Humor Archives - Navin Kabra's Blog

What do Indians on the Internet think of various people

Today, while I was catching up with my RSS feeds in google reader (i.e. wasting time on the internet), I saw this cute map: The United States of Autocomplete. At this point, I decided that instead of wasting time reading other peoples’ blogs I would waste time writing my own blog. So I decided to see how some prominent Indian names/phrases fare under Google autocomplete.

All these results have been obtained by typing the first word or words in Google search and noting down what Google suggested as the first suggestion.

Tried some cities. Pune university. Bombay high court. Delhi metro. Chennai rain. Trivandrum airport. So, apparently, people in Pune are studious, in Bombay they are litigative, and in Trivandrum, they’re just trying to get out.

Politicians were more interesting:

“Sonia Gandhi biography”. Really? That’s what people find most interesting about her? I was vaguely dissatisfied, so I looked at the remain suggestions, and was further appalled: “Sonia Gandhi hot”, “Sonia Gandhi photos”. Yikes! The internet sure has some weirdos. And the next was “Sonia Gandhi address.” I hope CBI is taking note.
Rahul Gandhi girlfrield. Yep! Even after so many years, people are primarily concerned about that. No wonder he fared so badly in Bihar.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee poems. Poor guy. After all he’d done, he’s going to be remembered as the PM who used to quote poems in parliament.
Suresh Kalmadi Jokes. Not surprised!
Sharad Pawar international school. Also Sharad Pawar college of pharmacy. Followed by Sharad Pawar cancer.
Raj Thackeray ringtones. Yup, really, that’s the second suggestion. Scary!
Shashi Tharoor weds Sunanda Puskhar.

I decided to move on to media:

Arnab Goswami is a moron. Ok I cheated a little. The first result is “Arnab Goswami twitter.” But I swear the 4th result is “Arnab Goswami is a moron.”
Rajdeep Sardesai salary. (Actually the first three results were “blog”, “twitter”, and “email”, but it’s interesting that so many people are interested in his salary.)
Udayan Mukherjee wife. Poor guy. How prominent does a guy have to be before people start taking an interest in him and not his wife?
Barkha Dutt Husband. After all the #barkhagate and #radiatapes affairs, this is the top search on Google?!

I was sure Bollywood would generate some interesting ones. So here they are:

Deepika Padukone in bikini.
Gul Panag hot videos. All her intelligent conversations on twitter haven’t helped.
Kajol baby boy. Ouch!
For most actors (Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor the first three results were “twitter”, or “biography”, or “blog”.)
Rakhi Sawant is a man. Obviously this wasn’t the first suggestion, but really, there are people searching for this phrase?!
Raju Hirani next. Wow. That, If a majority of the people on the internet are wondering what is your next project, that is a major achievement

You have any interesting ones to add to this list?

(Random FYI: “Navin Kabra” gets “old songs” as a suggested completion.)

The Onion’s “obligatory” green issue

The Onion has one more brilliant issue out that is filled with gems. Here is a selection of articles from this “obligatory” green issue that I liked:

World Covers Ears, Chants Loudly As EPA Releases Ozone-Depletion Statistics
450,000 Unsold Earth Day Issues Of Time Trucked To Landfill
Small, Dedicated Group Of Concerned Citizens Fails To Change World
Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others

And this one is not really about the environment, but…
Middle East Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.

The issue in which the Onion reported on the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US remains one of my favorites. The Onion did a much better job of capturing things than the mainstream media.

And, Our Dumb Century is a masterpiece that is a must read for anyone intererested in a cynical, satirical, and very funny look at the events of the 20th Century.

Wayward Alzheimer’s patients foiled by fake bus stop

Image by M@rg via FlickrDo you sometimes forget what you were just going to do? Alzheimer’s patients are like this all the time. They have decent long term memory but their short term memory is pretty bad. This does lead to many problems for the people who are taking care of them.

The Telegraph has this bittersweet article about a Alzheimer’s nursing home which had to come up with a creative way to prevent the patients from trying to take a bus home:

the centre was forced to rely on police to retrieve patients who wanted to return to their homes and families but had forgotten that in many cases neither existed any longer.

When asked to suggest a solution to this problem, I’m sure most people will think of compound walls and locked gates. They have come up with a much sweeter solution. Just outside the home, they created a fake bus stop. It looks like a regular bus stop with all the appropriate signs. With the small difference that no bus actually comes there.

“It sounds funny,” said Old Lions Chairman Franz-Josef Goebel, “but it helps. Our members are 84 years-old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works at all, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home.” The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.

“We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later today and invite them in to the home for a coffee,” said Mr Neureither. “Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave.” The idea has proved so successful that it has now been adopted by several other homes across Germany.

See full article (found here)