Conan, The Dog and Arnab, the patriot
Great ideas are hatched in the middle of great cities, but the best idea of this century was hatched in Kulanada, a hamlet in communist Kerala. Two floods had come and gone without the media being bothered to show up. But when the comrades of Kulanada got together and decided to build a shrine to Conan, the Dog, the journalists from Delhi started dropping from the skies. As I said, it was the greatest idea of the century.

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“Fucking nuke them.” Donald Trump shouted into the phone.
“Sir, you can’t nuke India.”
“Why? Why can’t I nuke them?”
“Because it is fucking India. Listen, if you even mention nuking again, not just India, any place for that matter, I will quit.”
“No problem.” Donald Trump said.
“So no nuking, then?”
“No. You quit.” Donald Trump said.
“Hey, fucker. If I leave, the whole secretary pool goes with me. Stacey leaves too. Whose pussy are you gonna grab in the evening, fucker?”
“What about Rachel?” Donald Trump asked.
“She goes too.”
“Fuck.” Donald Trump said, adding, “Ok. Call up Nathaniel Modi. I will solve this through words and shit.”
“It’s…Nevermind.”

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“Listen, Nattie, what will you take to kill everyone who came up with this idea of a temple for Conan the Dog?”
“If it were a church or a mosque, I would have done it for free. How do you say it in English? Pro-bono. But a temple, sorry, my govt. can’t put a price on that regardless of who they worship there.”
“What if, in tomorrow’s news, our govt. confirms that your surgical strikes were real?”
“What time do you want them dead? I will get my best guy on it.”
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Arnab Goswamy’s neck veins were visible, and his face was flush red.
“But now these communists bootlickers want temples? And for Conan, the Dog? Who the fuck is Conan, the Dog? It is an American dog. The dog did not pull the trigger. Baghdadi blew himself up.The dog just barked. Woof. Woof. Bow bow. Why should anyone get a temple for just barking? Anyone can do that. I don’t mean to brag here. But I can do a lot more than that. And no one has offered to build a temple for me.”
The panel expert weighed in with, “This just goes on to prove what we have always known about the Communists. They are anti-meritorious egalitarians who don’t understand how funny they sound. You, Arnab, are a no-nonsense go-getter. And communists hate high achievers like yourself. And that is why the Stalinists will never build a temple for you.”
Someone had to play the devil’s advocate here, so the RSS expert weighed in, “I can’t bring myself to disagree with someone’s right to worship what they want.”
Everyone laughed. It was a good joke.
Arnab asked, “ What about the Christians and…”
“Not them.” The RSS expert said.
“Why not? There are good Christians in the mix too.”
The lights suddenly went out.
“What the fuck?” Arnab shouted on live TV.
“What the fuck, Charlie. Bring this shit up.”
The lights returned.
“I apologise to our viewers for the blackout. Our engineers are still figuring out what happened.”
“It was almost as if,” the panel expert said, “the blackout happened when you said there are good Christians.”
The lights went out again.
“Charlie. You son-of-a-Christian-bitch.”
The lights returned.
“Ok. I know what it looks like, but I can assure your viewers that the power outages in this building have nothing to do with us saying there are good Christians.”
The lights went out again.
“You beef-eating-Malayalee motherfucker.”
The lights returned.
“I think,” Arnab said, “we should just refrain from using the C word for the rest of the evening.”

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Over the coming days, many news anchors put in the work for their money and repeated over and over again why the temple should be for Conan the Dog and not for Arnab the patriot. As usual, with the nine o clock news, there were many bloopers. One expert on the panel had said Conan the Patriot and Arnab the Dog. No biggie. But some people of the left tendency went to town with it, hashtagging it #woofwoof. And the war by the media continued to claim more and more reputations, and looking at the mists of war, the experts were undecided as to who would emerge victorious.
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The comrades at Kulanada gathered around a flagpole with their party flag being beaten around by the wind. Since no one knew the words to the Comintern Internationale, they played the song on someone’s phone and stood at attention. The autoplay option was on and youtube kept seamlessly moving onto the next song without informing the comrades who stood in the heat and the dust for the next four hours until one of the young comrades worked up the courage to say that he was pretty sure the song currently playing was the Borat’s version of the Kazhakistan National anthem.
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The video of the members of the Kulanada Revolutionary Party standing at attention to the Kazhakistan National Anthem made it to the nine o clock news again.
“It is shameful,” Arnab Gowswamy said, “How dare they demean India like this. I get it. They don’t think I deserve the respect they give to Conan, the patriot. I mean Conan theDog.”
Someone could be heard laughing in the back.
“But this. Kazhakistan is the greatest country in the world. All other countries are like little girls. That means us, doesn’t it? These Soviet-bootlickers mean to tell us we are like little girls?”
“Well, little girls have a better sense of clothing and don’t take offense on being called little girls,” a feminist weighed in.
“Yap. Yap.” Arnab said. “When was the last time a little girl or a grown-up girl for that matter did anything worthwhile?”
The feminist leaned close to the microphone and said, “Indira Gandhi, motherfucker.”
The lights went out. The building shook a little. A part of the ceiling fell onto the floor.
By the time the lights came up again, Arnab’s eyes were red with fear.
“Where were we?” He asked rustling papers.
“You were asking me if you were a little girl.” The feminist said.
“Also I tried to confirm from the internet if Kazhakistan is the greatest exporter of potassium.” The expert was saying, his voice already distant and useless, “Seems like no one has data on that. Mostly an unregulated market, I think.”
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In the end, it was a contest between a small group of committed citizens and the Indian govt. And like every other time the Indian govt. won. A lot of arrests were made on the pretext of anti-national sloganeering. Sedition cases were slapped on all the comrades who had stood up for the Kazhakistan National Anthem. Some Hindu groups claimed that Arjuna, during one of his hunting expeditions, had slept on the same land, and thus there was no question of letting anyone build a temple to Conan, the Dog there. They moved onto the ground, placed a small rock figurine in the middle, and proclaimed that the contest was over, and as soon as they were leaving one of the more muscular communists flung the figurine over not a small distance which hit one of the journalists from Delhi on his head who, pardon my words, cried like a little girl. That piece of news went viral and the army had to move into Kulanada to prevent further acts of aggression against journalists. The army came with machine guns and the rebellion for Conan, the Dog was stamped out.
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Trump announced that he had heard with a lot of pain that the temple for Conan, the Dog would not be built in India. India is a democratic country, and he had no business telling Nathaniel what to do on his land. But Conan, the Patriot, would be honored. He had decided, subject to the Congress’s approval to put up the picture of Conan, the Dog on the wall of the senate building. The journalists, even the ones from CNN, clapped at that.
India announced that in light of the recent Communist attacks on journalists, they were going to show their appreciation for the press by honoring their best, by which they meant Arnab Gowswami.

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The coincidence was that both the photos of Conan the Dog, and Arnab, the patriot were hung on the walls at around the same time.
