Tuesday 20 January 2009

Satyam and Raju - Total Damage


After making Ramalinga Raju and the iconic IT firm he founded the butt of jokes, a bunch of trigger-happy IT whiz-kids have created a game 'Nail The Thief' where players are asked to hit the tainted Satyam founder with rotten eggs and win an iPod!

Within days of its launch, the game has already been played more than 100,000 times, with a few playing it over and over again, as per the information on the website of the game.

In the game, available on the website, NailTheThief.com, a player is given a chance to hit Raju's face with rotten eggs as many times possible within 30 seconds.

As per the latest data, the top-scorer has managed to hit 18 eggs within the stipulated time.

The objective of the game is to 'hit Ramalinga Raju in the face with rotten eggs.'

The online game is the latest in the series of jokes and caricatures doing the rounds in the virtual world and instant messaging (SMS, MMS), ever since Raju admitted to what has emerged as the country's biggest ever fraud that has come to be known as 'India's Enron'.

While the fraud left thousands of Satyam employees, lakhs of shareholders and hundreds of customers in the lurch, many are having a good laugh at Raju's expense.

From parodies of nursery rhymes to funny SMSes, chain-mails and caricatures, Raju has become the butt of jokes. New words are also being coined such as 'Satyamisation', as a synonym for inflating profits, and 'Satyamised' for those finding it tough to get a new job because of their current employer's bad reputation. Incidentally, Satyam employees were called 'Satyamites' in the company's better days.

The popular nursery rhyme, 'Johny, Johny, Yes Papa' has made way for 'Raju Raju, Yes Baba, Cheating us, No Baba, Telling Lies, No Baba, Open your accounts, Ha Ha Ha'.

Another rhyme, 'Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall' has been popularised even more with its Raju version: "Raju Raju sat up on the wall, Raju Raju had a great fall, balance sheet died, shareholders cried, Raju Raju made a big fraud."

An SMS doing the rounds says SATYAM is the acronym for 'Stealing And Transferring Your All Money'.

A very old television commercial of a toothpaste has been resurrected to lampoon Raju. In its new avatar, Masterji says, "Raju tumhare daant toh motiyo jaise chamak rahe hain? (Raju, your teeth are sparkling like pearls), to which Raju replies 'Chamke kyu na? Maine apni hi company ka paisa jo khaaya hai (Why wont they sparkle, I have gobbled up my own firm's money).

A cartoon has a building resembling Satyam office and named 'Raju Da Dhaba', with an asterix marked to "Our only competitor is Enron".

The building has a board in front of it, detailing 'Today's Special'. This include 'Eggsagerated Hyderabadi Biryani, Inflated Omelette, Overstated Receivable Samosa, Understated Chicken Tangri, Interestless Butter Naan and More Debt Pakora.'

It also has the name of 'Chief C(r)ook as Raju Bhai, Chief Food Taster as SpiceWater Inc and licence has been renewed by Dependent Directors'.

Ever since the disclosure of financial fraud at Satyam on January 7, the Internet has been flooded with postings ridiculing Raju. In one of the polls conducted at a message board on Orkut, the social networking website of Google, about 80 per cent voted in favour of criminal proceedings adopted against Raju.

Further, on another networking and micro blogging site Twitter, comments like, 'Main Hoon Scam, Main Hoon Scam, Main Hoon, Main Hoon, Raju Scam...,' 'Daaku, oye raju fraud na kariyo. . .market doob jata hai,' and 'Satyam Facts: Rise, rise and fall.'

Other comments, like 'Raj Raju Ramalinga, Tara ram pam pam,' 'Paison ne bulwaya, Hazir hun mein aya,' 'Hun scammers ka scam, akal ka dushman,' are being floated on the websites.

One message points to famous filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma preparing to make a movie on the Satyam saga. It goes on to say that Verma, who was sighted inside Taj Hotel, Mumbai, after terror attacks there, was seen at Satyam headquarters in Hyderabad last week


Source: Rediff

2 comments:

Gokul said...

Vasu,

Good one.. This shows that how indians are having faith in IT industry, that they should not fraud, should not bribe, should not recommend etc.
If the same thing happens on politics also... Nice dream...

What disturbs me is, 9 times of 7000 crore i.e 60,000 crores have been gulped by Minister Raja and all karunanidhi has to say is "It has been ended"! In the same country... these things are happening.

It is no doubt that Ramalinga Raju gets what he deserves but what about Raja...?

Vasu. said...

Gokul,

The difference is in case of Satyam, the issue ends with Raju but in spectrum it does not end with Raja. Raja is the lower most agent in the chain. You think 60,000 crores has been taken by one man? Oru "kudumbame" involved is what my feeling is.