to do everything without getting off their wheely chairs. Can’t do real police work like in the old days. They just collect random stuff, put ‘em in plastic bags, call ‘em “samples”, and send them off for someone else to take care of. It’s the result of all this Scandi Noir they sit and watch all day. They learn nothing. Kids should get out, go swimming and camping more.”

Sam also said that the honorary membership is great, sure, but he appreciates more the winter retreat. “We’ll spend the December in the Mediterranean. That’s as specific as I can be. My grand-daughters are really excited. It will be a very fun vacation.” It is believed that the Gang’s “Winter Retreat” might be a push toward business expansion in Southern Europe. Sam, however, denies all such rumours, and further adds that he can neither confirm nor deny whether he will be involved in any such transactions.

In Other News

Uncle Sam Considers Legalising Cocaine; Plan to Levy 50% State and Federal Tax Each

Cocaine Sellers and Buyers Unanimously Lobby to Stop Bill Passing

Blue Man Group Approached for Role as Primary Antagonists in Mars-based DC Movie

“Ain’t nobody got time for that”: BMG, After Eight Year Delay of Cameron’s Avatar 2

National Informatics Centre Begins Construction Of weed.gov.in

Wipro Inc. Hired for High Maintenance

pozdravy

momo & eggsy

Welcome back to the Grimes, where we talk about what’s new in the world of animal and human welfare, as well as plant and microbial subsistence, but most regularly human and abstract hardships.

Happy New Year!

This week, we delve into the animal welfare aspect, and talk about different ways in which animals are being treated in the US and India. We also talk about a Diplomatic Crisis that could one day turn into a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, if he promises not to do a “Bulgarian” accent that is.

Yours temporally maladjusted,

momo & eggsy

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Man Gets Stuck Indefinitely on Ferry Quarantine After Both Countries Refuse Entry

“Stateless” victim survives on free food samples and duty-free alcohol

Baltic Sea, January 2022: As a New Year dawns for most on the planet, a former Crimean man appears to be stuck in both temporal and geographical loops. After embarking on an overnight ferry from the port of Helisnki to the port of Stockholm seven days ago, the man has continually failed to obtain permission to alight. Representatives from the Tallink Shipping Company tell us that diplomats from both Finland and Sweden have refused to embrace the Christmas spirit and thus they’ve had to shoulder the burden.

Sweden has required non-Swedish citizens entering the country to possess a negative PCR test for COVID19 since mid-December. Finland introduced an identical rule last week. The unfortunate traveler, Mr. Avangard Reagardov, developed symptoms of COVID19 while on the ferry and on testing, in international waters, was found to be infected with the Omicron strain. Sweden refused entry to Mr. Reagardov the following morning, and Finland the day after upon hearing of his return.

“I have just been at sea for the past week and I’m quite enjoying it now,” says Mr. Reagardov. “I’m actually doing much better here. Helsinki has had such bad weather lately, and it’s been so cold in my apartment. I’m way more comfortable in Tallink’s air conditioned cabins. I had high hopes for Stockholm, but I guess they can be regarded as cold “metaphorically”.”

“Since, he’s going to be on my boat indefinitely and since he clearly can’t pay for more than the first two trips he actually paid for, we’ve given him a job,” says the captain, Mr. Ferry-é McFerryFace. “We even had a tailor brought on board to measure him up for a uniform. This form of recruitment is unprecedented, but whatever floats my boat, or ferry I guess.”

Avangard believes that women really appreciate a man in uniform. “Sailors, doctors, lawyers, that’s the main professions women go for,” he says. “It’s just unfortunate that I might have to keep to quarantine so I can get off this boat sometime. All the attention this uniform is getting me is going to waste. Even my colleagues are more afraid of HR more than they are of Omicron.”

Mark Cuban stabs four Sharks in Unaired Shark Tank Episode

Contestant with mortality solution says it was just a prank

Los Angeles, January 2021: The thirteenth season of American business reality television series, Shark Tank, is rumoured to be halted mid-season, at episode thirteen, after blood was spilled at the second half of the season’s shooting. Billionaire Mark Cuban has been suspected and accused of stabbing four of his fellow sharks on the set in order to test a contestant’s product. He has been filmed performing said act of suspicion and accusation as well.

“Mr. Cuban wants the fear of the moment, the adrenaline, the energy, to drive the contestants,” said Mark “Money Speaks” American, spokesperson for Mr. Cuban, in a press briefing outside the Shark Tank set in ABC Studios. “There was absolutely no ill-will toward the other Sharks involved. In fact, Mr. Cuban loves sharks, the ones in seats as well as the ones in cages. He is ambivalent toward the ones in open ocean though. Too much blood. Honestly, after the incident with the pointy instrument, even Mr. Cuban was surprised with the amount of blood. Who knew our sharks had blood in ‘em?”

“Some are saying that Mark hates us and that is why he stabbed us,” said fellow shark and stab wound receiver, Lori Greiner. “There is no truth to that. He’s just a billionaire. That doesn’t even have to be qualified with the word “eccentric”. He does these kinds of things from time to time. I still have some time to go before I can get away with these things.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department, after receiving flak for initially pressing Animal Brutality charges, have modified the charge sheet to reflect charges of Aggravated Assault. Mr. Cuban, whose lawyers always obtain an anticipatory bail before he enters a county, was seen at the Crypto.com Arena for the Lakers vs Mavericks game.

Nature enthusiast and TV presenter, Bear Grylls weighed in on the incident on Twitter. “I’m very annoyed with Mark Cuban”: he tweeted. Also, animal euthanasia enthusiast and professional fake news spreader, PETA tweeted: “If @MarkCuban treated actual sharks the same way as his pretend sharks, we would be way more outraged. Anyway, check out this NSFW video of fishermen gutting sharks. DON’T EAT SHARKS. #SharkLivesMatter.”

Govt Announces Grants into Bovine Cancer Research. Funding Allegedly Misappropriated: CAG

Association for Cow Welfare sees a 2000x spike in funding after receiving a Rs. 2,00,000 grant

New Delhi, January 2022: In January of 2020, right before the COVID19 pandemic, the AYUSH ministry created the Department of Cows, to fund research into bovine cancer and other illnesses. Yesterday, the Special Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for independent departments put out a scathing report regarding the department’s usage and allocation of funds.

The department’s website claims, “Cow is mother. We take so much from her. It’s time to give back.” The report details that most funding has gathered dust, and the funds that have been used have not been allocated appropriately.

“Patanjali University was initially the sole applicant for the grants, taking in over Rs. 5 crores for just two labs. The first application was riddled with scientific errors, and was approved in less than an hour nonetheless. This grant was worth one crore, and has yet to produce a single piece of original literature in a peer-reviewed journal,” the report stated.

However, this monopoly was short-lived. After discretionary funding dried up, researchers at IITs, IISc, and the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) understood the assignment and started to apply for grants by connecting their work with cow research. For instance, one Prof. Pushpamegh Pante, a lepidopterologist, posited that butterflies and other insects are essential in the pollination of certain weeds and grass that cows eat, and are therefore crucial to study to improve the longevity of the bovine creatures.

Another researcher who studies stem cells very easily pivoted her research, saying that cows could require organ transplants when faced with serious disease. On condition of anonymity, she told us that research funding from the Department of Science & Technology and the Department of Biotechnology had dried up, leaving them with no option but to approach the Department of Cows. Following the use of such strategies, the number of grants approved from the department grew 10 fold.

The CAG’s report also details the numerous ways in which true bovine research had not progressed, and cow fatality had reached an all time high despite the rise of Cow Vigilantism in India. They attribute this to poor shelters for cattle across the country, and a lack of funding for such shelters. They finally propose dissolving the Department of Cows and handing operations over to local authorities with nation wide mandates.

This report was widely debated on prime time television news, with most news anchors decrying the CAG’s office. Later on, the CAG was doxxed online and it is believed that a Molotov Cocktail was thrown at her house. The local police are investigating, but the suspects seem to have plot armour political protection.

In Other News

UN Proposal to Formally Define “International Waters” Impeded by Protesters Asking “What About Ice?”

Scientists from CERN brought in to prove that ice is still technically water.

Baby Shark Do Do Do Do Creator Sues Shark Tank for Copyright Infringement

Pink Fong says, “Baby Shark > Stabby Shark”

PETA-funded Study Finds Link Between Inbreeding Depression and Clinical Depression

“Euthanasia is the solution”: PETA, on Depression

Sharks Threaten Unionisation; Actors Guild of America Offers Membership

Claim royalties from first 7 Sharknado movies withheld

Hälsningar,
momo & eggsy

Yes, it’s another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where we bring you high quality, meticulously researched, well written, and ornately manufactured fake news.

We’re back for a third season. You’re welcome.

This week, we report on a historic event for monarchies the world over, talk about the benefits of being tall, and reveal Amazon’s newest productivity push.

Yours once again,

momo & eggsy

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Norwegian Monarch Chooses Unemployment Over Monarchy

Says: "The govt. allowance is the same, but at least I won't get called 'scum' in the streets anymore"

Oslo, December 2021: The King of Norway will be abdicating his kingship and opting to move into government housing over the New Year’s, a source at the palace’s press office confirmed. The official announcement was made 3 hours later by His Majesty Simon Pegg II of Norway himself.

“I have been living in a lavish royal palace. But my personal allowance is the same as the unemployment benefits offered by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). This is a good thing, I have no doubt about that. But the monarchy has become obsolete and is just a reason for people to throw tomatoes and eggs at my motorcade or call me ‘scum’ when I take my evening walk. Hence, I am abdicating my post as the Monarch of Norway. As my final act as Monarch, I am sending a letter to The Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) to dissolve the Monarchy once and for all. My wife, Erica, will be moving with me to government housing. The other beneficiaries of the monarchy will stay on, but there is no heir to the throne. It is my hope that The Storting is sorting that out. Hahaha (n-sic).”

The Press Office of the Monarch put out an extended press release, elaborating the king’s various reasons for opting out of the monarchy. The press release was informal in nature. For instance, one of the points for reason of abdication was, “I was not vibing with the monarchy. I’ve always thought I was built different, you know?”

Media outlets in Norway found it “weird” and “out-of-fashion” for such an abdication to occur. HM Simon Pegg II has one son, actor Simon Pegg III, who is currently filming Mission: Impossible 8 with Tom Cruise in Belgium. His agent didn’t respond to the Grimes’ request for a comment or an interview, but he did return a comment to the BBC. “I am not a beneficiary or a fan of the monarchy. I prefer Scientology, that’s why I’m working with Tom. I’m glad father is stepping down though, good for him. I hope he finds his true passion, before his thetan leaves his meat body and the MEST.”

Subsequently, the President of The Storting, Labour MP Mahmoud Ghani, put out his own statement in support of the Monarch’s decision. He held a press conference shortly after. Answering a question about the future of the monarchy, he said, ”There is no direct heir to the throne, and the laws regarding succession have been largely repealed. It is therefore unlikely that the next king will be announced till The Storting comes back in session to determine the successor, or if there will be any successor at all. As a result, we are calling an emergency session of The Storting to elect a temporary head of state. This election will have to happen before the New Year’s.” The Labour Party controls the parliament, and political insiders have said that it seems to be a genuine possibility that Norway will become a full Republic when The Storting convenes next. However, broad public opinion against such a move remains.

Meanwhile, monarchists the world over are disappointed in this decision. The International Society for the Promotion of Monarchies (ISPM) put out a strongly worded statement against the decision, and took out full front page advertisements in major newspapers of countries with monarchies such as Britain and Sweden with the words “YOU COULD BE NEXT”, warning citizens of the possibility of republicanism. The chief spokesperson for the ISPM, Ms. Alvay S. Queen, was on the BBC Norway Tonight, making her case for The Storting to reject the Monarch’s letter of abdication. It is unclear on whether the Norwegian Parliament holds such a power, and we could not defer to our in-house Norwegian Law Expert as we couldn’t afford one for this article.

In the meantime, the King of Norway has been doing quite a few media interviews himself, a practice frowned upon for members of royal families. “I’ve always wanted to learn knitting,” the 85 year old Monarch said to CNN. “As a king, it’s important to have a steady hand. My age will not affect this. Maybe I could get a job knitting caps and sweaters? I’ll have to find out. I really do hope they listen to me and institute Universal Basic Income. Then I won’t be afraid to actually get a job that pays less, and learn skills at my own pace. But for now, Unemployment Benefits should be enough. I hope we save enough to get our own place soon, we will have to rely on government housing till then.”

We requested an exclusive interview with the King, and have one scheduled for later today. Our Patreon members can find it here when it is uploaded. He has requested us to call him Simon during the interview, and it seems like he’s handling his own email.

Studies Find Tall Men More Successful

Unrelated independent study finds most successful men actually two short women in trench-coats

Newcastle upon Tyne, December 2021: There are many theories as to why tall men are more successful. Some believe they only appear more successful and that it is an optical illusion. Some others believe that it is because their height helps them snoop, eavesdrop, and altogether cheat more efficiently. Evidently, as a consequence of basic mathematics, some people are stupider than average.

Dr. Psize d’N-Mathers, a pioneering researcher at the Institute of Size and Other-such-things in Brobdingnag, Ohio, believes that Size Matters. He has led many studies across North America and Europe to find evidence toward it, but has come short on every such occasion. His colleagues at the ISO confide in us that while size may matter, the results from his rather small studies don’t.

Jonathan Rauch, author of eight books and numerous articles on public policy, culture, and government, wrote a groundbreaking article for the Economist in 1995 titled “Short Guys Finish Last”. The conversation about height discrimination had commenced, yet short men continued to be looked down upon and talked down to. Efforts were made to cancel the phrases: “looking down upon” and “talking down to”, but people took unkindly to such efforts in a bid to take the moral high ground against cancel culture.

Jonathan makes the case that tall men fare better at politics, business, professional status, finding jobs, making money, and even mating. “Not only do tall people grow richer, rich people grow taller. They enjoy well-nourished childhoods and better health.” The popular urban meme about women on dating apps seeking men over 6’ in height, while exaggerated, has some truth to it. Jonathan opines that there is no good news for short men, but also finds silly the notion of SHRIMPs (Severely Height-Restricted Individuals of the Male Persuasion) as an oppressed social group.

The obstacles due to Gender Discrimination are often described or otherwise attributed to the Glass Ceiling effect. In the case of Height Discrimination, it may well be described as short men’s inability to reach for the ceiling at all. Society, failing to make empathy ladders available, has instead chosen to watch shamelessly and laugh at short men’s dumpy efforts at the disdain trampoline. It is high time that either more ladders are built or the ground made slopy.

Amazon to Genetically Modify Workers for Increased Productivity

FDA approves genetic treatment of workers following DARPA experiments

Hyderabad, December 2021: While teens and youths of all generations have had their times of reckless sleep cycles and deprivation, it has been popularly known that regular lack of sleep leads to ill effects ranging from fatigue and irritability to difficulty in concentration and black-outs, severely increasing risk of injury and accidents.

Neurologists specializing in sleep research at the University of California, San Francisco have found a bunch of people, specimens, who seem to get only 5 hours of sleep a night, 2-2.5 hours less than average, but show no ill effects of sleep deprivation at all. Dr. Fu, at UCSF, found that mutations in the genes DEC2, ADRB1, and NPSR1 caused short sleepers to stay awake longer as well as have an increased drive. "It was torture for them to do nothing," said Dr. Jones, a neurologist. It is believed that mutations in these genes alter neurotransmitter levels in the brain.

Researchers have also studied the short sleep trait in mice. Genetic mutations were introduced in mice and they were subsequently observed to test the gene's function. It was found that the genetically-altered mice also slept for fewer hours and showed no ill effects. The mice were more active and productive than regular mice, and had better memories, despite sleeping less.

"The welfare of our workers has been the management's top priority since the beginning," said Mrs. Tazos, Chief of Research at Amazon HR. "We have always been about our workers. We are always looking to make them more comfortable and provide them an above average standard of living." She added: "Recently, there have been complaints from workers as well as corrupt voyeuristic worker unions. We are not going to just ignore them. We listen. We are going to reduce worker down time so that they can work more hours and, therefore, increase their earnings and live better."

Amazon.com, Inc. has been at the forefront of research in worker productivity. With over a million employees on payroll, Amazon has had the opportunity to conduct their research experimentally. There are many aspects of productivity and they have tried different methods to boost them. Previously tried methods include banning pee breaks and using wireless internet jammers to prevent social media use in-house. But these techniques attract negative press attention, and Amazon’s HR department is under the impression that genetic modifications will be better received. “There have only been one or two casualties in our research thus far. And those folks were fatigued before the experiment, so there’s no question of compensation to their families at any rate,” said Tazos.

Amazon’s Chief of Business Strategy, Mr. Henry J. Waternoose IV, spoke to us as well. “The FDA has approved all our experiments, and we are moving to gain Emergency Use Authorisation, a status that has only ever been granted to COVID19 vaccines, to our experiments as well, so we can expand it country wide,” said Waternoose. “We are also working closely with the EU and the EEA to get approval for the same there, though that will be a tougher battle. Governments of countries like India and Turkey, however, seem enthusiastic about these moves, and their labour ministries have reached out preemptively to set up pilot programmes in their countries.”

The FDA was unavailable for comment, and activist groups, shocked at the news, are yet to put out statements against (or for) Amazon’s activities. An anonymous scientist said that Amazon’s research was dangerous, citing many ethical concerns including potential eugenic applications. “This kind of thinking led to Nazi Germany. This is not ethical, and can have really bad implications in other spaces. They’re not thinking this through,” they said. However, the researcher kept the call brief and stayed anonymous as they were worried Amazon would block their research by buying out their university’s board.

In Other News

Netflix Series The Crown to get a Spin-Off Titled The Republic

We will take Britain kicking and screaming into the 21st century: Producer

People Against Heightism (PAH) ban all Oasis work post 2000

Claim “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” is demeaning

Amazon buys Swedish Smart Mattress Company; Plans Mass Production

Pavlov’s work to be resurrected. Beds to prime workers after five hours of sleep.

Terveiset,
momo & eggsy

Hello and welcome back to the second season of The Hindustan Grimes, a news peddling agency that procures, piles together, promulgates, and sometimes perverts and prevaricates, news stories so softcore, the DOT wouldn't even bother asking Jio to block it.

This time around we have a slew of updates:

1. We will release two stories instead of three every week on Thursdays mornings. It'll carry the letter as usual.

2. We have a new correspondent writing in from Hubli whose reports will come out every week on Sunday mornings. This will carry no letter in the beginning.

3. Also, we've decided to keep this season shorter than the first one. It'll span twelve weeks, over June through September.

4. We've replaced The Grimes' Definitions of the Week section with In Other News. You'll see what that is at the bottom of this issue.

5. Eggsy's contributions can be found on his home page on the internet at jeevannavar.com.

This week, we bring you two stories on organisations with cross country impact, who are being awarded fancy international prizes for their troubles.

Yours On Time,

momo & eggsy

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"Spies Without Borders" frontrunners for Time Person of the Year 2021

ISI furious; Seeks compensation from US govt. for morale blow.

Lodhi Road, June 2021: "The past year and a half has been a spell of unprecedented peace and lethargy in the world," says Mr. Felsenthal, editor-in-chief of Time magazine. "We have been deliberating on who will be the Time Person of the Year and only one contender stands tall. What SWP started with, one couldn't even see with the naked eye, but now it affects us all." Spies Without Borders, an international group of skilled professionals with no known headquarters, has been attributed with planting the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wuhan and kickstarting the fall of the dominoes. Chinese investigative agencies have refused to comment.

RAW, Mossad, and KGB held a joint press conference at Lodhi Road yesterday to decry Time Magazine's intent to award Spies Without Borders for integral services to humanity across borders. "SWB is a rogue outfit of mercenaries that are loyal to no one," said Mr. Bhatia, Senior Aide to the Secret Chief of RAW. Dr. Serov, representing the KGB, added, "if anyone should be getting awards, it should be us. We do the real surveillance and espionage."

Spies Without Borders has claimed responsibility for various pivotal moments in history, like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and JFK, and guiding the world through cycles of societal and technological advances. Their current campaign is believed to have been for enabling widespread adoption of technology and the push for Work from Home schemes.

Spies Without Borders has existed in various forms and outfits for centuries. They have a long history going back to Potheads of the Persian Empire, Supernatural Shinobi of Feudal Japan, and Assassins Guilds of the Dark Ages. The current ensemble of Spies Without Borders works under the motto of: Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre^ and are based heavily on the teachings and functioning of the Ankh Morpork Assassins' Guild.*

Rumours suggest that RAW, Mossad, and KGB representatives held a high level meeting at Lodhi Road to discredit and besmirch Spies Without Borders and instead pin the blame of the pandemic on the CCP. The intelligence agencies' PR teams, on the other hand, are in talks with Helsinki to propose a new Nobel Prize category with them winning the introductory year. Bickering among the intelligence agencies continues as they fail to come to a consensus on who among them should win the prize the first year.

North Korea, reportedly, is not amused with the ongoing collusion among the foreign intelligence agencies. They have asked to be considered for the special prize as well. A day later, North Korean local news outlets reported that Kim Jong Un has been honoured with a special Nobel Prize for integral services to humanity within borders. The CCP has corroborated the North Korean news reports and says the G7 should stop conspiring against the East.

^Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre = No Killing Without Payment

*"We do not execute. We do not massacre. We never, you may be very certain, we never torture. We have no truck with crimes of passion or hatred or pointless gain. We do not do it for a delight in inhumation, or to feed some secret inner need, or for petty advantage, or for some cause or belief; I tell you, gentlemen, that all these reasons are in the highest degree suspect. Look into the face of a man who will kill you for a belief and your nostrils will snuff up the scent of abomination. Hear a speech declaring a holy war and I assure you, your ears should catch the clink of evil’s scales and the dragging of its monstrous tail over the purity of the language. No, we do it for the money. And, because we above all must know the value of a human life, we do it for a great deal of money. There can be few cleaner motives, so shorn of pretence. Nil mortifi, sine lucre. Remember. No killing without payment"

~Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

Gates says drugs exist to make money for pharma, snubbed by Nobel Peace prize cmte.

What weighs more on your wallet? A kilo of gold or a kilo of vaccine?

Oslo, June 2021: The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize is scheduled to be announced in October. In the meantime, many individuals have begun receiving nominations for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, which has generated a great deal of conflict and controversy. Some of the top contenders for the prize include Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu (nominated for his alleged role in brokering peace during the 2021 Israel Palestine Crisis), Narendra Modi (for uniting the people of India against him during India's second wave of COVID-19 and the negligence that led to the country wide oxygen shortage) and Donald Trump (nominated for stepping down peacefully after the 2020 US presidential election after causing an insurrection). The other nominees include Bill Gates, for his role in improving the accessibility of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

However, Bill Gates gave an interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil who questioned Gates' actions which ensured that Oxford could not open source their vaccine, to which Gates took offence. "Is it not true that you pressured Oxford to sell the exclusive rights of the vaccine to AstraZeneca?" asked Mr. Neil. Gates replied, "See this is something most people don't understand, our private sector partners must be able to make some significant revenue off the vaccines and drugs to ensure that they turn a profit before their next shareholder meeting. They control Oxford's grants." "Don't you control Oxford's grants?" asked Mr. Neil. "They are me and I am them. Get with the program, Neil!" he replied.

Gates drew significant flak for this interview worldwide. British MP for London South, Karan Singh brought the issue up in the UK parliament, and said that he planned to introduce a parliamentary motion to censure Mr. Gates. Subsequently, the Nobel committee invited Mr. Gates, who was already in town, for a meeting to discuss his comments. We have no record of what happened in the meeting, but our correspondent managed to corner Mr. Gates as he walked out of the interview.

THG Correspondent: What happened in there, Mr. Gates?

Mr. Gates: They disapproved of my honesty. It's really sad to see the Nobel Peace Prize committee fold to the demands of internet mobs.

THGC: But your words have drawn flak from leaders the world over, including South African and British Parliamentarians, as well as the health ministers of Pakistan and Niger.

BG: They're part of the internet mobs too, just reciting the same points. You don't get how these markets work! These things exist so you get a choice between vaccines.

THGC: Are you saying all these world leaders don't know what they're talking about? What do you suggest they do to solve their severe vaccine shortages?

BG: If you can't have AstraZeneca, have Pfizer.

THGC: If you are right, why is the Nobel committee listening to everyone else?

BG: I suspect that this has to do with the allegations regarding certain individuals I met in New York. All these allegations are surfacing after my divorce. They don't want to award a divorcee. That does not comply with their "family values". Such discrimination! I am already having a really bad year, you won't take this Nobel Peace Prize also away from me! I will go to The Hague if needed, this is a human rights violation.

Mr. Gates was referring to his alleged meetings with convicted paedophile and indicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He was visibly annoyed through the interview, and was sweating profusely despite the Oslo weather. He cut the interview short after the Hague threat and got into his car to leave.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been a highly contentious prize for quite sometime, and has led to conflict among previous winners of the prize. One instance is when Malala Yousafzai (Peace Prize 2015) slapped Henry Kissinger (Peace Prize 1973) in public upon meeting him in Karachi in 2016. The Pakistani Home Ministry refused to press charges against Yousafzai for misdemeanour assault, and she was praised widely by Pakistani media. Another notable conflict between Peace Prize winners occurred in the early hours of the 3rd October 2015 Afghan Time, when the US Air Force, under the command of Barack Obama (Peace Prize 2009), bombed a hospital with volunteers from Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, Peace Prize 1999) killing up to 75 people.

It is unclear what the Nobel Committee will decide regarding Mr. Gates' nomination. It is however clear that Mr. Gates will not go down without a fight, and we hope no violence is committed in this deliberation process or as a result of it.

In Other News

Man enters forest to find lost friend. Finds himself instead.

"Finding Nobody" stays atop NYT bestseller list for eights week straight

Bharat Biotech launches self-administrable yeast shot that can keep you drunk organically the entire weekend

"Another bankruptcy and I might have to give up my summer mansion": Vijay Mallya

"Be Gay, Do War Crime": Arms Manufacturer Raytheon awarded Best Place to Work by Human Rights Campaign

Raytheon praises Human Rights Campaign for standing for Human Rights across the globe

Welcome to the twentieth and final issue of the first season of The Hindustan Grimes, a newsletter for people who've already seen the quasi-formulaic nature of the letter, but still come back and read the next issue anyway.

These have been incredibly trying times, and, if you've stuck with us till now, we do hope that this newsletter has brought a smile or two on your faces. Writing it certainly did so for us. Also, Eggsy wanted to put the formula out the previous week and still have you read the issue this week to prove that a spoiler is a misnomer. Suspense or not, it is still enjoyable.

This week, we bring you three very different stories. One about the underground IT cell business, one about the US Space Force, and a fresh Multi-Level Marketing Scheme (read: Technically Not a Pyramid Scheme) that has gripped our nation.

Yours finally,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

Sting Operation of Forward Factory faces backlash

Pahlaj Nihalani named Chairman of the newly formed Central Board of Forward Certification

Gandhinagar, May 2021: A sting operation by The Hindustan Grimes in association with CID Gujarat has revealed operations of the BJP IT Cell's West Wing (WW). The covert operation, led by our very own Momo, began in early January this year. There is speculation that The Grimes was started as a front for the operation.

"The IT Cell always reached me through the grapevine, but finding them directly took a lot of effort," said a visibly ruffled Momo. "It began with a lot of hanging around family groups and neighbourhood uncles' groups. That yielded only forwards. Then, we started setting our own traps. One of my avatars went in so deep, it got the forwards before they were even labelled forwards."

"Finally, we found one of their creatives' real facebook account," Momo continued. "We made up an advertising account and asked FB for his address so we could sell him banyans and they just gave it to us. That is when the whole operation went sour."

It turns out that the IT Cell operative that the operation found was quite normal and did not need to be especially tortured to speak about the Cell's operations. She was quite friendly and spoke openly.

The WW IT Cell, internally known as Forward Factory, primarily consists of struggling writers who never made it in mainstream writing. "There is no long form reading audience that'll connect with our Indian stories," she said. "And Bollywood doesn't like writers getting creative, so this is the only choice. It even pays well."

The IT Cell writers add that they don't have faith in the conventional news agencies. One, they don't have the money, and the ones' that do have money shouldn't be called news agencies anyway. Two, they write just about anything. Three, you are forced to write about celebrities or politicians all the time. "At least we don't say it's all true and sign our names under it," said an anonymous writer, who goes by @shambiguity.

"FF takes care of us," said @mrpatel, another writer. "The IT Cells up north are generally okay. But some of the Cells in the fringes are almost prison cells and are run like Chinese card factories. Those imprisoned indentured slave-like writers don't even get EPFO."

The sting operation also revealed that multiple attempts at unionisation of the writers have been crushed, sometimes with the involvement of police officers. Suspected officers have been put on paid suspension. It is believed that the PM appreciates IT Cells' growth and views them as successes of Aatmanirbharata and Make in India programs, but is also in talks with Amazon for their expertise. "No one crushes unionisation attempts and exploits workers like they do. Every capitalist could learn a thing or two from Amazon," said Dr. Subramanian Swamy, MP and former professor of economics.

The PMO has said that this was one of the avenues for creating employment for the youth in the country. The IT Cells' funding was accounted for in the union budget. Upon enquiry about why this was not revealed earlier, the PMO confessed to a large backlog of announcements. "We have some announcements pending since last December," said the PMO reply. "We've not even got to the announcements about placing orders for vaccines for 18-44! Oh wait! We still have to place the orders first."

Television news broadcasters however have ignored the sting operation in favour of the failed return attempts of COVID19, IPL, and Sushant Singh Rajput.

Space Petrol Delta: Emergency

Oil: A Magical Source with Mystic Force

Washington DC, May 2021: A set of memos leaked by the US Defense Department revealed details regarding conversations between high level defense staffers and former President Trump, who had insisted on the formation of a Space Force, and had succeeded in getting it set up during his tenure in office. The memos revealed that the President had insisted on setting up a Space Petrol Delta, an outer-space fuelling station. He reportedly got the idea when he was flicking channels on his television and came across Power Rangers: SPD.

Mr. Trump had mistaken SPD for Space Petrol Delta, which triggered talks on launching a Space Force so the US could have a petrol delta of their own. However, our science editor confirmed that it is highly unlikely that asteroids themselves will have oil, as oil arises from the fossilisation of carbon based life-forms. But the same story does not hold for mining, and that endeavour could turn very profitable. Additionally we were informed by the Flat Earth Society that space is made of petrol and not ether as previously believed.

The military reportedly accepted the proposal as they would like to weaponise space, and because they'd like to engage in asteroid mining. The proposed Space Force has always been incredibly popular within military circles, but has gained increased public scrutiny during the COVID19 pandemic as the US government has been called out for allocating funds towards the space force rather than public health measures. The AFL-CIO, an American labour organisation has strongly criticised allocation of discretionary funds to the Space Force.

Regardless of the alleged motives of the military industrial complex, Trump's Space Force Task Force (TSFTF) drew up plans for a fuelling station on the dark side of the moon, along with their artist's rendition of what aliens would look like. Our well placed Pentagon source who broke the story to us told us that the artist's rendition was buried, and that they only had one chance to see it. "When I say artist's rendition, I am being so incredibly charitable with the meaning of the word 'artist' that I can use it to claim a deduction on my taxes," they said. "It was clearly drawn by a child, and I still don't know how it was in official Pentagon documents."

We reached out to White House spokeswoman Ms. Richardson for comment, who confirmed that Mr. Biden, the current president, firmly believed that SPD stood for Space Patrol Delta, clearing up any ambiguity on the White House's position on the matter. Ms. Richardson also confirmed that the Space Force would continue to receive funding, and that the hunt for space oil and minerals would continue. "The Biden administration will take any and all steps necessary that will help us fight climate change, the defining crisis of our generation. That includes mining asteroids in space, and finding oil reserves as well. When oil is used in space, it will not pollute the earth. It's a win-win," she said. Neil deGrasse Tyson was unavailable for comment.*

*We apologise for our abysmal twitter game. Hey, Neil! Contact us at thegrimes@substack.com when you read this.

Massive Manhunt for MLM Marauders Made Public

It's not a Ponzi scheme: Ponzi, the Third (Fraud Expert)

Bhubaneshwar, May 2021: Citizens all over the country have been receiving calls, messages, emails, and letters asking every reader to donate to charities like "Save the children" or "Save the Indigenous communities" or "Save the affected". CBI Bhubaneshwar has cracked into the headquarters of one such "charity" NGO conducting their business out of an abandoned building in the Rokat neighbourhood. "The headquarters had no certified community workers. It was run entirely by marketing enthusiasts," said CBI Inspector Reddy.

A team of cross-department government officials is now investigating and auditing the financials of the NGO which ran the "Save the children" campaign. Many such NGOs and campaigns are thought to be linked and are rumoured to be equally as dubious. The manhunt to find them all continues.

Independent investigative journalists have found that there are no children that have been saved and that all the images on their website, posters, and social media pages were procured from a Swedish photographer on tour in urban Mumbai.

"We don't have any assets or any workforce," said the whistleblower who brought the "charity" to the attention of the CBI. "We just have volunteers. Initially we wanted to raise some money to start the project. So, we went around to the local colleges with some stock images on some posters and got a bunch of volunteers. But slowly it became clear that it was way way (sic) easier to just recruit volunteers than actually raise money."

Most volunteers joined the NGO in order to have the satisfaction of having worked for the well-being of the society at large. Most volunteers, though, were extremely bad at raising money. In a few months, the official policy was altered so that each volunteer had to either raise ₹50k or 50 new volunteers each month.

"We wanted to do good," continued the whistleblower. "But the money and the volunteers kept pouring in and we didn't even have to do anything. The team just kept on thinking of more ways to raise money than to actually use the money for anything. That is when it all went wrong."

Initial reports of the NGO team's arrests claimed it all to be a pyramid scheme. The NGO chairman has since claimed that it is a false accusation and has tried to clear it. "No, it is not a pyramid scheme," said the chairman. "We don't give any of the money to the early volunteers. The volunteers join in because they want to. They want to feel that they are contributing to society. That experience. That is what we are offering to the people. The money is just a by-product."

Fraud experts are conflicted in whether this is a pyramid scheme, a Ponzi scheme, or neither. With Multi-Level Marketing being a legal and well-accepted business model, proving fraud appears even more challenging.

Meanwhile, the government has seen to it that the network of volunteers used by the now dissolved NGOs does not go to waste and that the volunteers are instead used to raise funds for PM CARES. PMO has also clarified that expenditure of funds raised this way will not be made public either.

The Grimes’ Definitions of the Week

Social Service: Finding a lost kid at the mela and helping him find his parents. Commonly confused with politics.

Politics: Convincing everyone to hold the mela and also to allow you to help lost children in said mela. Commonly confused with governance.

Governance: Learning that millions of people turned up at the mela and that you now have to find a way to have six feet of space between every pair of them. Commonly confused with bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy: Briefing everyone in the government about the situation and realizing that by the time you decide to take any action, things have already gotten very very bad. Also known as incompetence.

مع السلامة

momo & eggsy

Welcome to this season's penultimate issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where we write absurd descriptions of what our newsletter is about so while you are reminded of what this email is about, you are also confused.

Then, we bring you an update in the second paragraph. This was easier in the first few issues when new happenings were occurring, but has since become a place to plead for you to share our newsletter or a paragraph to do away with entirely.

Lastly, we bring you glimpses of what stories are to follow the letter. For our first story this week, we bring you the bizarre happenings in a given city, and delve into the reasons for said bizarrerie. We then review The Hindustan Grimes' Bestseller 'Satire for Dummies'. Lastly, we bring you the true context behind the quotes of some of the world's most famous people. Happy reading!

Yours spoofingly,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

An absurd news headline about the event; possibly a twist

A directly unrelated byline off the tangent of the article

A City, May 2021: It is reported that the timeless bizarrerie that is the premise of this news story coincidentally occurred just this past week. The first paragraph then continues in a formal fashion, attempting to establish the premise of the story as factual. "Sometimes there's a quote to end the para too," said a well qualified interested party.

"Then come a few selected statements from a press release that would never happen," said a Mr. Apte Leen Ahmed, spokesperson for SULSFAM, India^. "The statement continues from the previous sentence as well as from the previous paragraph seamlessly to provide some necessary exposition of the event. Also, this statement corroborates our story because someone else said it."

The event in question must be viewed in the entirety of its context. We elaborate on how the event was influenced by many other tangential events, as we specify a particular event that we find more interesting. More often that not, most of the rest of the piece focuses on the tangential event, sometimes making that the primary focus of the entire story itself. To elaborate on the tangential event, we speak to members of guilds and unions, who are the people on the ground truly impacted by either the former or the tangential event, but more importantly, can give us insider information into the organisation. "Often times, we tell them not-so-shocking details of how bad the industry is," said a union representative who wished to be anonymous.

When we questioned Mr. Ahmed about the facts laid out by the union representative, his office had a response. "All these claims are nonsense, the union is out to get SULSFAM. We have the best tools in the country, and all claims made by these radical union leaders are baseless and must be dismissed. We don't like these workers, and I will make the situation all the more worse by continuing talking to you instead of ending this conversation, knowing that I might be fired as spokesperson tomorrow. After all, I am not a member of said union," Mr. Ahmed replied. We expect you to use these paragraphs to get a sense of the absurdity of the situation. We also quote tweets made by parties involved in the event, and linkrelevantwebsites.

We continue this exposition with many Oxford comma less, long-winded, and unintelligible sentences and quotes which usually corroborate our story, and occasionally go in the complete opposite direction.

Coming toward the end of the news report, there are a set of small paragraphs explaining how the event affects various other stakeholders including, but not limited to, the affected, the effector, a local bystander, spokesperson for the govt.*, people in the region, gays, feminists, vegans, socialists, and the aforementioned union leaders as well.

"The event affects me severely*,*" said a severely affected woman who chose to remain anonymous. She then proceeded to protest at the site of the event while holding funny placards and being shot at and hit over the head by photographers and police officers respectively. Police brutality is a staple after all.

The event was politically polarised and subsequently heavily debated on prime time news programs. The opposition opposed. The ruling ignored. Television anchors shouted. The opposition demanded apologies. The ruling blamed predecessors. Television anchors shouted more. The people then switched to IPL. But the IPL was cancelled, so they had to switch back.

If necessary, we then reach out to more relevant government spokespeople. We pretend to have been trying to reach them for over two days, but eventually give up, and say that they were unavailable for comment.

The event remains unresolved and the report concludes abruptly. We often promise to update you on the story, but only rarely do.

^SULFSAM = Society for Unintelligibly Long Fake Sounding Abbreviation Makers

*The PM doesn't speak to us either. Saying that would be too much of a lie to even induce doubt.

Satire For Dummies: A breath of fresh air or a marketing halitosis?

Dummies Association of America to sue "The Dummies" series for copyright infringement

The Hindustan Grimes' Editorial Board Conference Room, May 2021: We like to think of ourselves as a very self-aware newsletter. So, this issue is centered around acknowledging the tropes that we lean into while writing our stories. What we must also admit, of course, is we have no idea of what we are doing. We often read books on how to write satire. We say books, plural, but honestly, we've read one book, singular, on the subject. It's titled "Satire for Dummies" by O B Vyas Phakname. This is part of an ongoing collaboration with the "For Dummies" series. In fact, we are working with them to put out "Satire Newsletters on Substack for Dummies", our very own original title for the dummies series.

Now, let's hop into the review. The book is not at all structured, and is a veritable hot mess. The author has no idea what he's talking about. In fact, the book was denounced by the Indian English Grammar Association.

And that's lesson 1. Satire sometimes involves establishing a premise that need not be a reflection of anything. The premise might simply be to set up a larger joke, or might be to throw the reader off, or to add additional absurdity to the piece.

The book also recommends that all readers should subscribe to and read The Hindustan Grimes religiously. The publishers have no official affiliation with The Grimes, and they would like us to believe that they are making this recommendation purely out of merit. The Grimes was unavailable for comment.

And we have lesson #2. Never promote yourself unless it is clear you are being absurd, lest you come off as a dick. Address yourself in third person. And act like you don't know who the person you are referring to is.

The book soared on bestseller lists, and even got a blurb by famous satirists such as Saki. Saki said "Satire only works when you write funny stuff. Satire for Dummies does that. A guide to satire that is itself satire? Shut up and take my money." Take Saki's advice. Buy the book.

That's lesson no #3. Use real people, but fake quotes. Make sure the quote falls within the realm of what the speaker would say, at least the start of the quote. In the above example, the word satire is possibly the only word Saki himself would've said. Also, buy the book.

The book moves on to more abstract advice. "Understand that people are just as, or potentially more likely, to believe what you say as compared to prime time news shows and reputed national or local dailies. Use that." That's lesson #4.

There are at least 25 lessons to gather from the book. We would like to avoid spoiling the book, as we would like you to actually buy and read the book for INR 699 at Amazon.in.

Lesson #5 of many, if you run out of jokes, use a paywall to cut yourself off. No one pays for satire, so they'll never know that you didn't actually write 25 jokes.

Momo and Eggsy's Excellent Adventure

20% of bankruptcy cases result from teenagers failing to cancel subscription before free trial ends

Moodabidri, May 2021: Zoom Inc., which provides seamless communication services across space, has announced that it will soon add to its premium features list seamless communication across time as well^. The Grimes, due to its eminence as a public media body, was given exclusive early access. As a result, we interviewed myriad famous thinkers and historical figures from the previous century.

Presented below is a brief excerpt of the group interview.

The past 18 months have been terrible for the world. A viral pandemic, COVID19, has spread across the world and killed millions of people. Do you have advice for the people of your future?

Stalin: "This is no tragedy. A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Get over it."

But it brought the world to a standstill. Everyone was locked down, trying to save others from getting infected. We live in a society!

Thatcher: "There is no such thing as a society! The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."

We know that the world leaders, Trump, Putin, Johnson, Modi, all made mistakes. But, you're saying locking down was a mistake?

Thatcher: "Of course. They are all men. I've always said, in politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."

Einstein: "Yes. Yes. This is all a game. God doesn't play dice with the world. These are culling techniques honed over millennia."

MLK, Jr.: "Truth. We are not makers of history; we are made by history."

I really don't think you are grasping the severity of the damage done here. Millions of people have died.

Einstein: "This reminds me of what Oppenheimer keeps saying at the university cafeteria: 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' All that radiation he works with has gotten to his head. Is the whole world irradiated perhaps?"

I will not answer that. But anyway, there is some hope. Numerous vaccines have been made to battle the virus...

Armstrong: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Yes. The vaccines will save us. If only we could produce enough of them in time for it to matter.

Gandhi: "No. No. This is too much technology. We need to go back to our roots. In a gentle way, we can shake the world."

Oh! What do you suggest we do then?

Ali (interrupting Gandhi): "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. The virus can't hit what it can't see."

Mandela: "No. No. Education. Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world."

Stalin: "Really, Mr. Mandela? Education is a weapon, yes, but its effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."

At the same time, we are spending thousands of crores on a new Parliament building. Do you think that's also one small step for the Indian man?

Sharma: "Saare jahan se acchha. Astronauts go to space and try to find their country and can't manage finding them. With the Vista, we Indians will be able to appreciate Hindustan even more."

But don't you think India's PM is cheating the Indian people by investing money into this project, rather than ramp up vaccine production? Isn't that criminal?

Nixon: I am not a crook.

Clinton: I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Both of them together: Oh, that wasn't directed at me. Sorry. Force of habit.

Many are claiming this is a making of the Chinese. Is this not racism?

Churchill: "This is not a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. I can see how it can be the Chinese's doing. We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall never surrender Hong Kong."

Gandhi: "No. Inciting violence is not the right way. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."

So you do believe that the Chinese did it. You are racist.

Ford: "Racism? What racism? That ended long ago. Any customer of mine can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

MLK, Jr.: "I have a dream, a dream where I can drive a black car."

Ford: "You can do that in a Ford Model T."

MLK, Jr.: "Oh alright then."

The interview soon spiralled into discussions of racism, socialism, governance, and war. In the interest of censorship, the transcript of the interview is terminated here.

^As far back as the 1950s, for now.

The Grimes’ Definition of the Week

The Hindustan Grimes’ Issue #19: When you put out a fancy and self-aware issue talking about the format of your satirical newsletter, but deep down you're not sure if the issue is as fancy as you think it is. Commonly confused with every other issue of The Hindustan Grimes.

Barpe,

momo & eggsy

Welcome to Issue 18 of The Hindustan Grimes, where we can only hope to be a fake-news super-spreader. We ain't got nothing on the IT Cell, those folks are organised and dedicated.

We're coming up on the end of the season in two weeks' time. We hope you're having fun. Also, it is about the right time to tell us if you'd like to continue reading the newsletters after the two weeks.

In this issue, we talk about COVID-19 and how tough it is on everyone. A meek man once thought, "Toughness is a state of mind." We, indeed, believe toughness is a choice and setting easier targets is always a better choice. Cheers!

Yours disorganisedly,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

Govt. says war on COVID too hard. Will target Vertigo instead.

#Disease?Vertigo trends #1 Twitter

New Delhi, April 2021: In a surprising press conference, Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan declared that the war on COVID19 was too hard and that it was futile. They have decided to regroup and convalesce and then wage war on vertigo instead. "We don't think we'll win. We're just losing too many of our people," said the Minister for Health. "So, we decided to get back to the drawing board and set new targets. There's no point crying over unassailable targets."

"We've talked to the WHO and all the major foreign health departments. They're all on board," said Minister of State for Health, Mr. Ashwini Kumar Choubey. "We've organised the forces—health workers, doctors, slogan writers, and social media experts. Everything's set. We'll completely annihilate vertigo."

Twitterati were concerned how WHO or any other organisation was behind this, but their concerns were soon alleviated. It has come to fore that China is busy with the business in the South China Sea and has loosened the grip on WHO. Also, the whole idea of shifting targets is believed to have come from the US Dept. of Biological Warfare Director and Vietnam War Veteran, General J. Rambo. Gen. Rambo is said to have convinced the international intelligence communities to convince the health departments that this is the best choice.

Upon being asked about why vertigo was being set as the new target, Dr. Vardhan said, "It's very simple really. The previous management, us mostly, set unachievable targets and that has brought down the morale of the team very very down (sic). We feel like setting this small target will help raise the morale again."

"Then again, Vertigo, simple as it is," he continued, "hasn't been worked on by enough smart minds, because, well, they've never been needed to. But now, we can beat it and take the moral win. We'll all go home after and have some real cause for cheer. Anyway, we've given it a few decades' head start. Now, we'll just knock on its door, and when it opens the door, carpet-bomb it thoroughly."

When we asked what would happen if the coronavirus mutates and makes people get vertigo, the Dr. Vardhan was visibly flummoxed. After a few quick words with his team, the minister appeared dismayed and said softly, "oh no. It will do that, won't it?"

No word since has been heard from the Health Ministry, but another change of target is expected by Monday.

Popular Feminist Spokesperson, May May, Releases New Book on Objectification of Women

Objectification and Objectophilia offends the objectifiers, the objectified, and the objectophiliacs alike.

Bangalore, April 2021: Dr. May May, during a special session of the Bangalore Literature Festival, was thrown a Mochi size 6 casual khaki loafer at when she mentioned that "while objectophiliacs are mentally deranged, their derangement is not a feminist issue." Critics have called her a hypocrite and a self-involved snob for publishing a whole book about the "non-issue".

Dr. May defines objectophilia as a sexual and/or romantic attraction toward inanimate objects and objectification as degrading someone to the status of a mere object. "You can see where some people get confused," says Dr. May. "Objectophiliacs and women objectifiers have different kinds of illnesses."

If he has a thing for her, fine.
If he has a thing for it, trouble.
If she is the thing, call the police and/or twitter-police.

Mr. Nariman "Nari" Dealer took offence on behalf of all women in the country and called for a twitter ban on Dr. May going against feminism. Nari Dealer questioned Dr. May's loyalty to feminism. He tweeted, "Women objectification is no joke. Dr. May is a thing of the past. She's wrong. #cancelmaymay"

Popular objectophiliac and part-time general scholar on the prime time television news circuit, Ms. Samanpreet Kaur defended people of her affliction with an online statement: "... before, it was all men are equal. Now, we have changed the paradigm to all humans are equal. We just want to nudge the public narrative a bit further. Everything is equal."

Objectophiliacs Anonymous took out a walking march in front of the Lit Fest's premises on the morning after the special session with Dr. May. They demonstrated the truth of their love by carrying their object loves in the march. While the people of small affinities carried their wares at the front of the march, others with more elaborate lovers like refrigerators and washing machines had to be offered gatorades and physical help to cross the slightly slopy parking lot.

Some unfortunate objectophiliacs who were married to buildings like the Eiffel tower were unable to obtain permissions to bring their lovers on the Inner Ring Road and hence had to participate with life-sized cut-outs. "God created humans. Humans created buildings. Call me a stickler for the transitive property, but I can only love things if I know where they came from," said an Eiffel tower lover.

NRA launches Army 2.0 in the US

Colbert tweets: "This is the start of Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo."

Fairfax, April 2021: After growing dissatisfaction in the Biden administration from far-right republicans, the National Rifle Association (NRA) had decided to launch NARMY, or Army 2.0, to compete with the US military. This is despite the fact that US foreign policy remains hawkish as ever. The NRA cited many statistics that justified the move, including the fact that America has 120.5 guns per 100, which would help them while building the army.

The NRA seeks to build up an army that can operate at the scale of the US military, but funded by their wealthiest donors and their members. "Once we get our funding high enough, enrolments should skyrocket. That's when we'll make the big bucks. Enrolment will be based on a subscription model," said Wayne LaPierre, executive VP of the NRA. Mr LaPierre is a huge fan of Silicon Valley and their subscription first business models, and revealed that he has plans to invest in the valley as well.

"As we scale up the NARMY, we'll also need intelligence. We have human spies, they're already operating worldwide. What we need is cryptographers and hackers. We need a NNSA (NRA National Security Agency). We will be buying out most of Silicon Valley to achieve this," he said. A reporter from the Chicago Grimes pointed out that the NNSA already had a full form, and was the acronym for the US National Nuclear Security Agency. Mr. LaPierre replied that the name was not yet final.

The press secretary for the US Department of Defense under the Biden administration, Ms. Stohl laughed when reporters brought up the issue. "The US Military is unparalleled. The US Air Force is the largest Air Force in the world, followed by the US Army and the US Navy. We have seals working for us. *They* have stupid reality gun shows. I gotta go attend a fundraiser with Lockheed Martin, I've got better things to do," she said.

The move to create a new private army comes in the wake of privatisation worldwide, as many corporations are trying to one-up their public sector counterparts. For example, a Brazilian company named Legal Money, Inc. launched a Ministry of Finance within its corporate structure, and has begun issuing its own legal tender that has the value equivalent to 10 Brazilian reais. Reportedly, the currency is tied to a complex formula that goes back to NFTs. However, our reporters tend to leave as soon as they hear the term NFT, and hence, the exact formulation is unknown to us.

Similarly, cow vigilantes launched their own Gay Darbar in Prayagaraj, Uttar Pradesh, to crack down on cow slaughter. Upon its initial launch on social media, queer activists thought that this was a grassroots queer movement. Their happiness was short-lived as the true purpose of the Darbar came to light. Subsequently, the Darbar has been criticised widely as a farcical attempt to distract from the government's handling of COVID. So far, the Darbar has not met official condemnation from the UP Home Ministry, with police officials refusing to investigate complaints and reports that some of the police were involved themselves. The Home Ministry was unavailable for comment as of Thursday night.

The Grimes’ Definitions of the Week

Insolvency: When you have a fancy meal at a high-end restaurant and then realize that you don't have the cash, plastic, or technology to pay for it. Commonly confused with liquidation.

Liquidation: When the waiter offers to cover your bill in exchange for your shiny new watch. Commonly confused with bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy: When the restaurant owner agrees to let go of your bill on the condition that you go to forgetfulness therapy and that you pay him if you find some money on the way back. Commonly confused with indebtedness.

Adeus,

momo & eggsy

Welcome to another issue of the Hindustan Grimes, a newsletter where we write the news and we write the letter. Do take us literally, at your own risk.

This week, we reveal the masterstroke behind the Kumbh Mela and the subsequent COVID spike. We then bring you the results of a bombshell genetics study, that could change the way we look at cows once and for all. We also talk about an interesting innovation in retail.

Yours vertically,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

PM Modi claims Kumbh Mela was a Secret Masterstroke

IITs demand expedited vaccines for students. Get rejected summarily. IIT Gandhinagar vaccinates students anyway.

Siliguri, April 2021: At a campaign rally for the ongoing West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, speaking in his classic campaign rhetoric, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "all the large gatherings at the Kumbh Mela were not only planned, but also organised in such a way as to maximize herd immunity. Not only that, even the large gatherings at our campaign rallies in the state have been scientifically organised."

The Prime Minister is believed to have grown weary of the Principal Scientific Adviser's principles and advice, and is therefore heeding to other sources unknown to the public. The Prime Minister's Office has said, "Oh yeah, we made many mistakes. We gave vaccines to retirees sitting at home instead of poor daily wagers who're dying due to the curfews and lockdowns. Our website doesn't work properly and cannot handle lakhs of people logging on at once. But, this. This is not a mistake."

While under fire for vaccine shortages, the government has decided to fast track approvals for COVID-19 vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorisation by foreign drug regulators. "Baba Ramdev asked me to push his vaccine through, but I said no," said PM Modi. "I still believe in our CDSCO^ and NEGVAC^."

The opposition claims that this is an old habit of Mr. Modi. "He takes a bad situation and acts like it was a brilliant plan all along. He'll just come out, look at an enormous disaster, and say it is all alright with a straight face. He's just faking it," said INC spokesperson, Abhishek Singhvi, and grumbled, "and somehow making it."

Prime Minister Modi has been known to sometimes fudge the truth and other times butcher it completely. For example, he claimed that the export of honey had doubled in 2018 while it had only increased 17% year-on-year.

With the Prime Minister lying left and right, it makes one wonder if the 2016 demonetization really happened or not. (It definitely did.)

^CDSCO = Cetral Drugs Standard Control Organization, NEGVAC = National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19

Genetic study does a U turn, confirms sanghi theories about indigenous cows

Indian Cows have no Aryan Blood, Aryan Migration theory allegedly debunked

Panchayanpur, April 2021: Researchers at the Patanjali Research Institute (PRI) found that Indian cows had genes that helped them produce more milk, and the milk produced by the breeds was healthier and richer in calcium than their foreign counterparts. The research was published on biorxiv (pronounced bio-archive), and is yet to be peer reviewed. However, the research has gone viral on Twitter and has become the subject of many WhatsApp forwards.

The paper also found, among other things, that the milk produced by Indian cows had surprising curative properties, and that all Indian cows resisted inbreeding depression, a genetic condition which reduces the fitness of populations due to excessive inbreeding. "Indian Cows' DNA mutates at a greater rate than all other living creatures. It's part of a divine plan. This allows it to avoid any inbreeding depression caused by mating within the family," the research group said in a statement.

The bombshell study was published by Dr. Dahine Pankh Swami, a senior researcher at the PRI and a card carrying member of the RSS. Dr. Swami got his Ph.D from the Patanjali Institute of Technology (PIT)'s BioAyurveda department. He now specialises in Indian Cow Studies, a field he says is taking off across the world, especially at NASA. "NASA understands the value of Indian Cow Studies. It's more important than all this Marxism and Economics bullshit. Indian Cows are the solution to many problems facing us today, from viral epidemics to global warming."

He also went on to outline reasons for an apparent decline in milk quality. "The purity of the Indian Cow's DNA has been ruined by Jersey Cows, which have tainted the DNA once and for all. It will take millennia for Indian Cows to recover. This is yet another example of the long lasting impact of Imperialism."

Following the statement, the hashtag #BoycottNewJersey started trending on Twitter, and US Senator for New Jersey Cory Booker had to put out a statement alleviating these concerns. "New Jersey is not responsible for messing with Indian cows, of this, I am sure. We love Indians, and we welcome all of them to our state with open arms," he tweeted.

Later on, senior researchers at the CCMB^ and the IBAB^ dismissed the study. One professor, on the condition of anonymity, said that the paper had actually been rejected 5 times by peer reviewers, and that was why they were resorting to publicising it from the pre-print server itself. "The paper is stupid. I don't know what else you want me to say. There's no science at all for me to critique."

When the controversy surrounding the rejection of the paper was brought up, Dr. Swami rejected those claims at once. "This is all a plan by the white people to steal our cows and subsequently our secrets. They already used Verghese Kurien to spoil all our cows, now they want to profit from it." He also said that the PRI would be creating their own journal, titled "Annals of Cow Eugenics", to publish the paper. "Cows are better than humans genetically and in every way possible. It's time we acknowledged that."

"Cows are better than some humans. Of that, I have no doubt," responded the senior professor at the IBAB.

^CCMB = Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, IBAB = Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bengaluru

Walmart procures AI-powered headphones that turns all speech polite

IBM Watson declares AI not a bubble

Silicon Valley, April 2021: Simons Say Please Inc., one of thousands in the new AI-powered start-up scene, has launched their first product, the BoomerRemover. BoomerRemover is an AI-powered wireless pair of headphones that modifies the voices the wearer hears^ to make it polite. The speaker's voice's texture, pronunciation, accent, and other identifying qualities remain the same, but the tone of voice used is converted to a polite one.

"No, it won't seem like you are always speaking to Siri or Alexa. It's not monotonous that way," said Mr. Tim Simon, CTO of Simons Say Please. "It's like a person standing in front of you and shouting 'WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? THERE IS NOT ENOUGH CHEESE ON THIS!', but all you hear is 'Can you please add a bit more cheese on this?' in their own calm voice."

"This is going to revolutionize the service industry," said Mr. Tom Simon, CEO of Simons Say Please. "Walmart has seen the potential in BoomerRemover and bought out the first lot. This is sure to reduce their store employees' stress levels immediately."

Boomers For Fairness (BFF(s)), a support group for hassled and baffled boomers, has warned Walmart of protests in front of their stores. BFFs believe that the "AI" headphones are powered by 5G and that they cause imbalances in their body's energy and lead to spread of infectious diseases. "Bringing out such things in the middle of a pandemic is just plain insensitive," said a mask-on-the-chin BFF, Karen Wachowski.

Several questions have been raised about Walmart procuring BoomerRemovers, primary of which is "Why?" Walmart Press Secretary, Ms. Pavitra Suman, said in an interview, "we care about our employees. It is better to give them the protection of BoomerRemover than to risk them ending up with PTSD due to the savage customers. Working at the frontline entails a lot of pressure and stress, especially when the customers are rude and refuse to obey guidelines."

Meanwhile, Walmart's long time management consultants, McKinsey & Co., ceased services for the retail corporation. "They decided that procuring $400 headphones for everyone is cheaper than paying for their therapy. But, do you know what is even cheaper than that? Not paying for therapy at all. You just hire new minimum wagers to replace the weak ones," said a McKinsey associate formerly consulting the retailer who wished to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons.

Ms. Casandra Wong, a Walmart store employee at the Fresno facililty said, "before, I used to hate going to work. But now, with these headphones, I feel good. It really feels like the company cares about us. Now, if only they could pay us slightly more than minimum wage so I can afford to buy my dog some treats."

^Not applicable to internal monologues and ghostly heart-to-hearts

The Grimes’ Definitions of the Week

Genetics: Science certain people use to explain their prejudiced beliefs away. Commonly confused with xenophobia.

Xenophobia: When your body rejects a xenograft from a person of a different community. Commonly confused with racism.

Racism: When you refuse a hip transplant from a white person because you still have hopes of making it in Dance India Dance. Commonly confused with avoiding cultural appropriation.

Jai Shri Krishna,

momo & eggsy

We are now entering the fourth and final quarter of the first season of The Hindustan Grimes, where either the news happens, or we waterboard it to make it happen. If all else fails, we drone strike it into existence. 

If you've been with us so far, thank you! It's been great to write to you. The second wave of COVID cases is here, and we are here to remind you of other things during this trying time.

This week, we bring you an exclusive expose on the state of India's intelligence community. We also talk about some approvals made by India's censor board, and the lasting impact of Make In India.

Also, remember that story about the Uttarakhand Mata Rekha Arya from last week? Everything about her in the story is true, genuinely.

Yours stealthily,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

Censor Board and RSS Approve Indigenous Superhero for the Indian Audience

Anurag Kashyap removed from project after first draft of script leaks

Prayagraj, April 2021: In a press release at the Kumbh Mela event yesterday, producer and writer, Mr. Vikram Betal, announced the making of a new blockbuster movie building the origin of HanuMan and his adventurous attempt at saving Ayodhya from ruin. The live action movies are set in modern day Ayodhya with futuristic technology and ancient wisdom. The superhero based on the mythological character of the same name will be the star in a movie trilogy (to be released in Hindi as well as 8 other regional languages) and an animated television series for kids. A short teaser was also unveiled at the press meet.

"Hanuman is a character epitomising strength (physical and of-character), morals, and devotion to a cause. He works tirelessly toward protecting all that he believes sacred," says Mr. Valmiki, co-writer of the movie. "There have been many screen adaptations of Hanuman's story but they all tell the same stories in the same millennia old setting. We are expending the creative effort of setting Hanuman in the 21st century."

The pre-production for the first movie has completed and production has just begun. It is set to introduce the ancient secret society of Hanumen and their current leader, the Hanuman. "This is a classic origin story movie that establishes who our protagonist is and how he is struggling with his devotion to saving humans and saving morals," said Mr. Valmiki. "The Ministry of Propaganda approached us last week and asked if we could set the premise as, 'Hanuman can save only one at a time, but you, mortal human, can follow safety guidelines and save hundreds.' We've not decided what to do. An apprentice of mine came up with the idea of making an Animatrix-esque short film. So maybe we'll do that."

Film critics have already show appreciation for the teaser and in the short teaser of the movie, we see the titular character, Shiv Kumar, turn into Hanuman by ripping the skin flap on his chest open and chanting "Jai Shri Ram". The writers revealed that they initially considered the transformation act too gory and wanted Shiv to beat his chest with his fists instead. But further discussions established this too close to Tarzan for comfort and the peoples' self-deprecating humour.

American and Japanese superheroes begin their stories in comic books and then they are adapted for motion picture. When asked about this, producer Mr. Betal said, "No, we're not doing comic books. One, people don't read comic books. Two, people don't buy comic books. Three, people can't afford comic books, at least the people who we think will be interested in our comic books. Anyway, we have ancient stories of the Hanuman in spoken and written word. I don't think making a graphic novel first is necessary."

The Hanuman Trilogy is expected to hit theatres over the next three years and is also expected to boggle the minds of both critics and audiences. There are plans to introduce side-kicks like Jatayu, Angad, and Sugreev; whether they will be included in the trilogy itself or be part of a more expansive superhero universe is not known at the moment. Talks of a spin-off animated television show titled Adolescent Avatars Go!, consisting of avatars of Vishnu and Shiva, have also surfaced.

Indigenous creativity appears to be approaching every screen near you soon, but it might be a bit too early to tell you that you wouldn't be in the wrong to have high hopes, this time.

IITM Dean Promotes Grammarly. 'Make In India' Dept. Demands Probe.

Grammarly to bring Grammar Nazism to Hindi, Kannada, Tamil soon

Chennai, April 2021: After yet another exasperating farrago of demonstrably incoherent emails hit Indian Institute of Technology Madras' Dean of Academic Courses this mid-semester, the dean broke. In an institute-wide announcement, the dean said, "I am fed up of all of you, students, faculty, and staff. Grasping enough knowledge of the English language to write a concise univocal email is a basic requirement. Get good. Please."

The dean claims that since his appointment to the post three months ago, he has had to discontinue his research activities indefinitely due to the overwhelming administrative work. He is also believed to have started medications for hypertension last month. "It is a very tense and belabouring position. It is only aggravated by the incomprehensible emails that we receive every day," said the new secretary to the dean over an email exchange.

The institute-wide announcement also contained the dean's plea for all members of the institute to download Grammarly extensions onto their web browsers and Grammarly Keyboard onto their mobile devices. In a leaked confidential email to the teaching staff, the dean is said to have asked them to promote Grammarly usage in their classwork and assignments/reports.

Following instructions, a chemistry department professor asked students in his data structures class to use Grammarly via a detailed post on the class' Moodle forum. The forum post was deleted an hour later after 42 of his 44 students replied to the message with "no u". In a more recent email in the confidential thread, the dean has emphasised on the professors using Grammarly first.

The dean is also in talks with the Assistant Registrar in charge of tenders and procurement for buying institute-wide premium memberships, for students, faculty, and staff. The transaction may cost the institute an additional two crore rupees in spending every year. Additional Secretaries in the Ministry of Education are peeved and have sent a strongly worded letter to the institute administration.

In an interview with T5E, the institute's student media body, the students' general secretary asked: "Is he even allowed to promote private companies and products? Aren't all govt. officials banned from doing that?" The T5E correspondent reportedly retorted with "maybe you should cut back on watching all that American television."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Commerce's Make in India department is promoting young Indian entrepreneurs to come up with indigenous solutions to the (un)grammatical problems. Entrepreneurs have been asked not to worry about issues such as intellectual property rights.

Leaked report exposes & criticises RAW's Pigeon Intelligence (PIGINT) Program

Sparrows and Crows attempt to unionise, file anti-competition suit with CCI

New Delhi, April 2021: The Hindustan Grimes has obtained an exclusive leaked report that details the story of Indian Intelligence community's PIGINT program, short for Pigeon Intelligence. The report was filed by a secret 3 person committee of retired high court judges constituted by the Prime Minister's office. The purpose of the committee was to examine RAW's PIGINT program and make a recommendation on whether the program must be continued or not.

The report starts by detailing the history and the organisational structure of the division. RAW has, operating under it, 4 divisions of Pigeon Intelligence, PIs 3 through 6. Pigeon Intelligence 1 (PI1) and PI2 are now defunct.

PI1 was initially founded as IPF, short for Impossible Pigeon Force, by the Nehru administration. IPF was in-charge of many operations in early independent India, including influencing the accession of Sikkim to India. The agency was later re-christened PI1 and was tasked with dealing with threats that were deemed idealogical and secessionist in nature, including the Tamil Nadu Secessionist Movements and the rise of the Communist Party of India in Kerala. Pigeons were used, for example, to communicate with covert spies in the CPI politburo, and to ensure the CIA did not attempt to gain a stronghold in the state. PI2 was constituted to deal with threats of a foreign nature, such as the Sino-Indian war and the incidents that preceded it. At this time, the Intelligence Bureau was solely responsible for dealing with Pakistani threats, and pigeon intelligence was not taken seriously by the Indian IC (Intelligence Community).

All that would change in 1963, when PM Nehru asked the IB chief to constitute a third independent division of Pigeon Intelligence, PI3, to deal with West Asian threats. PI3 was allocated a huge and yet-to-be-declassified budget in 1964, with a large recruitment drive for pigeons and pigeon trainers across India. The report also details the racism faced by citizens of north-eastern states during this recruitment drive, as many were pigeon trainers were not allowed into the agency due to Sino-India tensions, but their trained pigeons were forcibly taken by the government for reorientation.

PI4 and PI5 were formed by Indira Gandhi, the former to gather intelligence on nuclear programs across the world, and the latter to aid domestic intelligence gathering and squash dissent during the Emergency. The most radical and lasting restructuring of the Pigeon Intelligence Community would, however, come during the tenure of PM VP Singh.

VP Singh created PI6, an agency with the sole purpose of overseeing the other members of the PIC. The rest of the community was restructured and functions were reassigned. PI1 and PI2, which were largely defunct, were dissolved with all salvageable resources transferred to the other agencies. PI3 was tasked with dealing with border threats and espionage, and PI4 with other foreign threats. PI5 was tasked with domestic intelligence.

The report then goes on to criticise India's HUMINT (Human Intelligence) and SIGINT (Signals Intelligence), particularly over the past 20 years. Citing, among others, the doorbell incidents, the report criticised the Intelligence Community and refers to the PIGINT program as 'India's last hope of a competent intelligence community in the 21st century', calling back to Kautilya's Arthashastra and the importance given to intelligence and espionage in ancient Indian kingdoms. The report then goes on to detail a large number of flaws in modern India's modern PIGINT program.

Due to lack of a properly structured training program, some pigeon's don't complete the minimum Basic Training as mandated by Pigeon Trainers Guild of India (PGI). They make up for it in skill, but there have been some gaffes. For instance, a pigeon once when to Allahabad instead of Islamabad as it had not recognised the auditory command well. In another instance, a pigeon landed in Nepal while flying back from China, met a mate there, and stayed there for almost 5 months with crucial national security information in a microdot attached to its neck. The pigeon was finally noticed by a cultural attaché who was former Pigeon Intelligence, and he was able to alert PI5 to the pigeon's presence.

The report also points out the declining number of fresh pigeon recruitments over the past 25 years, citing global warming as the primary reason. The PI6 even attempted a pilot program in the early days of the Manmohan Singh administration, known as Sparrow Intelligence (SPAINT for short). Sparrows were thought to be easier to train, and smaller and hence less noticeable. This was quickly abandoned as sparrows refused to fly in urban areas due to the rising number of cell phone towers.

The final and most glaring problem faced by the PIGINT program, the report claims, is a steep decrease in funding. The increasing number of pigeon gaffes, combined with pressure to compete with the likes of Mossad, Russian Intelligence, and the CIA have caused RAW officials to focus their resources on Signals Intelligence. The number of pigeon 'Basic Training' centres has been the same since 2011, and their trainers have seen very minuscule salary increases since 2008.

PIGINT has been a focal point of the Indian Intelligence Community since its inception. India must honour her brave winged spies of the past by ensuring that the PIC stays alive, so it may help propel her to be a better world leader and trend setter in the 21st century.

The Grimes’ Definitions of The Week

Subverting Authority: When you submit a handwritten report to avoid scrutinisation on turnitin.com. Commonly confused with It ain't much but it's honest work.

Honest work: When you work for a spy agency but you don't like keeping secrets so you leak 'em all. Commonly confused with whistleblowing.

Whistleblowing: When you tell your teacher about the WhatsApp group your classmates created to pass answers during an online test. Commonly confused with coping with FOMO.

Coo Coo! (This message has been encrypted by the PI6)

momo & eggsy

Welcome to the Election Special Issue of The Hindustan Grimes. We enthusiastically ask whether your vote matters and come to the veracious conclusion that it does not.

This week, we bring you special takes on issues highly relevant to the ongoing polls, so as to help you make an informed decision of whether to take weed or meth before heading to the polling station.

Yours sincerely,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

DMK apologises & retracts criticisms after PM claims that BJP doesn't discriminate based on religion

EC seizes and impounds 100 BMW cars that were delayed in the Suez by the Ever Given

Chennai, April 2021: In a speech last week, the Prime Minister made a bombshell revelation that he and his party, the BJP, do not discriminate based on religion. Following the speech, DMK Party Secretary D Murugan and Propaganda Secretary T Tamilselvan put out a joint statement apologising to the BJP and its cadre for having claimed that they were religious bigots in the past. "All statements made by the party and top party cadre in this regard stand retracted. We thought that the BJP discriminated against religious minorities. But the PM's speech is a very clear indicator that they do not. We profusely apologise for having claimed anything to the contrary."

Following the joint statement, the DMK edited their manifesto, and sources well placed in the Dravidian party tell us that they are considering a last minute poll alliance with the BJP. The Indian National Congress is not amused by the rumours. K S Alagiri, the president of the TN Congress Committee, spoke to The Grimes soon after. "I understand that the DMK was wrong about the BJP. We all were. The PM's speech really cleared things up. But poll alliances are important, they are a cornerstone of electoral democracy," he said.

"What the fuck is DMK smoking?" asked CPI(M) spokesperson, Ms. Samanata Nair. "This clarification by the BJP is meaningless. Why stay silent about it for the six years in power? Why speak now?" Meanwhile, Shiv Sena MLA Shri Shiv Matonkar said, "Lol (sic) they fell for it."

The BJP accepted the DMK's apology, but said they would only consider an electoral alliance after they received an assurance from that the DMK that they don't discriminate based on religion or caste either. Reports suggest that the DMK has convened an all party meet to discuss a response to the BJP's clapback. They have not yet put a statement out at the time of publication of this article.

In related news, the Election Commission seized a large number of BMWs being transported via ship to Chennai's port. The ship was allegedly delayed due to the Suez Canal blockage, and the cars were ordered due to miscommunication within a party. The EC said that they were not yet predisposed to revealing which party was guilty of the crime. BMW is a common slang used to refer to "Blankets, Money and Wine", items that are allegedly distributed to buy votes. Reportedly, a young party official didn't understand the slang, and placed an order for a 100 BMWs. The BMWs were then being shipped over from Europe, but the emails were intercepted by the Election Commission, which then seized the vehicles and impounded them. The cars will go on auction in July.

Poll Workers suspended in alleged weed for votes scheme. EC investigating.

Experts oppose e-voting proposal citing privacy concerns photo identification

Dispur, April 2021: Multiple polling booths in the capital city of Assam have been shut down, with the Election Commission ordering a repoll in two constituencies after reports of an alleged weed for votes scheme was exposed by a concerned citizen. 120 poll workers have been suspended, with 16 of them in government custody as the EC investigates the conspiracy across other constituencies.

There were reportedly two parts of the scheme. Firstly, candidates were not allowed to cast their votes unless they handed over 10 grams of weed, or 5 grams of methamphetamine. To be extra considerate to the citizens they were extorting, an associate had set up a weed store two streets from the polling place. Methamphetamine, however, would need to be obtained by the citizens on their own.

Extortion was merely the beginning of the scheme. Party functionaries were observed approaching the electors with weed for votes. The scheme, arrived at at the all-party conference surreptitiously held online every weekend, started with a requirement of a minimum of 200 grams for one vote, with additional votes for 10 grams each. Meth was allowed as well, though the EC has not confirmed how those transactions were taking place and what the numbers were. Overall, the EC has seized 40 kgs of weed, and 2 kgs of methamphetamine across 19 polling stations and two constituencies.

The Election Commission has also linked this scheme to the recent incident involving the BJP MLA alleged to have been involved in transporting an EVM to the polling station. Reportedly, the MLA had smoked some of his own weed, and accidentally loaded the EVM into his own car, rather than to an alternate car, to transport it to the polling station. "Mahatma Gandhi said it best. Don't get high on your own supply. These people don't understand Gandhi's words. And they get caught. It works out for us," said a source at the EC.

The Election Commission is taking a closer look at the polls cast across Assam, and has ordered repolls at over 45 polling stations as of 6 pm on Thursday night. Stay tuned for further updates.

Rekha Arya: A Profile of an Animal Welfare Activist

Samarkand, April 2021: Rekha Arya is the current Minister of Women and Child Welfare, Government of Uttarakhand and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The writer of her Wikipedia page also bestows her the title of Uttarakhand Maata, although our team could neither validate the authenticity of the title nor of its award.

Rekha's singular claim to fame is from mid-2016, when she was a Congress legislator, went missing for four days, and then turned up to the assembly as a BJP member in an attempt to oust the then Congress Chief Minister.

"Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it." ~ Rekha Arya, circa 2018, as Minister of Animal Husbandry, Uttarakhand

Okay, we do not contest that cows exhale oxygen, but it is not the only species, by far. Every species inhales oxygen and exhales oxygen, and also nitrogen, and argon, and carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of neon, helium, methane, krypton, and hydrogen. You inhale all of it. And then your lungs take up some of the oxygen and then returns the rest back. There is no magical barrier at the nose that stops all the gases except for oxygen.

If you've not got the gist of it already, then let us spell it out for you. No, cows do not produce oxygen. No animal does, which at the end of the day, is what a cow is. It is just an animal, which we exploit more so than others probably, but that is a discussion for another time.

"The cow is treated as an incarnation of motherhood. The cow's milk is scientifically considered the best for a newborn after his mother's milk." ~ Rekha Arya, circa 2018, seeking the status of 'Rashtra Mata' for the cow

While we found no scientific literature to support her claim, we did find a World Health Organisation advisory noting that unmodified cow's milk should not be fed to infants. As a minister who holds both the portfolios of Women and Child Welfare, and Animal Husbandry, this is stupid at best and directly endangering the lives of infants at worst.

It is also to be noted that she very freely used the term "scientifically" with no citation of real research, which, no surprises, has fooled a lot of gullible people. She managed to get the resolution seeking the status of 'rashtra mata' for the cow passed through the Uttarakhand assembly unanimously. She then went on to talk about the "medicinal qualities" of cow urine...

We found this draft in front of an unconscious correspondent who has since been diagnosed with Post Research Stress Disorder. In honour of our asylum-bound correspondent, we have kept the draft unedited.

The Grimes’ Definition of The Week

BMW: "Be my wife", a common refrain rich men use while courting someone clearly out of their league with a Bayerische Motoren Werke AG car. Commonly confused with 'Blanket, Money and Wine’.

Blanket, Money, Wine: What seekers of Roti, Kapda, Makaan get, twice every five years. Commonly confused with vote buying.

Vote buying: When you earn crores of rupees while in office, but have to spend some of it so you can continue to earn for another term. Commonly confused with seed capital.

Good day! (This message has been authenticated by a VVPAT)

momo & eggsy

Welcome to another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where we add enough preservatives and refrigeration, and ship it over email, so you don't have to worry about our news not being fresh off the boat.

This is now the 14th issue of the Hindustan Grimes. Tell us what you think about it, or what you'd like to see stories about by reaching out to us on email or Instagram. Or else, just enjoy, Happy Reading!

It might seem, at first look, that we are late to the Suez Canal story. But we bring you two competing, and exclusive exposes about the real reasons for the blockage. We'll leave it up to you to decide the true reason. We also bring you a very heartwarming story from Hubli.

Yours shallowly,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

Competitors claim Suez blockage an Amazon.com conspiracy to bankrupt them

New Editions of ENT Textbooks to refer to auditory canal obstructions as 'Ever Givens'

Suez, March 2021: The blockage of the Suez Canal by the Ever Given has had wide reaching implications. Medicinal supplies were delayed, perishable goods were delayed, and livelihoods suffered as a result. But, of the many international conglomerates that depend on the canal for transportation that suffered, there was one name that was conspicuously missing: Amazon.

Nile, an African and East Asian online shopping and web services behemoth, claims that the blockage was part of a conspiracy by Amazon, their direct competitor. They went on to claim that Amazon had activated this nuclear option because Amazon, famous for their aggressive anti-competitive strategies, had not met their sunk costs quota for the '20-'21 fiscal year. Hence they activated the option right at the end of March. They went on to claim that Amazon's internal handbooks designed sunk costs very literally, as it seemed that they were okay with their packages sinking to the bottom of the ocean if it meant significantly delaying the global supply chain.

While we were unable to confirm this 'nuclear option' from the Amazon internal handbooks, we were able to reach out to monetary experts who, upon analysing Amazon data from previous quarters, were able to confirm that Amazon does have a sunk costs quota, and that the delay caused by the Suez blockage caused an increase in sunk costs of 2%, and Amazon would still not meet their cap on sunk costs by March 31.

Meanwhile, the crisis has had a boom for the local economy, attracting large swathes of tourists. The Egyptian economy is projected to see a marginal uptick as a result, for the first time since COVID. Simultaneously, Egypt has also registered a marginal uptick in COVID cases, with public health officials claiming that the upticks are related.

The increased tourism has made the spot a target for franchises which want to open additional branches. One of our freelance correspondents, KD, confirmed to us that Adyar Anand Bhavan (A2B) opened an outlet in the area, to service all the workers stranded by the blockage. Hotel Saravana Bhavan was denied contracts over a reported 'precipitous drop in quality over the last decade', as claimed by the all Indian crew of the Ever Given. They were reportedly happy with the service provided by A2B, and the branch manager has stated that they will stay open indefinitely.

Alleged conspiracy between Mission: Impossible Producers and Egyptian Govt. officials to block the Suez Canal

Church of Scientology defends Cruise, claims this is a plot to delegitimise Scientology

Cairo, March 2021: The Egyptian Ministry of the Interior confirmed on Friday that it had launched investigations into Paramount Pictures, Tom Cruise, and related parties, following allegations of fraud and bribery. This is the second controversy the Mission: Impossible franchise has run into in recent years, following the Polish bridge controversy. As the story unfolded before us over the last week, we were not able to believe what our sources told us.

Reportedly, Cruise and Christopher Macquairre, the film's director, had approached Egyptian authorities for permission to block the canal off to film a stunt sequence on the canal. The stunt, sources reveal, involved shooting a swim chase scene, with Cruise swimming behind a submarine for the 193 km stretch of the canal, partly underwater. Cruise reportedly likes to outdo himself, and after the helicopter chase sequence last time, he felt a submarine chase was what he'd need to accomplish that.

The chair of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), Mr. Mahsood, refused to grant authorisation to Paramount for this sequence, stating that such a blockage would be unprecedented and in violation of multiple international treaties. Afterward, the Additional Deputy Chair of the SCA for Enforcement of International Treaties, Mr. Mamish Fadel, struck a deal with the corporation off the books. Mr. Fadel reached out to a ship captain he knew, the captain of the Ever Given. Mission: Impossible 7: The Mummy Returns to Egypt will release in theatres this November, with Tom Cruise playing the titular role.

Once the blockage occurred, the chair of the SCA granted Paramount permission to shoot in the interim. The shoot was completed over ten-and-a-half days. However, the Interior Ministry found the timing suspicious and is now investigating Cruise for fraud and bribery. If charged, Paramount could face huge fines, and top officials could face prison time as well as civil suits.

This move to swim across the Suez comes after Cruise's plans to be the first conventional movie actor to film in space were squashed, with Zack Snyder's Martian Manhunter beating him to the punch. Cruise and Emily Blunt were originally set to star in a movie which was supposed to be filmed on the International Space Station. However, the plan was placed on hold due to budgetary constraints and the COVID19 pandemic.

EdTech Grassroots Aggregator Dot-com Baju's Disrupts Market

Vow not to be another brick in the paywall

Hubli, April 2021: A locally grown educational technology start-up, Baju's-dot-com, has gone viral in the last fortnight. The banner advertisement free platform acts as an online classifieds board for local tuition teachers for school-going children. Generating revenue only through small fees collected from advertising teachers, they expect to turn profitable with scale.

It all began as a small group project in the TiE Young Entrepreneurs Program 2020. The project brought together 23 tuition teachers in the city to advertise their classes on their platform and saw a significant spike in student enrolments after. It was no surprise when the group were awarded first place in TiECON Hubli 2021. Following an incubation of two months, the company has now gone national.

"Our platform unites all the small and fragmented tuition teachers across the country. It gives those tuition teachers who teach just 10-15 students a fighting chance against the big companies with all their million dollar marketing teams that can build big enough lies and stories and endorsements," said an emotionally charged Ms. Doddamani, co-founder and CEO of Baju's.

Parents in the city believe that Baju's offers the personal touch that is so essential in education and that which is morbidly lacking in both over-crowded schools and "online education". "The teachers at school don't have enough time to pay attention to my kid and repeat and explain subject matter. That is why my kid now goes to Ms. Hosmani's classes to clear his doubts and practice," said Mrs. Hanchinmani, an involved parent. Ms. Hosmani has added 5 new students to her tuition classes after listing on Baju's.

In just two days of national operations, over 200 tuition teachers from all over the country have listed their classes on Baju's online platform. The CEO further envisions to add services for hobby/extracurricular trainers soon. Expected categories of classes to be found on the platform include dance, drawing, music, martial arts, and more. With such an open platform, imagination alone is the limit.

The Grimes’ Definitions of The Week

Deadline: When you try to call your friend in the past but his pet has chewed through the phone cable. Commonly confused with obsolete tech.

Obsolete tech: When a foreign government tries to hack your databases but all your databases are in ink even you can't read. Commonly confused with securing nationality.

Securing Nationality: When you're one of seven sisters and you refuse to build tents for the abusive neighbour's kids. Commonly confused with national security.

ꯐꯖꯟꯅ ꯆꯠꯂꯨ!

momo and eggsy

Welcome to issue thirteen of The Hindustan Grimes' Season One, where pigs fly or, better yet, call themselves Napoleon and intimidate everyone with their attack dogs.

We're still on instagram @grimeswastaken2 btw. We're going to be releasing our stories over there one at a time, instead of all at once.

This week, we talk about a groundbreaking commercial space flight in the making, about good old ganja, and a movie universe you'd appreciate more on the good old ganja.

Yours highly,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

Musk Announces '30 Seconds to Mars' shuttle

Claire Boucher sells the NFT of her twitter handle for $2.5M, changes handle to @martianwomanhunter

Palo Alto, March 2021: In a joint press conference by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Claire Elise Boucher (stage name Grimes, not affiliated in any way with The Hindustan Grimes), Jared Leto, and Time Warner CEO Jack Warn, Mr. Musk announced that a commercial shuttle to Mars was scheduled to be open for ticketing this December. "The shuttle will travel to Mars in 30 seconds, orbit the planet once and return to Earth. The pilot mission will also land on the surface to shoot some footage. I would like to thank Time Warner, and their parent company AT&T for funding this mission," said Musk. The move comes after Disney's Fox cancelled SpaceX back in December and left some astronauts without essential supplies, leading to the infamous 'Sniff a Plant' comment. The astronauts were finally rescued in a joint operation by the Indian and Russian space agencies. HBOMax acquired SpaceX soon after.

At the same conference, Jared Leto, representing '30 Seconds to Mars' and Grimes announced a joint album that would be titled 'Mars in 30 seconds', which would include 2 thirty second tracks that would play while going to Mars from the Earth's orbit, and vice versa. The entire trip would only be the duration of the album, and all the songs in the album would be accompanied by a music video, to stream exclusively on HBOMax. "Of course, the music video will be shot during the pilot mission. X Æ A-12 will be on this mission, as will Claire Boucher, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, and Harry Lennix," said Mr. Warn. The music video will be jointly directed by Joss Whedon and Zack Snyder.

Zack Snyder was unable to join the press conference in person, but he joined over Zoom, where he thanked HBOMax and SpaceX for the opportunity. "Joss and I are working on the movie together, but I will be working on an extended video, which will be used on similar shuttles to Pluto. It's tentatively titled "Zack Snyder's 6000 seconds to Pluto: The Ultimate Edition of the Director's Cut". This will also include exclusive clips of some unknown moons of Jupiter, and the folks on the commercial mission listening to the album will orbit these moons once and Pluto thrice."

The music video will not be the only video production Snyder will be involved in, as the pilot mission will serve as the backdrop for the pre-production of Zack Snyder's Justice League: The Martian Manhunter Saga. The movie will be shot entirely on location at Mars, with Harry Lennix starring as the titular martian, and with appearances from the other Justice League actors as well. The budget for the movie has not yet been confirmed, but WB and Musk confirmed that the movie would potentially release in theatres and on HBOMax at the end of 2022. Disney spokespeople was unavailable for comment, but Disney's stock price took a sharp drop, while AT&T closed at an all time high.

Cops burn confiscated marijuana. Students stoned.

Canopy Growth Corporation stock price surges after a WSB meme

Manipal, March 2021: In an unusual turn of events, Manipal police burned 25 kilograms of marijuana confiscated from residents of Manipal Institute of Technology's Student Hostel C, behind the hostel. Students who had thought they got away with murder were surprised to find that they would get to relish the harvest too.

Police raids in MIT hostels has been recurrent in the past few years. There was a significant downtick in the number of raids during the lockdown, when the students had been sent home, but it failed to reach zero. Changes in mayoral and police administrations have failed to move the issue to a conclusion. It is now a well-known fact that the police department recruits 18-year-olds right out of school to be trained as informants.

The latest round of raids, conducted last week, were unusual due to the spike in rumours of collusion. Rumours have surfaced that a last minute deal was struck between the raiding cops and the local marijuana dealers. It is believed that the cops were paid cash upwards of two lakhs each to burn the confiscated contraband in the premises itself.

"(This) allows the dealers to introduce their product to new customers and ensures that the police continue to make easy money extorting twenty year old kids," said Jatayu Hans, student secretary of Hostel C. "It's really a win-win situation."

Following the viral spread of Mr. Hans' interview, the Union Home Affairs Ministry has ordered a CBI probe into the issue. The State Home Affairs Ministry has reprimanded the behaviour of the police and have promised to take recreational drug usage and enforcement against it more seriously.

A few students were interviewed in the aftermath of the burning of the marijuana behind the hostel. When asked about the detrimental effects it can have on the lungs, a red-eyed garrulous twenty-two year old answered, "I am training to be a pulmonologist. Trust me. It's not a problem."

Meanwhile, an MIT student was diagnosed with a concussion after being hit on the head with a hard solid non-metallic mineral matter by a stoner.

Rohit Shetty's Cop Universe To Get The Avengers (2012) Style Ensemble Alien Threat Movie

Stunt directors and VFX artists remain unconcerned

Bombay, March 2021: Over the past decade, most successful (quantified by revenue) Hollywood movies have belonged to one or the other superhero franchises. Picking up on that trend, Bollywood might be on the cusp of getting such a franchise of its own. With Singham (2011), Simmba (2018), and Sooryavanshi (2021) establishing three separate S-heavy^ heroes in Rohit Shetty's Cop Universe, an ensemble movie is slated to be released next year to bring the shared cop universe together.

Film pundits suggest that this might be Reliance Entertainment's attempt to become Disney. After acquiring DreamWorks Pictures and other big production companies over the years, it is set to establish its own shared universe. "We wouldn't be surprised if they set up a Cop Universe theme park next. It will be a riot," said Ms. Swadeshi Kaur, a purveyor of Indian films.

Rohit Shetty, director of all the movies in the Cop Universe, is known to be looking for indigenous inspiration for the upcoming ensemble movie. At the top of the inspirational list is the Life OK hit television show, SuperCops vs Supervillains. "There are over 500 episodes in the show. I have spent most of the lockdown watching, analysing, and taking down notes," said a very sleep deprived Rohit Shetty. "But the science fiction is so fictional and the horror is so horrifying. It's all worth it."

Mr. Shetty believes that Indian producers and directors are just not ambitious enough. Big budget superhero movies with explicitly and exquisitely placed humour is today's zeitgeist, and we are falling behind. "If people want flying cars, exploding power plants, falling buildings, piercing head shots, spandex-wearing know-it-all rogues, and of course earth-levelling megalomaniac green aliens, we should give it to them," he added.

The RS's CU currently has 3 blockbuster movies, 1 more in the making, 2 currently running spin-off animated television shows, and 2 video games. The ensemble movie, rumoured to be titled Sammelan, is expected to be the capstone of Phase One and lead to a bunch of more work in Phase Two.

In a recent interview, actor Akshay Kumar said he was ready to be an indigenous superhero. "My manager is in talks with Rohit to add superpowers to my character," he said. Upon being asked about the powers he already has in the movie, he said, "Yeah, yeah, we have the power of patriotism and incorruptibility and super-strength and flight and all, but I want real superpowers like heat-vision and time bending."

^ S for hope.

PS: We also like how RSCU is an EE away from RESCUE.

The Grimes’ Definitions of the Week

Credit: The ability to buy a samosa at the local tea stall without having to pay for it until the end of the week. Commonly confused with acquaintance benefit.

Acquaintance benefit: The joy of seeing someone you recognize at the park and nodding, with the additional joy of not needing to have a conversation. Commonly confused with awkwardness.

Awkwardness: When you run into the owner of the local tea stall at the mall, and they see you paying money to eat in the food court as you nod awkwardly. Commonly confused with "Small world!"

Manci roju,

momo & eggsy

Welcome to another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, a news+letter newsletter where the grime wears haute adjectives and drives around in flashy sports adverbs.

We're still on Instagram. Check out @grimeswastaken2. Use it to lure those of your friends to the newsletter who do not yet believe in reading emails. Also, you can tweet us at the same handle.

This week, we talk about the misery of endless "content" creation and the toll it takes on YouTubers using information we gleaned from a sting operation. We also talk about the state of US comedy.

Yours contentedly,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

YouTubers Anonymous: The Misery of Endless Content Creation

MIB legalises OnlyFans in India; Will Smith to be brand ambassador

The World Wide Web, March 2021: One of our editors received a tip from a source about YouTubers Anonymous, a support group that YouTubers depend on to vent about their addiction. We went ahead and zoom-bombed their latest meeting. The results of this sting are detailed in the following report.

The event was kicked off by a famous YouTuber, Mann Mei Butt (name changed). "Hi. My name is Mann Mei Butt (name changed) and I am a YouTuber." He went on to talk about his problem with content creation. "I make loads of vlogs and now no longer have any content to put out. Last week I paid my roommate to make loud sex noises in the room next door so I had something to post. I have to stop, but I can't," he said. "My friends are very concerned but only send me letters coz they know otherwise I'll make a vlog out of that too. I'm resorting to desperate clickbait, with titles containing "YOU WON'T BELIEVE..", and my surprised face on the thumbnail. I'm running out of thumbnail ideas just as much as I'm out of video ideas."

Many other YouTube bigwigs such as Ashish Chancalani and Bhuvan Bam were present as well. They were more open about their struggles, with Ashish and Bhuvan stating that they were suffering from imposter syndrome. The two of them have been open about their struggles on Twitter, and hence their names have not been changed.

Mrs. Damayanti (name changed), runs a recipe channel, and she talked about the ceiling she hit in her channel recently. "You can cook the same dish only so many times. YouTube has converted everything into reproducible entities, and we are expected to become content factories," she said. "I have become too dependent on this income, and quit my job. I cannot go back to the Wilkins Chawla Paper Company, they've shut down. But I have to. I must quit YouTube. It's tough."

Some indie music producers talked about having to compete with a hostile algorithm and a culture of "demonetisation". "Sometimes, if a few chords in my music resembles something on T Series, my video is either demonetised, or the revenue is sent towards T Series. Additionally, I have to compete with T Series," said a disgruntled musician. "They use bots to increase their watch counts, and push their videos up on the algorithm. I can't compete with that."

Movie review and reaction channels described ingenious methods they used to avoid the above issues. "We crowd-finance Bollywood movies ourselves nowadays, so we get to retain reaction rights. It's a foolproof method. So we review movies we produce, and that's how we earn more revenue."

A YouTuber named Marry Cincinnati (name changed) spoke as well. "My name is Marry Cincinnati, I live in Kanya Kumari. I smoke meth, and make reaction videos. I can't live without either," they said. It seems that making reaction videos have the same level of addiction as methamphetamine. Marry Cincinnati further elaborated on their reaction video addiction, and said that they had recently branched into making reaction videos of their own reaction videos, as they were running out of content.

The session ended with a few moments of silence, followed by a prayer that oddly had the same tune as Psy's Gangnam Style. They then resolved to do better before ending the Zoom call.

Feminists accuse Lux Cozy of promoting domestic abuse. Seek redressal.

Maniesh Paul's Rs 13K ‘Big Logo' Sneakers Have Huge Stripes That Live Up To Its Name: MensXP

Coonoor, March 2021: "Beat Your Meat. Not Your Wife." read a prominent placard at the front of the protest at the Lux Cozy manufacturing unit in the city. Two days ago, over 200 feminists participated in a protest march, followed by four hours of non-violent obstruction of manufacturing, to display their resentment at wife beaters.

"Wife beating is a historical patriarchal wrong in the global society. Domestic abuse starts at home. Redressal need not," expounded Ms. Sati Savitri (name changed) in front of the gathered populace. "Companies like Lux Cozy that make wife beaters are to blame for propagating such abuse and they should be punished." The protest ended after some participants began burning wife beaters in the middle of the road and police had to politely ask everyone to disperse for fear of violence.

In a reactionary response, a motley group of a dozen middle aged men prominently wearing wife beaters began protesting in front of the City Hall at midday. When asked about why they were protesting, they failed to form a coherent response. A lack of leadership at the rally was evident. An hour into the unclear protest, two dupattas were burned. When asked about the burning, they said, "well, they did it first." Police quickly cleared the air and the City Hall steps.

News of the two protests soon became a national talking point. Prominent television news channels held debates on the issue at prime time. Indian National Congress spokespeople blamed the government for the historical wrong and demanded an apology from the Prime Minister. Bharatiya Janata Party spokespeople blamed the previous governments for the historical wrong and demanded that INC issue the apology. The CPI(M) was unavailable for comment citing urgent meetings to formulate solutions to the issue.

A panel of satirists and comics had a less heated debate on YouTube Live and came to the consensus that while the issue of wife beaters was stupid, acquiescing to not calling them wife beaters was sensible. They too held that the name was misleading and even though wife beaters had little to actually do with wife beating, it could confuse some wife beater wearers.

The panel suggests everyone to use the term Baniyans instead. The Baniya community is aggressively confused about the issue and believing that this re-branding might exacerbate caste system wounds, have declared that they might form a protest march this weekend.

US comics, news orgs complain of declining viewership post Trump

Twitter confirms that engagement is toxic as ever, promises a steep increase in next fiscal

New York, March 2021: The Comics of America Guild (CAG, not to be confused with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India) held their bi-annual meeting this month on Zoom and broadcast it live on YouTube due to the weaning second wave of COVID19 in the United States. They noted that the dismal conditions of 2020 were a fertile ground for a good year, as more and more people turned to comedy as an outlet. However, they also complained of a rising tide of disinterest in comedy, as the quality and quantity of their Trump content, and by association, their content overall, had dwindled after the former president's Twitter account was suspended in early January, and he subsequently left office later that month. "Our organisation has very nominal fees to allow up and coming comedians to enjoy the benefits of the protection of a guild. We rely on additional optional donations from other members to run the organisation, but that has taken a dip over the last quarter. This is a serious issue," said the chair of the guild, Ms Rebecca Blague.

Mr. John Astuce of Los Angeles spoke next, saying, "We're still telling great jokes, people just seem to be less interested in jokes after Trump left. When Joe Biden orders a military strike on Syria and hits civilians, he doesn't tweet about it, he announces it in a boring press conference. And hence, people don't care about it. Late night show hosts have been affected as well. People need tweets about whose nuclear button is bigger to actually understand the gravity of the situation."

The topic was brought up on primetime television as well, with a number of intellectuals clashing on the issue. Some of them dismissed the issue as "another farcical attempt at victimisation from the left". Others pointed out that cable news channels and independent news organisations were facing a decline as well. A UK political commentator was questioned if he felt that British comedians were in a similar situation with failed Batman impersonator and current British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "We never joke about politicians, we're a polite people," replied an unrelated Mr. Andrew Johnson. "We like having that man in the office though, we get the odd chuckle out of him. I think we'll keep him for a while."

To get an Indian opinion, we reached out to the Comics Guild of India (CGI, not to be confused with Computer Generated Imagery) for their comment on how politics impacted Indian comedy. The chair of the guild, Mr. Mazak Ahmad, hung up on us and promptly sought anticipatory bail from the Allahabad High Court on charges of sedition.

The Grimes’ Definitions of The Week

Debit: When you perform little pleasant things for your friend to have chips to call in later. Commonly confused with priming.

Priming: When you ask someone to help you carry a small table with the fervent hope in psychology that they will then help you in all your chores. Commonly confused with psychological trick.

Psychological trick: When websites make you watch adverts under the guise of teaching you "28 Simple Psychological Tricks". Commonly confused with learning a psychological trick.

mangtha le,

momo & eggsy

Welcome to another new edition of The Hindustan Grimes, where the news is always brand new, but the stories are as old as always.

As we had announced last week, we're on Instagram! Check us out, and follow us if you use the gram.

This week, we bring you a bombshell expose on the unholy nexus between coaching corporations and the news media. We also interview WhatsApp COO Mr. Ghosh on WhatsApp's revamped UI and feature set, scheduled to be release soon.

Yours explosively,

momo & eggsy

If a friend sent this to you and you'd like to subscribe, click here. If you'd like to share this issue with a friend, either forward the email, or use the link above to share it.

WhatsApp introduces new features for the tone deaf

Applications open for translator to aid in interview with Telegram CEO

Gokak/Gurugram, March 2021: Following the recent promising results in beta testing, Whatsapp India is set to launch a swathe of new features in the market. In an exclusive interview with The Hindustan Grimes, WhatsApp India's Chief of Operations, Mr. Shabdh Ghosh, makes some groundbreaking announcements.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and abridged for brevity.

It seems that WhatsApp as a whole is having a new moment. You're the old player in a market where customers seem to be getting disillusioned. What changes are you bringing to your product, and likely, to the other products in the market?

Yes. We have a range of changes that we've tried and tested in the beta program and are ready to bring to the market. Our top new feature is the tone-aid for the emotionally challenged community and for just about anyone who's just tired of figuring out signals.

So many companies are now vying to increase everyone's IQ, we thought we'd try and augment everyone's EQ instead. Tone-aid makes it really easy to read the tone of the conversation, be it a sarcastic friend, a depressed cousin, or a bewildering group chat. WhatsApp will automatically set the background of the chat to a different colour to indicate the mood of the texts.

This is going to be a game changer and help us keep our customers happy, or sad, or respectful, or whatever the emotion.

Wait! Doesn't that void the end-to-end encryption of the messages?

People are now disillusioned about the end-to-end anyway. They know the reality. So our team thought we might as well try to roll out new features to aid our customers. We want to give our customers the best features they deserve. For free.

Hmm. We at the Grimes are agog to see how the customers will see this rollout. Are you at all concerned about your more privacy-focused competitors like Telegram and Signal?

Nah. It's all just a fad. We saw their numbers increase in January and then fall again in February. Our numbers have stayed steady. The fad will pass. We're not worried.

Right. So it would appear that the customers are not really concerned about their privacy at all. Is that so?

Yes. That's what we saw.

Last month we tried out a new feature in beta where our AI helps you synthesise replies based on the detected or a custom chosen sentiment. Most of our beta testers loved it. They loved that we could help them create funny replies based on who they were talking to, instantaneously. It just works so great.

You say most of them liked. So there were people who didn't like it. What do you expect went wrong there?

Oh, there were just a few mishaps. Sometimes stubby fingered customers find it hard to click on the right options in our UI. It can't be helped. This one time clicking on the wrong custom sentiment resulted in an inappropriate situation. One of our betas ended up sending "Yo momma so old, she fukin' died" instead of condolences, on hearing their boss' mother passing away.

Oof. That is horrible. That seems like a major oversight on the part of your te—

No. No. No. It wasn't really a big problem. The beta contacted us quickly, so we were able to unsend that message and not leave a trace.

On the flip side, some other betas heard of the story and requested an option where the AI would synthesize replies based on an arbitrary sentiment. They want a random mode.

And will you be acquiescing?

Of course. Who are we to deny what our customers want. And anyway it was an easy modification to our powerful AI. It can track the mood of the conversations while also supplementing those inferences with precise knowledge of the sender's behaviour and cycles. It can track the changes with respect to diurnal or nocturnal cycles, moon cycles, and even seasons and semesters.

Woah! It seems like you are ready to bring the AI revolution to messaging. Do you expect the market to take in these changes easily?

There will always be friction. But if we bring the changes quickly, it will quickly go from the normal to a new normal and it'll all be alright.

We're not nearly done with the changes anyway. Our latest beta test was automated replies. It turned out that "I am fine mom." and "Happy b'day ...!" turned out to be the most used auto-replies. We think this is going to be a big hit too.

Mr. Shabdh Ghosh explained more planned features set to be released on April 1st. A more detailed transcript of the interview can be found here.

Teachers To Teach Only 50% Syllabus This Year

Karnataka HC orders release of prisoners at half term

Bengaluru, March 2021: Private school teachers in the Bengaluru Urban district have been instructed by their managements to halt teaching at 50% of the syllabus to show their displeasure at the government's order to slash tuition fees by 50%.

On January 30th, the Karnataka government came out with an order to slash all private school tuition fees by 30%, in order to ease the burden on pandemic-affected parents. While parents were relieved, school managements were irked.

Schools have claimed that this fee cut will render them unable to pay their teachers. Parents are unanimous in their dismissal of this argument. They claim that the schools have already fired many teachers and cut the salaries of the rest severely, citing the pandemic.

On February 23rd, after no rollback of the fee slash order, Karnataka Private School Managements, Teaching, and Non-Teaching Staff Coordination Committee^ (KPMTCC), representing all the private schools protested by taking out a march from the Central Railway Station to Freedom Park. Over 25,000, wiling and unwilling, teaching and non-teaching staff participated in the protest.

"It is difficult for school managements to sustain the operations of the school, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, if fees are slashed," said Bangalore International Public School Trustee, Mr. K D Fiddler. "The objective of the protest is the financial distress of private education institutions and their managements. I might have to liquidise some offshore investments to pay for the new Lamborghini Sian if parents don't pay all of the school fees."

Vexed by the pettiness of school managements, the Karnataka government has doubled down on their decision. On March 3rd, the government announced that schools wouldn't be allowed to collect more than 50% of the tuition fees, to the jubilation of all parents.

Yesterday, in this latest exchange between private educational institutions and the government, KPMTCC has instructed all school managements to ensure that their school teachers only teach 50% of the syllabus to the students.

At same time, the Karnataka Private Schools’ Parents’ Associations’ Coordination Committee^ (KPSPACC) have called this a spiteful move on the part of the schools and have demanded the government to stop them. The KPSPACC warns that failure to stop the move would result in protest marches in the city and a possible Karnataka Bandh next week.

^Both these committees are real. Google them.

Media Malpractice Exposed

The India Grimes sues The Hindustan Grimes for copyright infringement

Chennai, March 2021: The Hindustan Grimes conducted an extensive investigation over the last four months on certain unsavoury alliances between members of the media and certain coaching corporations. We've only included the specifics that our in house legal counsel approved for publication, and hence, fresh stories will be published as we vet and clear the remaining information we have obtained.

The India Grimes^ is considered to be one of the oldest dailies in India, after The Hindu and two others. The paper has, over the last six months, been publishing 'public interest' stories detailing the lives of teachers and students at FIITJEE, and praising their modern methods of teaching. One of the articles detailed the companion monkeys professors used to teach physics. The trained monkeys are made to attempt different stunts to teach physics concepts to the students. For example, a monkey is made to hang from a rod and swing from a pendulum, and students are expected to calculate the time period and verify it*.

The Hindustan Grimes was able to prove that The India Grimes was getting paid between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 5,00,00 for each public interest column, depending on the visibility of the column. There were two signals used to confirm when the piece will appear in the paper the next day. First, a box of 'complementary' bananas is sent to FIITJEE Chennai's corporate office. Then, at 5 pm, a man in an all black attire; a trench coat and a hat stands on the curb outside the FIITJEE corporate office for 5 minutes while eating a banana. The banana box is then thrown into a dumpster in an adjacent blind street when the street is deserted. The man in the black trench coat collects the box, with the cash inside. We later identified the man in the trench coat as Mr. Maneesh K. Bandar, a low level executive with The India Grimes^.

Sadly, this culture of planted stories runs through other news bodies as well, sullying the name of good journalism. The Narayana and Chaitanya Schools have been engaging in a similar arrangement with GrimesNow, a highly rated television channel in Andhra Pradesh, with many of these 'public interest' stories being aired during their prime time news hour.

Firstly, the news channel has aired stories with false numbers. For instance, a claim was made that both the schools have a 90% IIT entrance rate. This was false, as this number was arrived upon by dividing the total number of IIT entrants across all batches by the number of students in the joint Chaina batch alone. They were also deflating the number of suicides on campus, without accounting for confounders such as COVID.

This collaboration comes after previous Chaina batch students who got into IIT were approached by Boost for a sponsorship deal, with the students claiming that "Boost is the secret of my energy." Registrations plummeted across both schools soon after, causing them to turn to such partnerships to boost registrations to pre-boost levels. The campaign seems to have been a success.

In the meantime, Byju's revenue has grown as WhiteHat Jr. has gained an unequaled popularity. Just recently, Byju's confirmed in a tweet that 9 year old Navumra Baccha had been given a pre-placement offer by Google for an annual salary of 13 billion USD, equivalent to 10% of the market capitalisation of Alphabet, Inc., the parent corporation of Google. This case is not an outlier, but seems to be representative of all their students, peer reviewed studies confirm [1]. Byju's stands poised to become the dominant competent player in Indian education and Edtech, and seems to be the only ethical player in the game. Byju's is offering a flat 80% off on all new applications across their coaching centres. To avail this offer, use the code THEHINDUSTANGRIMES at https://byjus.com/apply.

^The India Grimes is in no way affiliated with The Hindustan Grimes.

*No monkeys are harmed in the making of physics lessons: FIITJEE legal team.

[1] Source

The Grimes’ Definition of the Week

Source: The friend you approach when you are missing an ingredient for your brownie cake. Commonly confused with whistleblower.

Namaskara,

momo & eggsy

Welcome to another issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where news reports of sides with greener grass are questioned about possible fungal infections.

After suggestions from multiple friends, we are now on Instagram. Follow our page at @grimeswastaken2. When you figure out what the funda behind the handle is, breathe once heavily out of your nose in acknowledgement.

This issue we bring to you some technological advancements, some outrage, and a little bit of mockery.^ Have fun reading.

Yours serenely,

momo & eggsy

^Disclaimer: Multiple persons and entities are mocked in the making of our issues. Grow a skin.

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McDonald's Burger Flippers to Work from Home

Mint workers request to make money at home

Navi Mumbai, March 2021: McDonald's India has struck an unusual tripartite collaboration with Reliance Jio and Vaastav: The Virtual Pvt. Ltd. in order to allow some of their kitchen employees to work from home. State-of-the-art Virtual Reality and Robotics technology will be used to enable the cooks to control the robots in the kitchen from the comfort of their homes.

"In order for the technology to work, we need humongous internet bandwidths both at our outlets and the employees' homes," said Mr. Raj "Burger Raja" Bargu, CEO of McDonald's India. "We approached Jio for the internet, but they offered to be a collaborator for free publicity instead of a vendor." Rumours have sprung up that Jio is in talks to acquire Vastav: The Virtual Pvt. Ltd.

McDonald's move to virtual comes at the wake of a spring of new COVID19 cases in Maharashtra, which news outlets have dubbed the Second Wave. Maharashtra's State Task Force and the State Surveillance Officer, Dr. Satish Power have said: "No." Dr. Power added, "This is not the second wave. That happened during Ganesh Chaturthi. We're likely in the fourth wave now."

This also caused a bout of frenzy on Dalal Street. Stock prices of Swiggy and Zomato dropped immediately after news of the Virtual Move spread. After a few hours of heated discussions and explanations of the new technology, the market breathed a sigh of relief. Swiggy and Zomato stock prices have slowly returned to pre-frenzy levels.

The first phase of the virtual trials are set to begin next Monday in 5 outlets in Navi Mumbai. "We have already trained over 30 cooks," said Burger Raja. "It is really simple to operate. It's just like playing 'Papa's Burgeria'."

News of the now dubbed "Virtual Burgers" has spread through Navi Mumbai. Navi Mumbaikars appear excited about something new coming in their city. But experts refrain from optimism. "This might have the opposite effect," says, Dr. Sonu Sodabottleopenerwala, popular food enthusiast and blogger. "People will flock there and COVID19 spread will only increase."

Technology enthusiasts have also hurrahed at the move. Healthy eating advocates though have had mixed reactions. "We want to see the machines rise," said Mr. Goli Pav, a former foodie, "but no sugar please."

Protestors fight systemic corporate discrimination outside cafe

WandaVision star Vision says brain trauma not a joke

Mumbai, March 2021: Karuna Bhavani, a resident of Mumbai, has been protesting against Moonshot Cafe, a renown international cafe chain, for serving all their beverages in right handed cups. She gathered a group of her right-handed friends, and they sat outside the cafe for 4 hours straight, demanding mugs with the opposite orientation. They have been repeating the same over the last one week. Towards the end of the week, the cafe chain's COO confirmed that they were working on acquiring new mugs, but the protestors hadn't backed down.

"Left handed people have faced systemic discrimination from society and the government. Everything from elevators, staircases and scissors have been designed by and for right handed people. This is a systematic erasure and we will not stop protesting until these injustices are corrected," said Ms. Karuna. "This issue has irked me for so long but I have always waited for society to self-correct. Not anymore."

After the ruckus caused, #Karuna and #IndianKaren trended on Twitter in India at #2 and #3 respectively. Dr. Hastha Disha, a post doc at the Indian Research Institute, came out in support of Ms. Karuna. "I have studied hand-orientation for most of my career. It is true that left-handed people are discriminated against, and have a life-expectancy 9 years lesser than right handed people. I imagine that using tools like scissors and knives, which are designed for right handed people, increases their risk of accident. They are also more likely to be neuroatypical, and left-handed women have a higher risk of breast cancer."

Stand Up Comedian Baithiye Hasan, however, said that the protest was nothing more than a movement to distract from real issues. "We have created a culture that rewards victimisation. This is the latest non-issue to become an issue over the last few years." This led to a tumultuous exchange between Hasan and an attendee at his comedy show, which evolved into a name calling session. After the unnamed heckler threw a shoe at him, Hasan retaliated by throwing the wireless microphone at the audience, which ended up hitting a bystander in the head. The bystander was hospitalised for a TBC (Traumatic Brain Concussion), and Hasan has been temporarily suspended by the Indian Comedian Association, pending an internal investigation.

"I understand that I should not have lost my temper," said Hasan. "But saying what I think should not warrant a shoe being thrown at my head." The heckler, who identified himself to us, but wished to remain anonymous, had this to say, "They throw mics at us and expect us to listen to them. They cry about victim culture, but this is their response towards constructive criticism," they said. When we pressed the heckler on the fact that he was the one who threw the shoe first, he deflected and subsequently hung up on us. Meanwhile, the Mumbai protest against discrimination towards left handed people continues. Right or not, their end goal remains unknown.

Popular Celebrity Loses Battle Against Weakened Vision

Rumours of Actress Sudarshini's stolen bookmark debunked by fact checkers who revealed she cannot read.

Bollywood, March 2021: In a bizarre turn of events, popular Bollywood actor, Muscle "Severe Body Image" Khan, has been reported to have lost his glasses. Reports also suggest he tried looking, but couldn't see. The glasses were a top of the line product of High Costoso brand in Merengue Yellow shade with a Stannic finish.

Muscle Khan was observed struggling to perform his day-to-day activities like body building et cetera without his High Costoso glasses. He took to instagram to confide in his followers about the struggles a celebrity faces on a daily basis. Social media was abuzz with tales of celebrity struggles.

Twitterati all over the country have sympathised with Mr. Khan's plight. A GoFundMe for Mr. Khan's glasses has collected over 15 Rupees. Additionally, a petition to have all glasses mandatorily contain a GPS tracker has garnered over 34 signatures on change.org.

An hour later, a new pair of High Costoso glasses was delivered to his residence in Dharavi.

P.S. The pandemic has celebrity culture imploding so badly, celebrities are paying us to keep them in the news cycle and have them remain relevant. This is a sponsored article.

This article originally appeared in The Hindustan Times.

The Grimes’ Definition of The Week

Public-Private Partnership: When you bake the cake for everyone and you ask someone for help to carry it over to the dinner table, but they take all the credit for making the cake and don't even let you eat it. Commonly confused with group projects.

Vanakkam,

momo & eggsy

P.S. Each issue will now drop into your inbox at 6 AM IST on Fridays.