A little bird has just informed us that last night, a very public spat rocked the world of tuchchadom*. One would be tempted to gloss over the case entirely except that it touches something very dear to us – no, not that, you filthy perv – free speech. And it was being defended from the unlikeliest of quarters, by a woman who works with the Ministry of Truth**, whose monopoly over news media continues to put us tabloids out of business.
While the jury has unanimously found the plaintiff Ms. Durbeen to be firmly in the right, the defendant Mr. Chak-chak-chak Norris’s case was an interesting one, for it was based almost entirely on Clause (d) of Article Pi, Appendix 121/4: Humour owns all, suckers!
Mr. Norris has acquired considerable fame as an arbitrageur – finding ways to make short jokes where other people only see long emails. He has been providing the world with humour since 1993, which was when he had his first letter-writing class. Since then, there has been no going back for this literary giant, and he was recently elected with much aplomb as WIMWI’s own Minister of Muggudom. His daily digest during the auction week has been such an awaited event in the campus calendar, that often dorm dinners have been postponed in their expectation.
Last night, it appears Mr. Norris composed his magnum opus, a private email to the plaintiff, copied to the Minister of Truth himself. After much deliberation, the jury decided that Mr. Norris’s email, though without merit, was ridiculously funny and therefore automatically placed him in the right. However, under sub-clause (e) of the above paragraph – when read backwards and very fast – emails as priceless as his do not belong to one man, but to all mankind. They must be shared with the entire campus and are not meant for mere individual satisfaction, no matter how close he was to the plaintiff in question. Mr. Norris was thus pronounced guilty of depriving the masses and sentenced to three hundred lines of imposition, which will be doled out in manageable quantities over the next week.
* The capital of Lukkhadom, which is believed to be paradise in all major religions of Fuchchadom
** Not to be confused with the Ministry of Silly Walks, whose building is similarly shaped in the form of a giant middle finger.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Raison d'être
We have received numerous emails these past few hours, most of them bursting with questions. Some ask who we are and why we exist, some express undying adulation. The others are not worth mentioning.
We have decided to step in and clear the air with a short conference. The press may please take their seats. Ignore the chewing gum on the benches. You may however enjoy the rather distracting sketches - I drew them myself.
Yes, the gentleman at the back - the one with the bar-code on the back of his T-shirt - please turn off that cell phone. Don't you really wish you were here?
Please note that we will be grading your participation. Shoot.
Who are you?
We are fake WIMWIans and we like our onions diced. We would also like to think we are playas. ;) In truth, we are brothers-in-arms. In legs, we are somewhat disjointed. (One of us even shaves them, but you can be sure there will be no admissions in that regard.)
We were born out of the union of a washerwoman and an exhibitionist, hence this childlike fascination for washing dirty linen in public. We take our inspiration from uncyclopedia.wikia.com.
Why this blog, and why now?
We are jobless. And because there is no time like now.
Wtf is this blog about would have been a much finer question. Well, I'll take it up nevertheless: we are not a satire - or at any rate, we suck at that sort of thing, so let's not go there. Also, W.T.F. is not behind this blog - at least, not officially.
The Fake WIMWI Playa merely offers an alternate opinion, the kind that doesn't make it to the glossy brochures. We are, in effect, the fifth estate.
Don't you think this blog will tarnish WIMWI's image?
Do you honestly think anyone outside WIMWI would care to read this? And puh-lease, we know we don't write nearly well enough to generate a fan following. Tarnishing WIMWI's image was never our agenda. In any case, whatever we write here is fake. Really fake. We come neither to bury WIMWI nor to praise it.
How long do you intend to keep this up?
As long as our attention spans last. And then we'll move on to something more fun, and illuminating, leaving the reins in trusted hands.
Have you joined the mess?
Is that a rhetorical question?
Alright, that's it folks, time for a bio break. Had a lot of onions today.
We have decided to step in and clear the air with a short conference. The press may please take their seats. Ignore the chewing gum on the benches. You may however enjoy the rather distracting sketches - I drew them myself.
Yes, the gentleman at the back - the one with the bar-code on the back of his T-shirt - please turn off that cell phone. Don't you really wish you were here?
Please note that we will be grading your participation. Shoot.
Who are you?
We are fake WIMWIans and we like our onions diced. We would also like to think we are playas. ;) In truth, we are brothers-in-arms. In legs, we are somewhat disjointed. (One of us even shaves them, but you can be sure there will be no admissions in that regard.)
We were born out of the union of a washerwoman and an exhibitionist, hence this childlike fascination for washing dirty linen in public. We take our inspiration from uncyclopedia.wikia.com.
Why this blog, and why now?
We are jobless. And because there is no time like now.
Wtf is this blog about would have been a much finer question. Well, I'll take it up nevertheless: we are not a satire - or at any rate, we suck at that sort of thing, so let's not go there. Also, W.T.F. is not behind this blog - at least, not officially.
The Fake WIMWI Playa merely offers an alternate opinion, the kind that doesn't make it to the glossy brochures. We are, in effect, the fifth estate.
Don't you think this blog will tarnish WIMWI's image?
Do you honestly think anyone outside WIMWI would care to read this? And puh-lease, we know we don't write nearly well enough to generate a fan following. Tarnishing WIMWI's image was never our agenda. In any case, whatever we write here is fake. Really fake. We come neither to bury WIMWI nor to praise it.
How long do you intend to keep this up?
As long as our attention spans last. And then we'll move on to something more fun, and illuminating, leaving the reins in trusted hands.
Have you joined the mess?
Is that a rhetorical question?
Alright, that's it folks, time for a bio break. Had a lot of onions today.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Myths, the Fads and the Frat Boys
Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Well, sure. Um ... but perhaps not the whole truth, if that's quite alright with you.
The whole truth. We insist.
Ahem, the characters had better be renamed, then, if we're going to pull this off. And the scenes will have to be tweaked just that little bit. You know, to maintain the anonymity - or at least the idea of anonymity, which the esteemed jury will admit serves the selfsame purpose.
Let the lights be dimmed until the eyes start to go very wide ... Ah, this chhajja will do just fine. After all, if the aura and hype are to be examined, it has to be done piecemeal.
Suit yourself.
And so it begins. Let us then be judged and damned in your eyes alone.
Part the First
The scene takes place in the Land of Cool, the wild wild west of India, in the butt-shaped state or thereabouts. All things of consequence happen here, and here alone - in this elitist brick fortress. There are no damsels in distress here, just four hundred knights in shining armour, bursting to get some action. Even if it means trampling upon a few of their own.
WIMWI - the eye of the media, the hungry tabloids, who like dogs grab at the bones thrown at them. But the bones have long been stripped of flesh and juice. We, then, will provide what they can not.
We are WIMWI's torch of truth, its champion of free speech. You know how every choir has that one reedy voice, loud and broken, which finishes the song two lines too late,? It is a voice that rings clear and harsh, the sort that makes you wince. Twice. We are happy to bring you that voice.
Most stories have a beginning and a semblance of an end. The beginning of ours is perhaps the one thing we shall never reveal. And this tale has no end, either - it's a perpetual cycle, a tragic wheel of time. The story of Con if you are Able, repeating ceaselessly with each new batch.
To jump straight to the middle, then, and don't ask yourself how you got here. After all, why end a dream if you have to wake up to a reality as horrible as this?
It is a dry and dusty night, as most nights here are doomed to be, and the night spells a giant T.
T-Nite
Where does one even begin with this charade? Talent Nite (sic) is how it reads and perhaps once upon a time, it was as innocuous as that.
Well, we could start with two weeks ago, when the sections are first told of its gravity. Gravity, somebody once said, is the ballast of the soul. But build a tower out of ballast and voila! - you shall have your Babel. Welcome to Hype-101, the tool-kit you need to survive this hell.
Ex-CRs (class representatives) and cronies begin with their memories - oh, those mellow memories! - telling the new and gullible fachchas (freshmen) of the world and how it spins:
The next few sleepless nights, these Wise Ones say, will come to define your existence, your machismo and your social circle for the next two years. Friends will be made bending over these poster-scapes, bonds far stronger than the glue that will soon plaster those mess walls.
Huddling together in a confused delirium, they'll scream at the top of their lungs, drowning out the clangs of mess cutlery with their chants - oh, the poetry! - and chest-thumping. All around: slogans that make one cringe, tag-lines from the land of lame and T-shirts that could never again be worn in public.
People meeting decades from now, the Wise Ones say, will remember these three nights of T - oh, so much T! - and how they slugged it out to be the best and the boldest randomly chosen of ninety amateurs amongst a suit of five.
Truth be told, and it's not often it's told, the whole affair is nothing more than a circus act - a performance of song and dance and frivolity - to sit back and enjoy, designed to entertain the voyeuristic veterans. It is forgotten all at once - and never spoken of again. No, not even at those alumni dinners. Things go back to the way they were, the upstarts return to their quiet class-naps, the posters are torn down, hell freezes over, and the dorm-sweeps acquire a new, abecedarian wardrobe.
A Day at the Races - oh, what races!
Blindfolded he runs.
Crash! Blindfolded he falls.
A scar, a martyr, Harry Potter.
Eh, the rhyme is lame, but so's the game.
Well, sure. Um ... but perhaps not the whole truth, if that's quite alright with you.
The whole truth. We insist.
Ahem, the characters had better be renamed, then, if we're going to pull this off. And the scenes will have to be tweaked just that little bit. You know, to maintain the anonymity - or at least the idea of anonymity, which the esteemed jury will admit serves the selfsame purpose.
Let the lights be dimmed until the eyes start to go very wide ... Ah, this chhajja will do just fine. After all, if the aura and hype are to be examined, it has to be done piecemeal.
Suit yourself.
And so it begins. Let us then be judged and damned in your eyes alone.
Part the First
The scene takes place in the Land of Cool, the wild wild west of India, in the butt-shaped state or thereabouts. All things of consequence happen here, and here alone - in this elitist brick fortress. There are no damsels in distress here, just four hundred knights in shining armour, bursting to get some action. Even if it means trampling upon a few of their own.
WIMWI - the eye of the media, the hungry tabloids, who like dogs grab at the bones thrown at them. But the bones have long been stripped of flesh and juice. We, then, will provide what they can not.
We are WIMWI's torch of truth, its champion of free speech. You know how every choir has that one reedy voice, loud and broken, which finishes the song two lines too late,
Most stories have a beginning and a semblance of an end. The
To jump straight to the middle, then, and don't ask yourself how you got here. After all, why end a dream if you have to wake up to a reality as horrible as this?
It is a dry and dusty night, as most nights here are doomed to be, and the night spells a giant T.
T-Nite
Where does one even begin with this charade? Talent Nite (sic) is how it reads and perhaps once upon a time, it was as innocuous as that.
Well, we could start with two weeks ago, when the sections are first told of its gravity. Gravity, somebody once said, is the ballast of the soul. But build a tower out of ballast and voila! - you shall have your Babel. Welcome to Hype-101, the tool-kit you need to survive this hell.
Ex-CRs (class representatives) and cronies begin with their memories - oh, those mellow memories! - telling the new and gullible fachchas (freshmen) of the world and how it spins:
The next few sleepless nights, these Wise Ones say, will come to define your existence, your machismo and your social circle for the next two years. Friends will be made bending over these poster-scapes, bonds far stronger than the glue that will soon plaster those mess walls.
Huddling together in a confused delirium, they'll scream at the top of their lungs, drowning out the clangs of mess cutlery with their chants - oh, the poetry! - and chest-thumping. All around: slogans that make one cringe, tag-lines from the land of lame and T-shirts that could never again be worn in public.
People meeting decades from now, the Wise Ones say, will remember these three nights of T - oh, so much T! - and how they slugged it out to be the best and the boldest randomly chosen of ninety amateurs amongst a suit of five.
Truth be told, and it's not often it's told, the whole affair is nothing more than a circus act - a performance of song and dance and frivolity - to sit back and enjoy, designed to entertain the voyeuristic veterans. It is forgotten all at once - and never spoken of again. No, not even at those alumni dinners. Things go back to the way they were, the upstarts return to their quiet class-naps, the posters are torn down, hell freezes over, and the dorm-sweeps acquire a new, abecedarian wardrobe.
Blindfolded he runs.
Crash! Blindfolded he falls.
A scar, a martyr, Harry Potter.
Eh, the rhyme is lame, but so's the game.
T-Nite is, we postulate, a self-selection process. Our very own Lord of the Flies. In the end, another ticket to a club, one of many that form on campus. Those who can suffer the ignominy and the embarrassment - who are impervious to the inanity - they are the last ones left standing. And like all who have gone through hell together, they are branded, marked for life, and sentenced to each others' company. Winning scarcely matters - unless you win, of course - and the important thing is that you've done ... something. We try very hard not to think of what exactly we did. If somebody asked us, we would be hard pressed to explain. And that's what makes us special, isn't it? How seriously we took the whole charade, how seriously we tried, and still try, to be taken seriously...
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