Published Sep 03, 2026 | 3:50 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 03, 2026 | 4:11 PM
InJest in a satirical column by South First. Names, places, situations are all fictitious. Caricature by Satish Acharya/South First.
Bengaluru’s Lalbagh has Shorswami caught between a rock and a green space as he decided to jump on the outrage express to criticise the Congress-led state government.
While the Editor of Shouts Wow started to abuse the government for deciding to drill through at least a billion-year-old rock in Lalbagh, he had to pause when he was reminded that a billion-dollar businessman won the contract.
Shorswami agreed with the Top Minister’s claim that the tunnel through the rock will help the traffic improve , but only in the city’s dreams.
He is pissed at the man — who incidentally is also called ‘Kanakapura’s boulder’ (read rock) — for becoming the top minister without changing parties, as Shorswami had predicted. Especially pissed as even sending him to Tihar didn’t coerce him to jump parties.
Insisting that the nation wants to know, Shorswami accused the Top Minister of the state of taking inspiration from superstar Yash and trying to KGF Lalbagh as well, showing Toxic behaviour and drilling every rock he sees.
He also accused the Minister of anti-Hindi bias and claimed he was destroying the rock because it was named in Hindi, ‘Lalbagh’ (transl: Red garden).
Shorswami played up visuals of thousands of protestors gathering in Lalbagh to reject the tunnel road insisting that the city’s traffic wasn’t all that bad. Too bad for them, they couldn’t leave from there after getting caught in chockablock traffic on all four gates of the garden.
Things changed when Shorswami realised the Tea Minister’s favourite Billionaire ended up pursuing and winning the contract. The crony must have thought it was a mining contract for the Western Ghats and not drilling and tunnel roads in a city.
His journalism of day-long, half-hour research for the news piece failed to show his involvement. Then came the masterstroke.
He proposed the State’s Tea Minister should get to break the coconut and inaugurate the tunnel and neighbouring tea stalls before the project starts if the election is less than a year away.
The Top Minister should also pursue the project especially if there is public backlash and causes an election loss to his party.
Shorswami suggested ensuring no loss of any millions of the billionaire’s billions; instead of SBI, which has faced criticism for backing such projects, Canara Bank could find the public’s money needed for it.
The top minister scrapped the tunnel through Lalbagh as soon as Shorswami supported drilling it.
(Written by Prabhpreet, an Unsanskari Writer, with a lifelong experience of laughing at things that make him cry.)
InJest is a satirical column from South First. Names, places, and situations referred to in the satirical piece are fictitious and are not intended to hurt any sentiments. The column is meant to be taken with a pinch of salt and a whole lot of laughs.
