Why can't Kejriwal get rid of his shawl in the Delhi' summer? Does Sonia G reshuffle her Cabinet with a little help from Britney Spears? Is Modi's favourite movie "The Lion King"? And what enrages Manmohan Singh?
Queries such as these are not ones that are sought to be answered on prime time debates in the run-up to the elections but 'unreal' questions about the ongoing General Elections, emerging from actual reports of scams and rhetorical faux pas, documented in a new book.
"Unreal Elections" published by Penguin is a brainchild of a pair of engineers-cum-MBAs-turned-political spoofers - C S Krishna and Karthik Laxman, who run the satirical portal The UnRealTimes.Com.
After three years of writing spoofs on Indian politics, the duo decided to pen down a hilarious account of 'unreal' yet 'somewhat real' facts and anecdotes about the ongoing biggest political saga in the country.
"Writing Unreal Times gave us not only a better understanding of the politics of our country but also skilled us in the art of writing spoofs without getting into legal hassles," Krishna told PTI.
I observed there are so many real facts about the elections which are ignored in public domain and so many unreal facts which are viral out there. Hence for the public, the line between 'real' and 'unreal' is little blurred amidst an overdose of information from all mediums, he said.
Even if politics isn't your favourite topic, you will still be able to get the gist of the book's plot as it takes you through the political developments of the last few years and has hilarious 'unreal' conversations between the 'real' political characters.
The events mentioned in the book are twisted to dwell on the backroom machinations and intrigue within various political parties, media houses and government bodies.
Some of the incidents discussed in the book include Arvind Kejriwal's scam-exposes, the DLF-Robert Vadra controversy, the ensuing damage control measures, the Coalgate scandal that rocked the Congress, Narendra Modi's rise to power, the Snoopgate controversy where Modi was accused of spying on a woman, and the Modi-Rahul Gandhi war of words, among others.
"We wanted to maintain the flavour of 'Unreal Times' writing style in the book but we got the book legally vetted too in order to ensure it hits the right target audience and makes a comic read and not an exposing read," Laxman said.
Since the social media has been adding an interesting dimension to the current polls, the book also has spoofs of political candidates' Facebook wall pages.
The book isn't just a comic saga about the politicos but also has spoofs on media persons including Rahul Kanval, Arnab Goswami, Sagarika Ghosh and Barkha Dutt among others, who are active in reporting and debating the turn of political events in the country throughout the year.
