A day without laughter is a day
wasted.
-
Charlie Chaplin
If you are
one of those who is hooked onto current affairs, then chances are that you
follow TV news and gobble up newspapers by the dozen. It is even more than likely that you are
quite weary of the incessant drone of the TV debate shows and the biased
reportage of our Main Stream Media. I also fall into the same category.
There are
times when I feel so exhausted with the blather that our media comes up with
that I feel there is absolutely no hope from them, despite being a part of
it myself. There was a time, not too long back, I didn’t feel like flicking on
TV news and sometimes threw away newspapers in frustration.
And then, ‘TheUnReal Times’ hit my life.
If you who
haven’t heard of this amazing media portal, then chances are you probably don’t
live on this planet. Well okay, maybe that was a little overboard. But
nevertheless, this fantastic website is changing the way parody and satire is
presented like never before.
Founded by
two friends, who after being bored with their respective professional lives,
decided to bring smiles on many other bored faces, with a portal which has news
presented in the form of satirical and humorous articles. Apart from articles,
the website also has several other features like spoofs on our politicos and
other celebrities by means of an ‘In Pictures’ section, a ‘FB wall’ segment,
skits and much more.
Now, you
might say that there are several other similar websites out there in the media
today. Correct. However, what differentiates The UnReal Times (URT) from the
others is the classy and clean way they present their humour. They never go
below the belt or stoop down to crass or slapstick comedy to entertain their
readers. In fact, so real are their ‘unreal’ pieces that at times I found it
hard to understand if it was a humorous piece I was reading or a genuine one.
Moreover, I
can vouch for the fact that URT also does its part in educating readers about
current issues; something which probably they themselves do not realize they
are doing. There have been times when I read a particular piece about a certain
individual in the website which completely went over my head; for not being
aware of the news that was written on. I would then search around for the news
in the ‘real’ media sources and come back to comprehend the humour. Yes, if you
wish to get the taste of the humour and satire in URT, you have to constantly
brush up on your knowledge of the current affairs. And that, in my view, is a massive
contribution from them.
How I met URT
It was
purely by chance or perhaps by the hand of fate, that I was welcomed into the world of URT.
About a year back, when I was browsing through a cricket website (for which I
write); I came across an article titled ‘President Barack Obama lauds Ashish Nehra’. I was completely stupefied and
thought for a second that the world has gone crazy. I checked for the author’s
name which was under the pseudonym ‘Unreal Mama’. When I read the article, I
was in splits and realized that it was a satirical piece. On scouring further, I
found that the author(s) wrote for this gem of a website called The UnReal Times.
Over the next
few months, browsing through the website became a habit and I turned into an ardent
fan of the superlative content they had. My personal favourite from the website
is the ‘In Pictures’ section where they present any current story through a
combination of pictures and funny dialogues by the characters. The ‘FB wall’
and other sections too are equally good.
 |
| A sample extract of the 'In Pictures' section |
There are several of their stories which have left a mark on me. I have howled in laughter when Arvind Kejriwal would keep reiterating “Mai hoon Aam Admi aur meri koi aukaat nahi’ and when they introduce ‘The Ashutosh’ in any of the stories or when Manish Tewari goes ‘holistic’ or every time when Rakhi Sawant mouths “Jejuss”. Be it the story where Narendra Modi takes a sabbatical from politics or the one where Arvind Kejriwal slaps himself and says he has been betrayed by himself; the humour in these stories is so real and yet so hysterical that it takes quite some effort on my part to not burst out laughing when reading these at my workplace. In fact, I always go through the URT website whilst at my office (that is one place where all of us can do with some humour to lighten ourselves isn’t it?).
There have
been several instances when I laugh out loud, point at the computer screen and guffaw
and even slam my fists on the table to vent out my laughter while going through
URT. My colleagues, the poor souls who are not yet aware of URT, exchange curt
glances with each other and shake their heads at my antics. “He’s gone bonkers”, I have
heard them whisper to each other. (Forgive
them O Lord, for they do not know what they have missed.)
The point
is, URT provides welcome relief from this mad, mad world. Today, the first
thing that I do when I reach my office is to open the URT website and see if
they have anything new for me. There have been several occasions when I have
felt depressed and demotivated from my life for varied reasons. It is The
UnReal Times which has lifted my spirits on those occasions and made me laugh
and forget all my troubles. It is for this very reason that I write this piece
today. (There is also this small little fact that the founders of URT have come
out with a book recently, titled ‘Unreal Elections’. The feedback for the book
has been exceptional and it already is a best seller. There’s more on the book
later in the post. )
I am certain
that there are many people out there who, like me, are fans of The UnReal
Times. Today, URT is certainly gaining cult status. There are people who swear
by URT and can’t do their day without it. This piece is especially for them.
Last weekend,
I spoke to the founders of the website, C.S. Krishna and Karthik Laxman along
with their star writer Ashwin Kumar. As I spoke to each of them, I realized that
I hadn’t taken an interview. It felt to me more like a conversation with some
of my long lost friends. Though I was speaking to them for the first time in my
life, I was laughing and joking along with them like I would with any of my
close friends. That perhaps says a lot in itself.
And now, I
will let the men do the talking.
Real life of the ‘Unreal Men’
Karthik Laxman (Co-founder)
Background: I am from Chennai and did my
schooling there. Later I completed my management from IIM-Ahmadabad and
graduated in 2007. I choose not to work in the corporate sector and became a
freelance management consultant instead. I moved to Delhi in 2009 and it is
here that I met Krishna.
The birth of UnReal Times: Krishna had once written a satirical
piece which tried to show what would happen if cash was thrown directly from
airplanes. It was published in a site called ‘Faking News’. After that, I too got
in and began writing satirical articles. We used to work together and wrote a
lot of similar stuff. However, one time, the editor of Faking News refused to
publish one of our articles. I then thought that we should come up with some
portal of our own where we can post our articles. That is how The UnReal Times
came into being. I still remember the date; it was 14th April 2011 when the
site was launched. Initially we called it ‘The Unreal News’ but later we
changed it. In the months to follow, we got a good response and kept growing. And
now, after three years, we have a fairly decent base.
The UnReal Times office: It’s a virtual office. We have kept
our revenue very low. Right now we have some Google ads and similar stuff which
covers our basic costs. The plan currently is to keep growing. Perhaps at some
point in time we might have to think of expanding and having a real office. But
for now, we want to continue on our own for the next three years without
anyone’s help. Hopefully, we will do well.
The UnReal Times writers: We look for a few basic things in
writers who approach us for writing in our site. Firstly, the write-ups have to
be funny, preferably intelligent and the humour should be clean. Secondly, the
satire should be reasonable. Meaning it has to be hooked to reality.
‘In Pictures’: It is the section for which we get
the best feedback for. And it is tough to do it as one ‘In Pictures’ series
takes roughly 3-4 hours. Ashwin is a natural at it. He is brilliant in fact and
is very fast. He can come up with various ideas for the series and can complete
it in just a couple of hours. Me, Krishna and some other writers also do it,
but Ashwin is the one who takes the lead in this. ‘Mental’ is what we call him.
Manmohan ‘Singham’: We made a video titled ‘Manmohan
Singham’ in August 2011. The video went viral and became a huge hit. Even
Narendra Modi used the phrase Manmohan Singham’ in one of his speeches after
that. We were quite surprised when we saw him using it. I guess that is because
some from Modi’s team also follow us. It is funny and good at the same time. Incidentally,
we also got a couple of FIRs lodged against us by Congress workers for making
this video. But we didn’t back down and stuck to what we believed in.
“Barkha Dutt follows us”: Even though we have made a lot of jokes on her, Barkha Dutt
follows us on twitter. She started doing that after we made some satirical
pieces on her. She took it quite sportingly, saying “The joke’s on me.”
Favourite work: I had done one picture series on
Narendra Modi where he keeps making pro- Hindu statements and all the BJP politicos
get scared as they think it will spread a negative image of their party. Later Modi
says all the statements he made were quotes of Mahatma Gandhi. I think it is my
best effort and got a really good response.
“I will miss Manmohan Singh”: Manmohan Singh is a satirist’s
delight. He gives you a lot of range and you can work on him from so many
angles. With Rahul Gandhi and the others you tend to get repetitive after a while.
But Mr. Singh gives us many options. I will miss him. Arnab Goswami is another
one I really like to write on. Though it can be monotonous, but I still enjoy
it.
“We want to make people smile”: We don’t want to be preachy. Our
mission is to just make people smile. All of us lead such terrible lives
sometimes and we hope that we can make people smile and laugh with our efforts.
That would be enough.
C.S Krishna (Co-founder)
Background: I was born in Chennai. After completing
my MBA from IIM- Ahmadabad, I began working as a management consultant. I then
began with public policy research for some MPs. This is when I got in touch
with Karthik. We teamed up and began working for some clients. It was around
the same time that we started The UnReal Times.
“Never had a passion for writing”: I was a fairly voracious reader and
had a knack for satire, but I never really had a passion for writing. I had to
be good with my words in the line I was in (management consultant) and honed my
writings skills there I guess. However, I have never learnt literary writing.
Preparation for articles: It depends on the theme. If a theme
strikes us then we begin working on it; probably for a day and then get on with
it. Now that we have been working on this for three years, it has become easy
for us.
The best work for: The ones I really enjoy are the ones that go
on to be a hit. But if I had to pick one then it has to be the one where we
recently wrote that West Indies’ cricket captain, Darren Sammy, is a Tamil
Brahmin. It was a joint effort, but I really enjoyed working on it.
“I like writing on Arvind Kejriwal”: Right now, my favourite character to
write on is Arvind Kejriwal. He is interesting. He has this extreme integrity
that he carries and thus provides us many angles to write on. Its fun you know.
Previously, my favourite used to be Arnab Goswami. But we have covered him from
every possible angle now.
Writing the book: It wasn’t easy writing this book (Unreal Elections) as it was
written by two people; me and Karthik. We had several differences of opinion,
but in the end all went well. The book was finished in three months and luckily
we found a good publisher (Penguin). They allowed us to retain the real names
of the characters used and that’s why we are really thankful to them. Now we
are awaiting the feedback and then we shall analyze what people liked and where
we went wrong. There are plans to come out with a sequel of the book where we
would like to include the whole geo-political angle into it. Pakistan and China
have to be used in our book now!
“Want URT to become bigger”: We want our site to become bigger and
bigger. We hope to make it profitable so that we are able to pay our writers
the market rate. There are also plans to introduce more features in the website
like videos and multimedia. And then we intend to launch the website in
different languages like Hindi and other vernaculars. Hopefully, we will get
there.
Ashwin Kumar (Co-editor)
Background: I am originally from Bangalore and am
a software engineer. I did my masters in Computer Science from the Ohio State
University. Writing has always been one of my hobbies. I have been writing for
The UnReal Times from the last two years.
Connect with URT: I liked writing satirical pieces and
had sent some of them to Faking News who never accepted my stuff. I then
somehow got to know of URT and send them my articles. They liked it and since
then I have been a regular there.
FB fan page: I just wanted to keep my personal
profile separate from my FB page. Moreover, this page helps me connect with
people who like to read my stuff.
Best works: There is one article I wrote some
time back on politicians writing C++ programs. I really enjoyed writing it. As
far as the picture stories are concerned, there was one I did very recently on ‘The
UnReal Times book launch’. It really was fun doing that and thankfully it got a
great response.
“Politicians have noticed my work”: Shashi Tharoor had seen one of my
articles and even tweeted about it. Dr. Subramaniam Swamy has also liked one of
the articles that I wrote and tweeted it. Apart from these two, I have also
heard that Mr. Arun Jaitely has enjoyed some of my works. I was informed of
this by journalist Swapan Dasgupta.
“Ravi Shastri might beat me up”: I have used Ravi Shastri’s clichés in my
articles innumerable times and hope he never sees them. It’s actually good that
he is not so active on Twitter and Facebook. Otherwise, he might catch hold of
me one day and beat me up for using his name like this.
Net addict: I am on Twitter almost throughout the day. I follow the
trending news voraciously and that is what perhaps helps me in getting the
themes for my articles.
“I don’t think I am funny in real
life”: I am not all
funny in real life; at least that’s what I think. Though that doesn’t mean I am
a very serious person, but I take my own sweet time to open up to people. Once
I do, I am quite chilled out.
***
Though I have chosen to interview
these three people, this, by any means, does not mean that the other writers of URT
are any less good. The entire team of URT is doing a fantastic job and I salute
all the writers who write for it.
‘Unreal Elections’ – the book
Dekho dekho kaun aaya, Gujarat ka
sher aaya!
The sheets
stirred
Dekho dekho kaun aaya, Gujarat ka
sher aaya!
The sheets
parted. Narendra Modi stretched his arms wide in either direction and yawned.
Dekho dekho kaun aaya, Gujarat ka
sher…
“Jag gaya sher,” said Modi, and silenced
the customized SmartNamo alarm clock with a quick tap on its head. Modi leapt
out of his bed with the vitality of a teenager to begin yet another twenty-hour
day.
- Extract from the book ‘The Unreal Elections’, Chapter three- The Gujarat Lion
 |
| The front cover of the book |
Thought you have had enough of the never ending general elections coverage? Think again. ‘Unreal Elections’, the recently launched book, is co-authored by C.S Krishna and Karthik Laxman and will change the way you look at any Indian election coverage forever. A zany, quirky read, the book is the perfect parody and is filled with the usual dollops of humour, satire, suspense and thrill which will leave you gasping for more.
The action
begins as political parties throughout the country ready themselves for the
General Elections. How the ‘big two’ of
Indian politics try to outdo each other (with hilarious outcomes) forms the
crux of the story. The book has its fair share of suspense and riveting action
as well. For those who like action flicks, there is a masked vigilante gliding through
the streets at night and there is also a dose of the ‘Terminator’ so wittily incorporated
into the content that it blew my mind away.
Additionally,
you get a unique yet hysterical glimpse at the way the BJP and Congress offices
function. You see Amit Shah in Kofeee
with Karan and also briefly get to see Mamata Banrjee and her hatred
for ‘Maoists’. But most important of all, you finally understand why Manmohan
Singh has been ‘silent’ over these many years.
Give it a
try; it will change the way you will look at Indian politics forever.
***
I just hope
now that The UnReal Times keeps up with the brilliant work they are doing and
takes greater steps in the days to come. And while they do that, I would hope
that their classy brand of satire and humour would remain intact. It is
essential that they do so. In this crazy world, where everyone tends to take
themselves so very seriously, their ‘unreal’ humour comes in as a breath of
fresh air and provides much needed relief to many out there.
Promise me
my readers, and the fans of The UnReal Times who are reading this; that you
would continue reading URT and ensure that its popularity keeps soaring. Don’t
fail me please, for remember- ‘this is just what the doctor ordered’ - for all
of us, that is. Here is a toast to The UnReal Times with the hope that it lives
until eternity making us fall off our chairs in laughter. Theek
hai!
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