Disclaimer: All names, characters and incidents mentioned in this column, however believable, are entirely satirical. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, organisations and products is intended or should be inferred

In a couple of exclusive interviews given to his future colleagues, India’s most reluctant interviewee confirms that he has no plans to change the Preamble to the Constitution since he is yet to read it. His veiled monologues go on to dismiss compilations of claims made by him in 2014 and 2019 as deepfake propaganda funded by Messrs A & A besides outlining his personal goals of spending more time performing yoga than sleeping over the next five years.

Meanwhile, a pan-India survey conducted by DemoCrazy reveals the five things (in no particular order) that make Indians happiest during election season — watching politicians state ‘facts’ they cannot utter themselves (unless intoxicated), listening to Prannoy Roy explain numbers they cannot understand, choosing the perfect Instagram filter to show off their stained forefinger, discovering that their MP has only four criminal cases, and finding that one political meme that goes viral on all their WhatsApp groups.

Elsewhere, Indian student demonstrators across US universities have successfully lobbied LinkedIn to add ‘protesting’ and ‘sloganeering’ to the list of accepted skills on its platform.

Wondering what else happened as you debated whether resisting your parents’ wishes makes you a bonafide protester? Here’s presenting the top stories from the week that should have been.

May 6

“Tom (Holland) only saw my tennis scenes in Challengers,” says Zendaya on the red carpet of the Met Gala TT archives

• In keeping with the spirit of her character in Challengers, Zendaya wears two outfits at the same time to the Annual Congress of Capitalism on Shrooms (also known as the Met Gala).
• Beating stiff competition from images of Palestinian mothers wailing over the dead bodies of their infants and Ukrainian soldiers wading through the ravages of war, a picture of Alia Bhatt’s kaala teeka (to ward off unwanted sponsors) at the Met Gala wins the award for the World Press Photo of the Year.

May 7

Xi Jinping gets annoyed at Chinese researchers who inform him that cultural liberty, not wine, is the secret behind French creativity TT archives

• Xi Jinping contemplates political retirement on his visit to France after four glasses of wine and four pages (translated) each of Marcel Proust and Albert Camus. But the Chinese leader, set to be premier until the onset of Marxist utopia, eventually snaps out of his reverie, proposing to finance 121 Eiffel Towers across France as long as Emmanuel Macron, French President until he can become a full-time public speaker, continues to insult NATO.

• In another instance of women empowerment in Saudi Arabia, dating apps can now function legally in the Kingdom as long as each female user nominates a male chaperon to accompany them on every date.

May 8

The KKC suggests that Rabindranath Tagore’s barber was closer to him than Kadambari Devi TT archives

• On Rabindra Jayanti, dozens of Kolkatans unite to form the Kabiguru Koutuhol Club (KKC), which has three foundational aims — to unearth whether Tagore preferred chingri to ilish, to study the exact length of Tagore’s beard and how he groomed it, and to document the total number of women who bro-zoned the Nobel Laureate.

• Hundreds of middle-class parents in India, whose children have recorded percentages higher than Virat Kohli’s IPL strike rate, feel they have been robbed of their life’s purpose after the Council for the Indian School of Conformist Education (CISCE) discontinues the publication of merit lists for classes X and XII.

May 9

Asked about his favourite co-star in the Harry Potter series, Daniel Radcliffe replies immediately: “Dobby.” TT archives

• In a detailed interview with The Atlantic, Daniel Radcliffe shares that the weirdest side-effect of playing Harry Potter was dates rejecting him because “I didn’t have a scar in real life”.

• Following a stand-up comic’s attempt to mimic him on national television, Karan Johar files a case of copyright infringement, claiming he has the “sole right to mock Bollywood celebrities in public”.

May 10

A leaked memo from BCCI shows that a last-minute change was made to the Indian jersey after Adidas refused to substitute its logo with the national flower TT archives

• Ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, Adidas launches a special colour-shifting kit for Team India. Everytime India wins a match at the World Cup, the percentage of orange in the jersey will go up by 10 per cent, reducing by the same amount every time India loses.

• Following his release on interim bail, the country’s most beleaguered chief minister tells the media that he is looking forward to returning to jail next month so that he can carry out the duties of his political office in peace without having to meet any of his colleagues.