Mari Condo Season 3 opens on Netflx to lukewarm reviews

The cleaning lady is back!
After a well received Season 1 where Condo helps people declutter and Season 2 where she helps them acquire things that spark joy (from her online store Con-Maadi.com), she now helps them declutter again in Season 3 - titled 'Tidying up, again'
In the first episode, she visits Peter and Carol, the couple that she helped tidy up and fill their home with joy-sparking objects from Con-Maadi. Condo soon discovers she has a challenge on her hands - not only does the couple seem distressed, but she finds they are unable to afford basic necessities for their home after their online purchase spree.
Unfazed at the turn of events, Condo dishes out a lesson in the impermanence of things, including joy and helps them not only declutter the Con-Maadi junk but also sell these in black to other Condo fans online in a bid to get their power connection back and buy some sandwiches.
"One should only buy things suitable for the person he is becoming, not for the person he was" Condo says, towards the end."If you are on your way to becoming a poorer person, for example, you should buy cheaper junk from Con-Maadi, not like these folks"
Con-maadi.com meanwhile, has launched a new line of unnecessary premium objects called 'if you've just been condo'ed' meant to fill homes recently decluttered by Condo.

Govt moots NPR bill, receives lukewarm response

The last ray of hope for rioters across the country may have just dimmed a little - the infamous Neo-Penile Review Act (NPR) was mooted by the government today and met with serious opposition among both the parliament and the people at large.
The Act legalises a test for religion which is now considered obsolete in most countries - examination of the penis for marks of circumcision. Though not legal, it has been widely used in India by the major religions to ascertain who are members belonging to their community. The test came in for criticism periodically because of excessive use by communal rioters who proceeded to take violent action on the owner of the penis based on the test results.
In 2021, after sustained protests by some men's activist groups, the penile review test was banned retrospectively - a move that was criticised as regressive and draconian. This was because this effectively criminalised thousands of rioters who had been using the test.
The government, in what is seen as a softening of its stance, has now mooted a Neo-Penile Review bill, which states that a penis exam is a valid test of religion, only if it is used in conjunction with another piece of documentary proof - such as passport form. A penile review by itself is not to be taken as confirmatory. While the bill is silent on the legality aspect, experts have inferred that the test is now legal.
The MP who mooted the bill is optimistic it will be passed. "We will layer some health applications. For example, rioters can screen for prostatitis and other infections - it is just a question of training. They need to be taught to use gloves"
When asked about the plight of the unwilling participants on whom the test would be forced upon, the MP said this was just 'fear psychosis'. "We have kept the documentary proof as a requirement only for this - to protect people against violence - no rioter will conclude just on the basis of this test now". This enthusiasm is not shared by the Opposition parties which have termed this 'one more bureaucratic hassle' which will affect the poorest the most. "Do you know how many people have no documentary proof of religion? What happens to them? Rioters will just decide arbitrarily and innocent people from the rioter's own religion may be harmed", one of the Opposition MPs remarked.

EC refuses to watch Mody biopic

In what may be seen as contempt of SC, EC reiterated its stand that it will not watch the controversial Mody biopic.
"We saw about 10 minutes and had to walk out. Worst film ever" EC Arura said to the press today. "Terrible casting, horrendous acting and I'm only talking about the opening shot. We will appeal to Human Rights if forced to watch this film", he added. Rumours are EC is proposing a complete ban on the film, not just when the model code of conduct is in force, on the grounds that the film does not deserve a release at all. Marquee idol Akshai Kumar is planning a film about the release of this film where he would star in a dual role as Bibek Oberoi and the real Mody.
"Mody is not worried about the Mody biopic. Mody is bigger than that - he does not have the time. Mody asked me once - how are you able to keep up your energy levels at this age and Mody answered that his secret is vandemataram" PM Mody quoted himself as saying. 

Secular trending

We have the following question from an avid reader of this blog
- Shiv Seina Member Sanjai Rawt recently issued a statement as follows - we took 17 minutes to demolish Baburi Masgid - what needed to be done was done in half hour, how long does it take the ruling party to bring the Raam Temple law? 
Any extrapolation technique that would help us answer? - a concerned citizen
Excellent question there. Several assumptions are to be made in this interesting extrapolation problem. We know about 1 lakh folks were there at the site - discounting the free-riders using a general 80-20 principle, 20k folks took 23.5 minutes (taking the average of the two estimates put up by Mr. Rawt) to accomplish the destruction i.e. 470000 man minutes or 7833 man-hours or 325 man-days.
Now armed with this information, we need an estimate for man days needed to bring a temple law as a new legislation. It is well known that breaking a strong mud and stone structure is roughly 60 times as intense as typing, printing, filing and reading i.e. 130 man hours. However, we assume here realistically that the "man" in these "man hours" are the same who performed the earlier activity 26 years back - productivity has to be discounted with age by a 10% factor year on year raising the man hours to 2000. Assuming every single one of these men are by now free 24 by 7 by 365, and let's say about 100 of them are as driven by this new mission as the one 26 years back, we have a final answer of 20 hours which is about 2.5 work days.
The second method of estimating this approximates this as monkeys trying to type out Shakespeare where the answer is known - 3.3 raised to 2 trillion days. It would be prudent to take the mean of these two estimates which leaves us with 3.3 raised to 2 trillion days.
There Mr. Rawt and citizen, we have a rough estimate. Hope this is useful for you to make progress.

Yowgi govt renames conversion as dharmantaran, announces new scheme

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yowgi Nath on Tuesday announced that religious conversion activities will now be known as 'Dharmantaran', while speaking at ‘Deepotsav’, a special event hosted on Diwali eve in the pilgrim town of Ayodhya. The move came three weeks after the BJP-led government changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj

'Conversion is an alien term and does not fit into our culture or parampara. The term should be a symbol of our aan aur shaan', he said. He announced a new scheme by which anyone can change his or her name online and download a new aadhaar card. 'I have 3 cards myself as Yama, Niyama and Trishanku', he roared amidst loud cheering

The 87th mistake of my life

Dear All,
Yesterday, in this column, we'd talked about my 86th mistake - the story of the air hostess who I tried to kiss without success. Today we move on to February of the same year, February 14th 2017.
As is the routine in this column, I begin with an apology to the person concerned, persons in this case because I was quite prolific on that date. To keep the overall tally lower, am combining the 3 stories of that date into one, to be known as the 87th.
It began with breakfast. The lady who brought my food to the room asked me to enjoy my breakfast. We all know what that means. But strangely enough, she ran away when I tried to take the initiative. Women can be quite moody, I wrote in my journal.
I was scheduled to give an interview with an online magazine. I had set a calendar reminder to ask them to send me a photo of the interviewer before the interview. The photo came in and seemed of reasonable quality and one cannot be very picky if it's Valentine's day and you don't have a date with anyone other than your own wife.
She came in and I felt a sudden and electric connection, something I hadn't felt in hours - ever since the in room dining lady brought in breakfast that morning.
I gave her copies of my book in the right sequence - half girlfriend (would she be one?), one night at a call centre (what say?), what young india wants (obvious), the girl in room 105 (well, 503 in this case). She brushed off my moves and continued to persist with her irritating line of questioning about my new book. I spoke about the sex in my books and where I got ideas from to write that material. She seemed visibly uncomfortable and I was forced to try to massage her to make her feel better. She got up abruptly and left me alone in the room. She was married. she'd said, but then so was I. I saw this as a fundamental problem of inequality in the country where a man is ready to act on a connection he feels, but a woman is not. So much for women's liberation, I wrote in my journal.
Now when I think back on that day, I guess I was going through a phase in my life. One where I was feeling very attractive but somehow there were no results to show for the same. I continued to go through this phase till around 7 pm, just idly downloading stuff on the hotel wifi while waiting for the special connection to reappear.
The 3rd special connection was over dinner where I tried my luck with the hotel guests at the restaurant, especially two Israeli students who were in India on a holiday. But to no avail, got turned down even by the foreign women. Women really had a long way to go the world over - so much inhibition coming in the way of their progress.
As with my other columns, I again end this with the same plea to the anonymous women featured in today's column - you know who you are - feel free to reach out to me even now if interested (wink) - I have always believed connections last a lifetime.
As usual, I'm running this column past Anisha and the 86 women featured earlier just to make sure they are ok with it.
Till tomorrow then,
~C

It's ok to not have a TED talk

How many of you here have seen a blue monkey? That's 3...4...I see 5 hands. That's at least 3 people. What if I tell you that I first saw a blue monkey when I was 8 years old? Hard to believe, right? It's true.
Anyway, moving on. I come from one of those orthodox families, y'now (snickers from the crowd)...When I was 12, my dad told me something that I still recall vividly. Can't share it though, is a little private. But things got interesting when I turned 13, which was last year. Having been through what has been an absolute rollercoaster of a life, if there is one thing I have learnt, it is this. There are no hardware stores open past midnight in the village. (Hushed whispering)
So...I hailed a taxi last week, and somehow this memory has remained etched in my head. I hailed a taxi and the taxiwala refused. No warning, no pleasantries. Just a shake of the head (smiles). I'm sure this has happened to you as well (loud laughter). I had to take a bus but then that is another story. Little did I know then that this taxi refusal would change the course of my life altogether.
It is little things like this that make up one's weekday, isn't it? And then before you know it, it is the next day and I have to go to school yet again. Unless it is Friday, in which case the next two days would be off. Am sure anyone who has a weekend kinda schedule here would be able to relate to this, right? (Nods all around)
So today, I think back to that day, to that innocent young 13 year old, uncertain about his future, waiting at the bus stop and I would like to tell him just one thing. It can be anything as long as the overall set of things amounts to one - more than that would just confuse him I feel, he's just 13 after all.
And today, I tell you all the same one thing. Live life, look for blue monkeys, die, relive, love, burp, brush, quit your job, dance like no one is listening, get your heart broken, get your liver transplanted on a priority basis. And one day, when all is done, when the storm settles, you just might have your own Ted talk. Thank you all (applause and standing ovation)