It’s just rape as usualSpeaking at the annual convocation of the Indian Rape Research Institute, the minister for rape of state (sorry, the minister of state for rape) was categorical. He waved his index finger seriously at the crowd “we will not take this lying down..”. One of his secretaries promptly got up and nervously whispered something into the minister’s ear. The minister retracted, somewhat embarrassed “what I meant was that we will not tolerate this”. The minister then went on to enumerate the cases of rape that had happened since the last month, in each state. “This month due to our efforts we have done better. There has been a 0.003% decline in rape incidents since the last month. Last month we had 124.56 rapes and this month the figure has fallen to 124.55 already. Very soon we hope to get to 124.40”, said the minister, his eyes moist at the tantalising prospect. Just a few months ago, he was hand-picked by the high command. The high command wanted someone with first-hand experience and after all the MP’s qualified, she zeroed down on the present incumbent. After all he was the home minister’s wife’s brother’s wife’s elder brother’s youngest son. Also, starting small with a few eve-teasing incidents, he now had a 45% market share of rapes in his constituency. On the first day of assuming office he had called his secretary, 11 additional secretaries, 23 under secretaries and, after they had felt left-out, the 56 joint secretaries. They looked peeved. They were only allowed to bring one personal assistant each and the Samosa’s


A popular Indian snack Suffix “Ji” used to denote respect Hindi for brother