An Unreal News Report

(heavily inspired by Faking News founded by my IIMA batchmate Softy)

Chennai, Apr 1 -

Chennai witnessed a grand spectacle yesterday, as the final match of the first-of-its-kind World Wrestling Federation championship of the Carnatic classical music world was hosted at the Congress grounds in the late hours of the night.

The cheer-maamis in their madisaars went wild to the "Aigiri Nandhini" remix, kicking off the pre-event show that was aptly titled Punch-a-Ratna, hosted by the heavily devoted Shri. Neyveli Santhanagopalan, who was incomprehensible to the listeners for the most part, with frequent references to the lord's various names, often lapsing into a dream of "Thathom Thalaangu Thathom" as he tried to enthuse the Mridangam artistes who formed "the band".

The match itself was all set to start, and the defending champion walked in, even as the lights dimmed, and his theme song started off. Thengaai Srinivasan would have aptly summarized his theme song as "Aarokanathula Shanmukapriyava pudichi, Arakkonathula Kharaharapriya-va midhichi, valadhu kaadhula Haripriya-va kadichi yedadhu kaadhula Sripriya-va idichi, thodaiyila roopaga thaaLatha potaa anga vara theme music yaarodadhu...?" - the answer was of course obviously Madurai TN Seshagopalan, as the defending champion strode onto the arena, to shrieks of ecstasy from his vast legion of fans, all of whom were smearing vibhooti on their faces and bodies to get into the groove as their punch hitter walked in majestically.

Even while the arena was getting used to the presence of Shri. TNS, the loudspeaker suddenly shook as the piercing theme song of the challenger rang out, with a deafening "Brahmam Okateeeee.....", which sent even the most sober of Mylapore maamaas into rapturous dancing, complete with tamarind leaves held by the tongue to make the "lululululululu" sound, which seemed to intimidate the great TNS ever so slightly. As the superfit and superhit Sudha Stunt Raghunathan ran into the arena, all lights were on her, as TNS looked on, reduced to a mere bystander inspite of the Thisra jaathi araMatya thaaLa alankaaram that he had just demonstrated in the boxing ring...

(This will not be continued, as the author suddenly realized he needs to wake up before sunrise tomorrow to go to work, and also partly because he did not want to get into the gory details of the fight that ensued. As Ravi Shastri would say, let us just say Music was the big winner).