A lot of nonsense is being written everywhere about Pegasus. That too by idiots who don’t even know that before Pegasus became a spyware, he was a winged horse, the offspring of Greek sea god Poseidon and gorgon Medusa. Pegasus is the brother of Chrysaor, the uncle of Geryon, the second cousin of Hanuman, and brother-in-law of Venkateshwara. It was, in fact, Pegasus who organised the elephant head for Ganesha’s head transplant — the world’s first and only transcontinental, trans-species organ transplant, yet to replicated by a human surgeon.
Shortly after Ganesha got the elephant head, he requested Pegasus to fly him to Bangkok, since back then India’s airport infrastructure did not have facial recognition technology advanced enough to recognise passengers with elephant faces. Ganesha was one of the Co-Chief Guests (along with Narasimha and Minotaur) at the first East Asian Summit of Differently-Abled Gods in Bangkok. As a differently abled god himself, Pegasus was more than happy to fly him there.
But Indra did not like Indian gods hobnobbing with Greek ones. He feared they would be contaminated by Western culture because, if that happened, it could hurt BJP’s chances in the 2014 elections. So he complained against Pegasus to Zeus, the big boss of Greek gods, saying Pegasus was spying for Thanos, the Osama of the gods. Zeus didn’t want to give up his morning walk. So he asked Indra to submit the evidence of Pegasus’s treachery in a sealed envelope, and shortly thereafter, turned Pegasus into a constellation.
Escaping the constellation
As you can imagine, no one likes to be turned into a constellation. How would you feel if, say tomorrow, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay became a constellation? Obviously Pegasus was upset. But he could do nothing except bide his time, which came thousands of years later, when Israel happened. Pegasus decided to get even by actually perpetrating what he was falsely accused of. He made a deal with the Israelis: he would let them make money off him, provided they helped him.
The Israelis released Pegasus from the sky, substituting the constellation with his hologram. They then injected him with a special Panchagavya prepared from the ear hair of a genetically enhanced desi cow — a secret formulation that could turn any winged horse into a computer virus. It is this mutant Pegasus that people have been talking about all week — I bet no one told you the background I just shared with you.
There’s something else they aren’t telling you: the Pegasus spyware attack on Indian citizens is a conspiracy hatched by Pegasus himself. Pegasus hadn’t forgotten what Indra did to him thousands of years ago. Since Indra was an Indian god, Pegasus decided to avenge himself by maligning the Indian government the way Indra had maligned him.
Targeted snooping
Look at who all have been targeted by the spyware: human rights activists, independent journalists, Opposition politicians. We all know that the Indian state, especially since May 2019, has gone out of its way to protect and promote human rights, independent journalism, and Opposition politicians. So it’s ridiculous to claim that it had any role to play in the targeted snooping. So, in that case, who orchestrated all those missed calls that planted Pegasus in people’s phones?
Well, according to a highly placed government source who I trust completely and will quote anonymously and whose words you must take at face value even though it makes a mockery of journalistic norms because nothing of what he says can be independently verified, all these so-called activists had themselves planted the Pegasus virus in their own smartphones by giving themselves a self-missed call.
“Can one give oneself a self-missed call?” I asked the source.
“Which world are you living in?” he said. “When people can collectively stab themselves in the eye by picking dictatorship over democracy, slavery over freedom, and idiocy over competence, what’s stopping them from giving themselves a missed call that would enable the continuous transmission of all their phone’s data to strangers who could use that data against them?
“Nothing.”
“Exactly!”
“But why would they do such a thing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said. “All these individuals claiming their phones were targeted are hardcore anti-nationals. Their only agenda is to distract the public from the tremendous achievements of a nationalistic government.”
“You mean...?”
“Obviously Article 370! The whole world is talking about it. But in India, the activist types, in cahoots with Congress and Pakistan, are purposely ruining the economy so that people start talking about things like joblessness. Thankfully, Indians are not easily distracted from the real issues, such as Pakistan and Ayodhya. I’m confident they will keep voting us to power till 2184, after which it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, by then, Pegasus’s father Poseidon would have taken over the planet. Who do you think is behind the rising sea levels?”
The writer is Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu .
sampath.g@thehindu.co.in
