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.
With 2025 designated to be the Year of the Snake, your exes may finally get the unenviable opportunity to see you smile. Nobody, though, should be smiling in the new year more than Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin, set to compete in the race for the planet’s apex predator. In other words, the race to slaughter as many people as possible to prove that their personal historian was right. As for the man whose calls neither of them has returned in 2024, 2025 is all about setting fresh golfing goals, as Joe Biden aspires to become the oldest war criminal in US history to have a negative handicap.
Meanwhile, the Republic of India turns 11 in 2025, a testament to an unwritten constitution based on unverified history dictated by unchecked power. No better time then to mainstream facts long suppressed by the manipulative might of a single hand — Edwina Mountbatten was the first PM of India, INA officers only ever wore khaki shorts, VD Savarkar possessed more quips against the British than MK Gandhi, and many more.
Elsewhere, for those entering a new year without alcohol or affection (or both), here are five fun things you can do to ensure your first meeting of next year is not with your therapist — prank call your crush as an insurance agent, send anonymous Zoom invites to your colleagues, play truth or dare with ChatGPT, ride pillion with a Swiggy delivery boy, and sleep until your parents (and pets) disown you.
Wondering what the whole of 2025 has in store as you resolve to lose more kilos than friends over the next 12 months? Here’s presenting 25 predictions for the year that should be.
January
Donald Trump is adamant to impose a wealth tax on the “1 per cent of the 1 per cent” and has hailed Bernie Sanders as my “the new first bro of my administration” Getty Images
- Less than 16 hours after his inauguration as US President, Donald Trump comes to blows with Elon Musk during a heated argument on who should be America’s first-ever minister of memes. In the aftermath of the scuffle, an incensed Trump, somehow restrained by 18 cans of Coke, promises to “deport this African back to Pretorburg, or wherever the hell he came from”.
- A tearful Justin Trudeau submits his resignation as Prime Minister of Canada after taking a long walk in the snow in his latest trench coat and not finding a single paparazzo around.
February
Rohit Sharma and his family have rejected shifting to London after not being satisfied with the city’s quality of vada pav shops Getty Images
- Forced to transition into his “natural role” of a finisher in order to undo the Mahendra Singh Dhoni effect on him, Rohit Sharma retires from international cricket midway through the ICC Champions Trophy. When asked to explain his retirement, Sharma triggers a social media investigation by saying: “Woh aur uska woh (that person and his that).”
- Delhi’s returning chief minister and India’s most prolific cougher chooses to govern from his favourite cell in Tihar on account of a much lower AQI.
March
“The most dangerous man in Germany’s modern history is not Adolf Hitler. It’s Karl Marx,” suggests AfD leader Alice Weidel Getty Images
- The Alternative for Germany (AfD) cruises to power in Germany a fortnight after a survey shows that 56% of Germans in their 20s and 30s mistake Adolf Hitler for Charlie Chaplin.
- NATO formally inducts Ukraine as a full member following a threat by key members of its standing army of content creators that they would not renew their Instagram contracts unless they are assured regular access to Volodymyr Zelensky.
April
Salman Khan and his team have been working overtime to get Lawrence Bishnoi on ‘Bigg Boss’ so that they can finally track his location Getty Images
- Close-up shots of Salman Khan’s bracelet propel Sikandar past Rs 500 crore at the box office, even as the actor fails to shoot for the film owing to his Bigg Boss commitments.
- Superman, arguably the most anticipated movie of the year, is shelved indefinitely, after the World’s Wokest Worriers (WWW) raise objections against “the depiction of a moral hero for kids in his underwear”.
May
“The biggest mistake of my life was adding my ex-wife’s name to my image-enhancement venture,” confesses Bill Gates in ‘Source Code’ Getty Images
- In Source Code, his least boring book till date, Bill Gates makes three startling revelations — Gates named his company Microsoft because he wanted to overcome his sexual insecurities, Gates used to take training sessions from Steve Jobs on how to shout better at his colleagues, and Gates is obsessed with tracking his movements on the Forbes list of richest grandads.
- The shooting for the eagerly awaited Harry Potter TV series falls into disarray as no less than 12 cast members express their desire to transition from the genders in which they were originally cast.
June
The Eras Tour goes to Andorra, Sri Lanka, Peru and 13 other countries in 2025 that Swift has never heard of and which, in turn, have never heard of Travis Kelce Getty Images
- Taylor Swift takes a six-month break from performing or recording, exhausted from singing lullabies for Travis Kelce. ChatGPT teams up with Swift’s entourage to create AI holograms that ensure the next leg of the Eras Tour continues unabated.
- In an attempt to incentivise European clubs to participate in the newly expanded Club World Cup, FIFA declares free passage to the quarter-finals of next season’s UEFA Champions League for whichever European team ultimately shows up and wins the tournament.
July
Children in Gaza have started getting panic attacks if they do not hear a gunshot for more than a few hours Getty Images
- Most Instactivists who cannot locate Gaza on the map lose their motivation for the Palestinian cause thanks to a video of Taria, a 13-year-old girl from Tel Aviv who lost both her legs as a result of the October 7 massacre in 2023. Sympathies for Taria pour in despite the New York Times scoop that Mossad had hired five AI video editors days before Taria’s clip became viral.
- In a shocking but not entirely surprising finding by Know Your Daddy, an NGO comprising Indian women under 30, Indian middle-class fathers reportedly speak eight times more with their watchmen than with their daughters.
August
“I thought I paid my dues at the Oscars, but apparently not,” sighs John Cena Getty Images
- John Cena retires from WWE to try his luck as a full-time rapper, only to be cancelled on TikTok for not having endured sufficient trauma to earn the right to rap.
- In the most reshared conversation of the year, BeerBiceps asks tough questions to India’s Prime Influencer on the eve of Independence Day, obtaining never-before insights on sleeping, breathing, hugging and forgetting.
September
‘Sanskaar’ documents how Nita Ambani had memorised 154 different shlokas ahead of Mumbai Indians’ 2013 IPL campaign, which saw them become champions for the first time Getty Images
- Nita Ambani writes, directs and stars in Sanskaar, the story of how a billionaire bahu escapes the trappings of wealth to revive India’s civilisational culture. Produced by Jio Studios, the 518-minute film is chosen as India’s official entry to the Oscars.
- India formally submits its bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games at the Jio World Centre, proposing to introduce the sport of cross-floor relay, which would be conducted inside the planet’s largest elevator.
October
Visiting faculty from Madrid, Milan and Santiago will train youngsters in Kolkata on how to brew the best coffee depending on palate, place and pocket pinch Getty Images
- Underlining its status as the cafe capital of the country, six private colleges in Kolkata (located within a 10km radius) begin PhD programmes for baristas.
- With the launch of StrollMate, an app that matches you with walkers as you sidestep traffic en route to work, Bengaluru becomes the first city in the world to have more start-ups than registered vehicles.
November
Hundreds of activists arrive in Belem on first-class tickets only to find that there is nobody to protest against at COP-OUT 30 Getty Images
- COP-OUT 30 in Brazil’s Belem is reduced to a valedictorian ceremony for Ivy League graduates as lobbyists for big oil back out, unenthused by the prospects of Belem’s nightlife.
- Salman Rushdie loses out to Quillbot for the Nobel Prize in Literature despite long, single-eyed stares at each member of the prize committee at multiple literary festivals.
- Muhammad Yunus resigns as the caretaker of the government in Bangladesh, “shattered” by his nation’s inability to secure The Economist’s ‘Country of the Year’ award for the second successive time. The honour eventually goes to Syria whose “government of rebels have successfully found the middle path between the Taliban and Hamas”.
December
“When I’m depressed, I only talk to Katrina [Kaif], not even Ranbir [Kapoor],” shares Alia Bhatt on her new show Getty Images
- After Alpha tanks at the box office, Alia Bhatt makes her TV debut in Can’t Keep Up with the Kapoors, where she interviews all of Ranbir Kapoor’s cousins about the women he has dated.
- Calling herself the “goongi gudiya of Bollywood”, Kangana Ranaut waits all year for Emergency (Ranaut’s Indira Gandhi biopic) to release, before screening it exclusively for “India’s first family”. Hinting at a change of political allegiance, a cryptic Ranaut leaves the screening by telling the media: “I always knew I was better than Priyanka.”