Pushuka's Forecast for January...

I know... the title sounds totally unimaginative. Personally, I wanted to name the post "The Revenge of the Flying Panda" just for the heck of it, but then I thought to myself, "Pushkar, you spent the whole of last year lost in total frivolity. At least make an attempt to begin this year with some seriousness..." It's with this most noble thought in my mind that I proceeded to name my post. These are my thoughts (in all seriousness) on how January is going to shape up for all of us...

Indian cricket team lands in Pakistan amid much fanfare. Pakistan choose to bat first in the first test and Ganguly gets a start for India, confounding every single cricket pundit. Inzamam manages to run all his partners out and a frenzied mob invades the pitch. Surprisingly, Inzamam and Ganguly are the only players injured in the ensuing melee... Inzamam with a few scratches on his left cheek and Ganguly with two black eyes and swollen cheeks. Pakistani police find a total of 58625 distinct fingerprints on Ganguly's person, the exact same number as the crowd strength at the stadium. Police however, fail to make the connection and Musharraf blames the violence on "foreign forces" and calls for a UN resolution on Kashmir. The series is called off, ICC declares India the winner and India move to No 1 in both test and ODI ratings. The developments shock Aussie skipper Ponting who retires from cricket and joins the Australian extreme skiing team.

Google Earth comes up with enhancements that allow user to view useful statistics about a place in addition to a detailed map. The very first statistic thrown up with a map of Bangalore is that there are exactly 1,398,624,821 potholes on the roads of Bangalore. Karnataka CM Dharam Singh blames Infosys boss Narayan Murthy for the pothole situation... and for the leaking faucet in his bathroom. Meanwhile, former PM of India and current wannabe-Karnataka-CM Deve Gowda somehow manages to use the piece of statistic to bolster his campaign against the proposed international airport and a noted Kannada activist publishes a technical paper proving that Bangalore could not have more than 2013 potholes if its name was Bengaluru. IEEE hails the paper as "the most significant socio-political work in the last 100 years" and the author is nominated for a Nobel prize in economics.

A tape surfaces showing the US president George "Dubya" Bush cheating on his high school math test. Dubya goes on record saying, "I didn't cheat because I wanted to, but because the good Lord wanted me to. The previous night I dreamed that God spoke to me. He said, "George, you need to cheat on tomorrow's math test. The future of America and the free world depend on it. I know you would never want to do such a dastardly deed, but you're doing it for the world..." and that's the only reason I cheated, much as I didn't want to..." Dubya's approval ratings jump 30 percent to reach an all-time high.

Well, that's pretty much all I can see in January as yet. I didn't ask to be able to see into the future, but since I do have the gift I feel duty-bound to share my gift with the rest of the world. So you can look forward to more forecasts from yours truly in the future... until later.. cheers .. :)