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.
On International Second Sex Day, let us acknowledge the efforts of the chronically overwatched and underheard, who diligently ignore the faults of god’s privileged sex to gossip about their own kind. While professional inequality between the genders is steadily reducing (as confirmed by occasional sightings of sanitary napkins in the washrooms of select MNCs), the emotional gulf only gets wider, with most grown men requiring mothering more than money.
Meanwhile, male founders of dozens of unicorns in the West make way for women to lead their companies for 12 hours (16 for women who don’t have to cook dinner). An incensed Jordan Peterson stops writing his new book, Bigoted Biology, to call out these billionaire men for “naively surrendering their position in the evolutionary hierarchy”. As for the employees, they feel a gush of relief on seeing no “vision alignment” Zoom meetings scheduled during lunch hours.
Elsewhere, a pan-India survey finds that more than 83 per cent of men are more interested in understanding the swing of a cricket ball than the mood swings of the women in their lives.
Wondering what else happened as you realised that you know more female therapists than friends? Here’s presenting the top stories from the week that should have been.
March 3
Jeff Bezos feels that The Washington Toast is in desperate need of better designers for its advertorials Getty Images
- Jeff Bezos declares that reporters at The Washington Toast (which has a new tagline: “Democracy dies in debate”) “will not be allowed to take more than two toilet and/or smoking breaks in a day so that our esteemed newspaper can hit its daily target of 163 stories in praise of the free market”.
- With Don Donald pausing aid to Ukraine until Volodymyr Zelensky lends Trump his personal stylist, the European Union promises “non-stop commitment to the protection of Ukrainian sovereignty by way of narrative building and digital solidarity in order to preserve Ukrainian rare earths for the greater good of all of Europe”.
March 4
DOGE’s physical stores will have a six-hour live feed of Elon Musk going about his day in improving efficiency, broadcast on a giant screen Getty Images
- A portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars saved from the rapid rollback of the US Agency for International Dependence (USAID) will be spent on manufacturing DOGE merchandise and setting up international stores to “promote the efficiency of DOGE worldwide”, including limited edition Elon Musk action figures holding a chainsaw.
- India’s most serious court diligently watches hours of footage of Samay Raina and Tequila Triceps, before instructing both “young, oversmart men” to issue a public apology to the entire nation by conducting a live roast of each other.
March 5
Only those who can prove to have listened to every one of Meghan Markle’s podcasts are allowed a place as guests on Markle’s Netflix show Getty Images
- Meghan Markle’s new show, With Judgement, Meghan, storms to the top of Netflix’s streaming charts with a simple but addictive formula — Meghan invites strangers to have coffee with her in a rented castle while casually spilling tea about the royal family. Among the details divulged so far are — the exact art of putting toothpaste on a toothbrush by a royal butler, Kate Middleton’s real height, Prince Andrew’s favourite kindergarten, Prince Harry’s list of private tutors, and the royal stallion famous for being the only creature capable of pleasing the late Elizabeth II.
- Hours after turning heel (when a professional wrestler starts pandering to adult men instead of their kids), John Cena receives seven different offers from Hollywood to play a Navy SEAL-turned-KGB informant.
March 6
ChatGPT seems to give more positive reviews to employees who never ask it mathematical questions Getty Images
- Dozens of Bengaluru start-ups resort to ChatGPT for taking the final calls on annual appraisals, leading to some unusual results, as the software showers preferential treatment on those who regularly frame their prompts with “please” and “thank you”.
- On his visit to Vantara to upgrade his understanding of the law of the jungle, the country’s prime wildlife enthusiast is miffed to see that lions are more photogenic than him before discovering that he can speak parseltongue after all.
March 7
“My body type isn’t woh, it’s woh, so we’ve got more woh in the team because of that,” says Rohit Sharma ahead of the Champions Trophy final Getty Images
- State-of-the-art men’s fitness centres that did not exist until they got a call from Ritika Sajdeh tweet in unison about how Rohit Sharma’s body has the ideal fat percentage for the male anatomy given India’s challenging climate.
- Countering allegations of favouritism towards India, the Impartial Cricket Council (ICC) will present a special award to New Zealand following Sunday’s Champions Trophy Final for being the most prolific travellers during the tournament.