Jul 31st, 2012

B.A.D Horror(!)Scopes – August, 2012

Aries (March 21^st – how long it takes to boil an egg)
You’ve been feeling an increasing need to smack a loved one upside the head. When you do attempt to fulfill this desire, make sure you have an alibi and some fool ready to take the fall for you. For the right price we are willing to lend you our top B.A.D Scapegoat if you wish.

Taurus (August 20^th – next Wednesday)
This month you will get rejected from the Hogwarts School of Magic and Tomfoolery. Don’t despair! The B.A.D School for the Failed Arts will be more than willing to take you in. Our graduates include a long list of failed magicians including David Plain, the old lady from Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Chris Fatal the All-Round Freak.

Gemini (May 21^st – let’s think about this…)
This month you will discover the secret to happiness and here it is: avoid assholes! This will only work however if you are not an asshole yourself. Good luck buddy!

Cancer (June 21^st – well if you don’t know should you be reading this?)
You are a wonderful person who can bring an incredible amount of joy to people. Unfortunately none of these people are here with us on Earth. The people of Earth tend to mistake your kindness for weakness. Best to kick them where it hurts rather than to be treated like a fool.

Leo (July 23^rd- Forever)
If you are alive, you might or not might enjoy a birthday this month. Your friends will be incredibly generous this year. They will arrange a big birthday bash in your honor but will forget to invite you. Try to forgive them their trespasses. After all, you have been stealing all of their birthday gifts throughout your entire life!

Virgo (August 23^rd – I don’t know…)
You will be making a very special visit to the cinema this month with someone who will soon become quite unforgettable. The 3D special effects will sadly be too much for your bladder and you will end up making a horrible mistake. Your new nick name “Pipi Susu”, given to you by your date,  will give you and your psychotherapist much to talk about in the years to come.

Libra (September 23^rd – the time takes for an ice cube melts slowly)
You will be inspired by the Olympics this month and will end up joining the local swim team. Unfortunately they specialize in synchronized swimming and the only slot available is for the mascot. On the plus side you will look adorable in your new dolphin costume and as long as you don’t free Willy, you’ll be a great hit!

Scorpio (October 23^rd – the ending of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy)
This month you will keep the dream alive by sleeping throughout most of it. People will begin to worry but fear not, your great epiphany is on its way!

Sagittarius (November 22^nd – next Tuesday)
Julia Roberts will appear to you in a vision this month and demand that you give her your last donut! Do not give in! She can buy her own damn Donuts!  You should probably also think about cutting back on the hallucinogens.

Capricorn (December 22^nd – January 19^th)
You will win a lot of money at Poker this month. Unfortunately, since gambling is a sin your soul will go to hell. It would be best for you to forward your winnings to us at B.A.D Magazine. We have already resigned ourselves to our fate and are working on arrangements for a nice little torture cell overlooking the lakes of fire.

Aquarius (January 29^th – your boss tells you)
A fish will jump out of the ocean a slap you across your face this month. You should think about what you might have done to deserve that. Don’t worry! We are still proud of you. You must have been very B.A.D indeed!

Pisces (February 19^th – a blue moon)
Your teacher is planning a surprise test for your class this month. Judging from your track record at school, it will probably surprise you the most. If all else fails you can always work for us at B.A.D. The pay might not be great, and the work isn’t good but at least there won’t be any surprises!

Sara Sultan is a painter and writer who can be found tweeting @SaraSultan1980

Jun 30th, 2012

JESUS VERSUS SANTA -THE TV TALKSHOW COUP OF ALL TIME

B.A.D. Magazine takes pleasure in introducing for the first time select chapters from Raja Changez Sultan’s latest book A NOBLE PRIZE AND A THOUSAND WIVES. Each chapter is written in the form of a letter to his daughter in which he delves on the good, the bad and the ugly from dinosaur days to the present – and indeed into the future. In each episode his contributions result in his winning the Noble Prize and a thousand wives and thereafter he ends up playing tennis on the Islamabad Tennis courts with his mentor, Razzaki. enjoy the read

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Dearest Muki,

You must have heard of good fighting evil, and evil fighting evil, but I bet you have never heard of good fighting good ever before! Well, you see recorded history has its drawbacks; it never tells you the whole story!

Back when the Savior was busy saving souls, there was Santa whizzing about with his reindeer and his army of elves spreading joy and happiness in the world. It was expected of both to do their bit lest the world rolled down a dark abyss, and so life went on year after year without much ado.

Then the unexpected happened, the TV talk shows became the order of the day, and as was customary, huge sums of money began being offered to all kinds of celebrities! The competition got tougher and if CBS’s anchor wanted anyone, then NBC’s anchor made sure it got some one else of equal stature and the ratings game continued. Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah and Moses had all appeared in the past, along with of course, Socrates, Plato, Ibne Khaldoon, Buddha, Aristotle, Homer and others!

Scary King and Soaprah Sinfree were then the dad and mum of talk shows. Their ratings were such that, when asked to be on their show, the Dalai Llama walked all the way from Tibet to New York so as not to miss an appearance.

Naturally the soul saving Jesus too was approached by both camps, but he kept politely declining on account of his busy schedule and also because he was terribly camera shy. Santa, on the other hand was no less a draw, but he too was an overworked jingler of joy and also, at his age, a bit past it.

The fixers for these shows kept on offering fantastic sums of money to both these stalwarts and were turned down each time, till one of the Sinfree guys lured Santa into a trap. He convinced a little blond girl to write him an e-mail saying that what she wished for that particular Christmas was that Santa should appear on the Show and spread goodwill among all men so that his message is heeded by believer and heathen alike! The granter of children’s wishes was left with no option but to agree!

Not to be outdone, Scary King’s henchmen spread the word that the great maestro needed his soul saved as he had decided to take leave of this world on air during his 3 000,000^th appearance. For that his last request was that Jesus to be his guest.

The ruse worked and Jesus was lured in!

As both Shows were pitched against each other and the audiences did not wish to miss either Jesus or Santa, everybody went and bought a second TV set and set both of them side by side!

Without realizing it, Scary King and Soaprah Sinfree had set up a competition between Jesus and Santa, and though neither of them had accepted any fee for their appearances, it was projected as the biggest match-up ever in the history of the boob tube – barring possibly the time Cleopatra had bared her boobies in a pre-announced program on Sinfree some years earlier and had thereafter married Caesar.

Anyway, the world was in for a rare treat! Pre-program sales of popcorn and nuts all over the developed and developing world broke all records as men, women and children, and their pets, huddled around TV screens and waited for the magic moment!

The shows went on air. Both were given due respect by their respective hosts and both had ample opportunity to bathe in the adulation showered on them by the audiences and both came out winners! The ratings put them neck and neck throughout and the newspaper reviews scored them equally.

But then, as time passed, everyone began to wonder who the bigger super hero was. In truth, both of them also began to wonder the same; here was one busy saving souls, and there was the other enriching the lives of all around, and the question unanswered remained as to who deserved the greater praise!

A media war began between the supporters of the two camps. Placards proclaiming JESUS IS MY HERO and SANTA FOR ME began being paraded all over town. Graffiti wars began; whole campaigns got launched to project their heroes, so much so that a time came when both were drawn into an election for the number 1 slot in the World Directory of the Who’s Who!

Here was a battle royale in the making! JESUS VRS SANTA the billboards read and the campaigns got in full swing! TV crews followed them everywhere, newspapermen began to hound them and the differences started being exploited. Jesus was labeled as a conservative, Santa a liberal. People were split into Democrats and Republicans and the war for supremacy got into full swing!

MATERIALIST they yelled at Santa. Jesus was labeled a JEW, not so because he descended from the Jews but more so because he was so miserly with his miracles! There was no holding back; the gloves were on and the ringside seats taken!

The venue of the Elections was Las Vegas. The vote count began after strip artistes had done their bit and Tom Jones and Elton John had sung their numbers and supporters of both camps had worked themselves into a frenzy.

The supercomputers kept churning out the counts and the neck-to-neck battle was contested right to the last vote – cast incidentally by a native Indian from the Amazon Jungle who had braved the squeeze of an anaconda in the process of getting to the voting booth.

Just at that precise moment, however, there was a virus attack so powerful that all the supercomputers blew up with a bang. Pin drop silence everywhere ensued as the entire world was plunged into darkness. The earth began to quake beneath them. Tsunami waves began to rise and fall in the oceans, and then, just as suddenly as it had happened there was a still in the air. Not a leaf stirred in the dark.

A speck of light appeared overhead and started getting brighter and brighter until all the surroundings were set ablaze by a light more luminescent than a thousand Suns and people everywhere heard His voice ring out:

SO THAT IS WHAT YOU DO TO MY EMISSARIES? PITCH THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER? SHAME ON YOU! NOW GO BACK HOME AND KNOW THAT THIS MOMENT HAS NEVER PASSED!

The sound faded away, darkness reappeared and everybody returned in hushed silence. In the morning they went about their work and all memory of one of the fiercest election battles ever fought had been erased.

Unrecorded history, however, was vigilant enough!

For that you have to thank me and in reward bestow a few Nobel Prizes, a royal residency and a couple of thousand wives!

So dearest Muki I now take leave of you and head on to the tennis courts to match my wits against Razzaki, who, in his own right, does as much good for my superego as Santa or Jesus ever did for the Christians!

Loads of love

Dadski,

The teller of unrecorded events!

Raja Changez Sultan is an internationally recognized poet painter and his work can be seen on facebook.