Bad news: an unmanned spaceship crashed into my kitchen garden last night. It flattened my precious, red-hot tomato crop, which I was hoping to sell 'in black' among my neighbours. Good news: in the wreckage, I found a letter written by none other than the Martian PM. I first translated it into my mother tongue (Punjabi) and then into my bread-and-butter tongue (English). Here it goes:
Dear Indians,
Greetings from the Red Planet. This is the Prime Minister, Mr Nota. My original name is AlphaQ, but I changed it after our Election Commission decided to include 'none of the above' (Nota) as an option on the EVM. My new name worked like magic: all the disgruntled citizens pressed the Nota button and ended up voting for me. I'm sure many politicians among you would love to try this trick in your parliamentary polls next year. Best of luck!
My prime motive for writing this letter is to congratulate you on launching Mangalyaan. It's indeed a great achievement for a country that's neck-deep in corruption and poverty. What a relief it must be to fly millions of kilometres above such earthly problems. But here's a revelation that will startle you: people from your country are already living here. We have hordes of illegal immigrants, mostly from the vibrant state of Punjab.
Having occupied all corners of the earth, it was quite natural for them to venture into outer space. We have allowed them to stay on because we need them for all kinds of jobs, from driving taxis to making babies. Ours is an underpopulated planet, but the figures are improving, thanks to Indian penetration. If you are wondering how all these guys made it to Mars without ISRO support, contact your nearest travel agent, the one who operates from the basement without a licence.
{{/usCountry}}Having occupied all corners of the earth, it was quite natural for them to venture into outer space. We have allowed them to stay on because we need them for all kinds of jobs, from driving taxis to making babies. Ours is an underpopulated planet, but the figures are improving, thanks to Indian penetration. If you are wondering how all these guys made it to Mars without ISRO support, contact your nearest travel agent, the one who operates from the basement without a licence.
{{/usCountry}}I take this opportunity to salute your baby-faced God, Sachin Tendulkar, who has sadly retired at the tender age of 40. No, I'm not being sarcastic. In terms of Martian years, Sachin is barely 20 and could have easily played for another three earthly decades (and then retired along with his son Arjun). Since the Master Blaster is not of much use in your Rajya Sabha, I proudly offer him the post of our sports minister. My cabinet is full of scam-tainted ministers, and I badly need someone with a squeaky-clean image, a la Sachin.
If everything goes according to your plan, Mangalyaan would enter our orbit in September 2014. By that time, India would most probably have a new PM. I wonder whether it would be NaMo (Narendra Modi), RaGa (Rahul Gandhi), NiKu (Nitish Kumar) or Nota (that's me!). But I'm not entirely counting out MaSi (Manmohan Singh) who, unlike Sachin, is yet to announce his retirement. After all, he's just around 40, as per the Martian clock. And the fact that he has been ranked the world's most powerful Sikh must have added at least 20 years to his already long life.
Whoever it will be in the hot seat, we Martians look forward to cordial interplanetary ties. We are not like the other Reds (the Chinese) who irritate you with repeated incursions and intrusions. We will simply go for an all-out, one-time invasion of India. See you then, Mr Nota/AlphaQ.