Some people can really be naïve. And some are still more naïve to understand the naivete that they inexorably exude. Our stuttering parrot of a Bollywood superkhan, Shahrukh Khan, is of course in such a league of his own. Even the egomaniacal Amir Khan cannot stoop to such low levels. And pardon my spellings for the names. These days it is easier to keep track of IPL captaincy changes than to monitor the ways these self-effacing stars keep changing their names to suit their astrological predilections. Yeah, before we digress too much off-pitch, let's get back to the nets. Yes, yes, yes, we were on Rukruk Khan. Or, whatever Khan he happens to be at the time of going to the Press. Or, whatever. Yeah, Jaalmag did happen to catch up with Shah Rukh Khan on the sidelines of the Indian Premier League 2009. No, we won't tell you "where" exactly. We can only tell you that this wasn't anywhere near Kolkata.

We have long known about the adage of not being able to fool all the people all the time. K Padmanabhaiah returned from Bangkok in June all smug, and appeared on this satellite channel and the other trying to have us all believe that the recalcitrant Naga hostiles had been fool-fledgedly emasculated. They would not pull out from the so-called talks and the silly ceasefire. Experts appeared on the idiot box; other specialists wrote their perfunctory pieces on the great Naga ceasefire. Everyone seemed to pretend that everything was on the right track. They were all fooling a fast one. Who's fooling who? Here are some answers.

Question time, folks. What was common to the states of Assam and West Bengal which went to the hustings earlier this month? Possible Answer Number 1: Those who calculatedly made the wrong alingments, forfeited their electoral fortunes. Possible Answer Number 2: Saffron did a fade-out: losers on either side of the chicken neck Siliguri corridor. Possible Answer Number 3: The Bongs from opaar-Bongland vouched for and shaped the winners. Possible Answer Number 4: All of the above. If you opted for number 1, you are correct. If you chose option number 2, you are still correct. If you thought 3 is right, you are not off the mark either. But if you chose 4, you would have got all correct. (You can try for a KBC seat, some time). Actually, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. (We know rocket scientists don't participate in KBC either).

After the event, we fools are inevitably wise. Through all these years Bengladeshis have tampered our demographic landscape contiguous with their godforsaken land beyond redemption and recognition. But, it suited all those for whom these aliens vouched for at the hustings. It did not suit those who were more paranoid about the silent invasion by them infidel Mozies. There was no clarion call for patriots vis-à-vis Indianism (a new term, some upstart English-speaker coined recently). Political decisions, after all, are taken on the bedrock of what beds you and what rocks.

Good books are not written anymore. They are marketed. Bad books are not written anymore either. They are marketed too. Bibliophiles never had it so bad in India as they did in the last decade of the twentieth century. Writing and publishing was never the same, as even in the Eighties. It did not matter whether you were a good writer or bad; as long as your publisher was able to market it (read, hype it beyond all limits of fertile imagination), you would have earned your buck - fast and slow. That's where the buck stopped. The task of compiling lists of tens is always one that is thankless - so, when Jaalmag decided to collate an index of ten most hyped books of the Nineties, there was a minor hitch. No, it was not one about which over-hyped book to include, but which one not to exclude. The best way out was to randomise ten from hundreds.

The Indian pseudo-intellegentsia seems to have the morbid proclivity to make an anachronistic contention of everything. Where's the anachronism? The revelation is plain and simple - the 21st century in real terms has not yet begun, it will do so only on January 1, 2001. The farce of second millennium has already taken place - the world celebrating the advent of the third millennium on December 31, 1999-January 1, 2000. So in literal terms, the question of women entering the 21st century does not arise. Men have not entered the third millennium either. Neither have dogs, cats and gods, and what have you. Why argue?

There is good news for members of the saffron clan. There is good news for crusaders too. The pontiff, is rumours are to be believed, is not here to convert - he is here to get converted. According to highly unreliable sources in the saffron camp, a deal to this effect was struck between the Christian boss and the Hindu bosses about a month or so back. It was a perchance happening, he said. The day that the website of one of the constituents of the saffron brigade was launched, the Pope had logged into the chat room and had refused to be elbowed out. A Hindu boss had inaugurated the site. Each tried to preach his religion and each was successful in convincing the other. The Pope expressed his innate desire to give up his religion and become a Hindu while the pracharak boss too agreed to become a Christian. The two upholders of their respective religions decided to keep the matters under the lid till "time was ripe" to blow it off.