UnNews:First Indian on the Moon booked for flag desecration

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

21 August 2012

The Indian Flag in space. Above: A lunar-centric view. Below: A terra-centric view, as captured by satellite. Pregnant women and children are advised to avert their eyes.

NEW DELHI, India: Today was a day of great joy and anger for the world's largest democracy. After years of planning and unmanned space launches, ISRO, the nation's space agency, has finally landed a man on the moon, ending humanity's 40-year lunar hiatus. Crowds thronged the streets of every metropolitan area, ecstatic about the technological coming-of-age of their young nation. Speeches were made, awards were given, backs were patted.

The jubilation didn't last long. An hour or so after touchdown, the lead astronaut, Mr. Faltu Shetty, was informed that he was a wanted man and was ordered to report to the nearest police station for incarceration. In a conversation that drained half the batteries of the lunar expedition, Mr. Kundi Kumar, Chief Officer of Mission Control, explained that Mr. Shetty had insulted the honour of the nation and its citizens by hoisting the flag upside down. An excerpt is presented here:

Mr. Shetty: Kundi, I don't give a curried cunt about that ganja you smoke, just don't do it on the job! Just look at the thing. Orange on top, green below. It's fucking fine, Gods-dammit!

Mr. Kumar: That's tobacco! (suspicious eyeball movements) Yeah... just tobacco. You flew the flag upside-down. I have evidence too, dammit. You're going to fry like an oily papad for this, Faltu. I'll see to it that every man, woman and child remembers you for the flag-hater you are!

Mr. Shetty: It's about Mitali, isn't it? I told you, I was too drunk to remember. Besides, did you really think you could hold on to her that with that tiny brown peni.... .. ..

Mr. Kumar: Errr... Ahum... (more suspicious eyeball movements). We seem to have lost the signal.

A voice from the back: NINNY-WILLY!

Mr. Kumar: FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU ALL!!! (runs out crying).

Upon further probing, the UnNews team learned what all the fuss was about. An anonymous intern had this to say:

Intern: The Flag Code of India (2002) states that improper handling of the flag is a punishable offence. This includes flying the tricolour upside down. In severe cases, such acts are punishable with 3 years imprisonment. Now, to Mr. Shetty's dilemma. Here's a picture of him in the act [shown alongside]. From a lunar-centric viewpoint, since the orange part was farther away from the moon's centre of mass, the flag was correctly hoisted. Lunar lifeforms, if any, can take no offense in his actions. However, the earth and moon are aligned in such a way that their centres of mass exert antiparallel gravitational fields. Therefore, the orange part was closer to earth's centre of mass, and from a terra-centric viewpoint, the flag was incorrectly hoisted. One billion Indian citizens were subjected to an incorrectly hoisted flag and were rightfully offended.

We tried to comply with the code in its entirety. By law, all Indian flags must be hand-spun. We went through enormous trouble to build a hand-loom that spins the space-resistant asbesto-pteridylate polymer we use in all fabrics. We lost Rs. 100,000 to equipment failure and 25 weavers to cancer.

Mr. Kumar: (Returning, obviously stoned) Yeah brother, and I have proof too. You see, one of our spy, err... COMMUNICATIONS satellites, took this picture [shown alongside] of the crime as it was happening. That upside-down square with that upside-down flag thought he could get away with it too. Peace y'all.

Public reaction to the whole affair was mixed, ranging from outright anger to mild confusion. "So what if he's a war-hero who killed 100 Pakis and donated their kidneys to children. Shetty should burn in hell for what he's done!", said Sayed, a local pharmacist. "If he's upside down, shouldn't he fall down?", asked Mr. Santnath Singh, Punjab's Chief Minister. Asked whether Mr. Kumar will be prosecuted on arrival, the Chief Justice of India stated that he was in America at the time, and was therefore not offended. However, he would be jailing himself, as his feet were above the flag, technically. The Union government took notice and sanctioned Rs. 500,000 for a study by IIT physicists on exactly who offended whom during that fateful moment. UnNews hopes to be safely out of the country before the results are published.

Sources

• "Other insults to the national flag" Hindustan Times, 21/08/2012

• "Indian Flag Code" Govt. of India, 26/01/2002