Auld Lang Syne (THG #20 of 20)

Season One Done. Re-runs Optional.

May 14, 2021

Dear reader:

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

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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