IWTK Wrapped! Here's a special '23 recap | #185
Spot the hidden message in this special recap 🎄
Hello friends,
Our newsletter this week is XL-sized and offers a unique recap of 2023, summarizing the year in our trademark style. IWTK Wrapped is our final issue of the year as we take a well-deserved break for the next couple of weeks.
See you lovely people in 2024 👋
Things we learnt this year🤓
Matthew Perry was found unresponsive in a hot tub and declared dead in October. He charmed us all as Chandler in the popular TV show Friends, but fought alcohol and drug addiction for most of his adult life. He raised awareness about issues and during the pandemic released Friends themed apparel where proceeds went to WHO’s pandemic fund. Could he BE any more philanthropic?
Elections were held in multiple states all over India. BJP lost its Southern bastion Karnataka where Congress’ 5 major poll promises such as free travel for women, free electricity up to 200 units, free rice etc, helped it to return to power in the state. The BJP though won 3 big states in the heartland - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh ,and appointed 3 new faces as CM. 2024 will see the national elections. Remains to be seen if the latest state results will be Modi-fied.
Rohit Sharma led India in the ODI Cricket World Cup and thanks to a 10/10 performance, India were unbeaten in the tournament. Australia gave India a Head-ache by turning up when it matters to clinch the trophy, as they always do. Reminds us of an old SMS joke - Kisne World Cup Dia - inDIA. Kisne World Cup lia - austraLIA.
Rajnikanth was in full form in Jailer. The film is about a retired jailer, played by Rajniknath, who gets involved in the idol smuggling trade when his son is killed. With rousing music by Anirudh Ravichander and cameos from all major film industry stars, the film grossed more than 600 crores in the box office. Go watch the film - its a Hukum… Tiger ka Hukum.
You must work 70 hours a week for the nation - said Narayan Murthy triggering debates about workplace culture and remuneration. The Infosys founder reiterated that he used to work almost 90 hours a week during the initial days of Infosys. We speculate that this septuagenarian hasn’t seen the take-home salary of freshers who join Infosys before he made these comments.
Chandrayaan 3 did what Chandrayaan 2 couldn’t do - land on the dark side of the moon. The nation prayed as we were glued to the television hoping that Vikram landed on the moon. In the process, India became only the 4th nation to soft-land on the moon after USA, USSR and China. The country celebrated wildly - Aapke moon mein ghee shakkar.
Hamas attacked Israel with a barrage of rockets on October 7th. Israel retaliated with a blockade, followed by a siege of Gaza. Despite worldwide calls of ceasefire, violence continues across the region. Images of young children dying due to lack of incubators broke all our hearts. Here’s hoping a swift resolution to the conflict in 2024.
Rat-hole miners entered the lexicon of the Indian public after their heroic efforts in helping rescue 41 workers trapped inside a section of the Silkyara Bend–Barkot tunnel which caved in while under construction in Uttarakhand. The workers were trapped inside for 16 days and after all machines had failed, it was up to these manual labourers who pushed through the debris and pushed a pipe through to the workers inside the tunnel. We even covered this in Issue #182
Is baar sau paar - that was the hashtag used by Sony Sports in the lead up to the Asian Games. It seemed quite a stretch for the Indians, when it had its best haul in 2018 with 70 medals. But our athletes put on a display for the ages and India won a record 107 medals this time. Can we start manifesting “Is baar bees paar” for Paris Olympics?
Shah Rukh Khan had a year to remember with 2 movies that broke all sorts of box office records and a third backed by a crew with a history of breaking box office records. Pathaan saw the formalization of the YRF Spy universe and Jawaan saw SRK being a wife and a son to Deepika Padukone. The world awaits for Dunki, directed by Raju Hirani. As they say these days - Khan-tent is king.
Titan submarine imploded killing 5 people on board. In an ironic twist, the 5 were on board to view the Titanic wreckage. The submarine had bypassed all safety regulations by claiming it to be “an experimental vessel” with the CEO of the company even going on to say that regulations had prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation. Famous last words as CEO Stockton Rush also perished in the implosion.
Malawi, Madagascar and Mozambique faced the wrath of cyclone Freddy. It was the longest lasting recorded tropical cyclone leading to over 1400 deaths. The cyclone traversed the southern Indian ocean for more than 5 weeks. It caused excessive rainfall, flash floods, power grid failures and an outbreak of Cholera in the region. If we do not act on climate change, we’ll witness such nightmares from Freddy Kruegers in the future.
African union was announced as the 21st member of the G20 (or is it G21 now?) The G20 summit was held in extreme pomp in Delhi, by a mass demolition drive against the homeless shelters and slum dwellers in Delhi. Meanwhile Delhites had to undergo a 3 day lockdown amidst unprecedented security for the event. India spent over 4000 crores for the summit making it a really ‘Capital’ intensive event.
Sam Altman had an interesting year. He launched ChatGPT-4 which could respond to images and process up to 25000 words. He was also fired, joined another company and then rehired. He completed the ultimate redemption arc by firing the board that fired him in the first place. Pretty sure even ChatGPT couldn’t come up with a storyline like this for a prompt “Can you write a story of how a CEO lost everything and gained it back in few days?”
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a Canadian separatist involved in the Khalistani movement. His death caused all sorts of diplomatic tussles between India and Canada. Justin Treadeau, battling poor opinion ratings about his suitability as PM, hit out at India and claimed that Indian govt agents had carried out Nijjar’s death. India sent back Canadian diplomats and Akshay Kumar, clearly tired of all the memes about his passport, decided to give up Canadian citizenship.
Actors and other technicians belonging to the Screen Actors Guild went on strike for over 5 months. The strike resulted in over 45000 jobs lost and an estimated 6.5B loss to the economy of South Carolina. The strike was caused by a disagreement on residual payments of streaming shows and also how studios would use AI to scan actors' faces and generate performances. An agreement was reached between the actors body and the studios - as they say, the show must go on.
Protests were held all over Spain after its women’s team won the FIFA Women’s World Cup over the Spanish football association president, when he showed his true colours. Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish football association, chose the moment of the Spanish women’s triumph to plant a kiss on the lips of Jennifer Hermoso without her consent. He was also seen grabbing his crotch in front of the Spanish royal family. It led to larger protests across Spain which were known as the ‘Se Acabo’ (Its over) protests. Rubiales finally lost his job and thank god his reign on Spanish football is Acabo.
Parliament of India was shifted to its new location with a ceremony that involved a Sengol and many religious heads. The inauguration was boycotted by the majority of the opposition as the ceremony saw no involvement of the Head of State Smt. Droupadi Murmu. On the 22nd anniversary of the attack on Parliament, there was a major security breach when 2 individuals entered the parliament through the public gallery and released smoke canisters. Nobody was injured, but it did lead to this hilarious scene with reporters fighting with each other to show the canister on TV.
Yevgeny Prigozhin started a private army called the Wagner group which did all the dirty work for Putin. But backlashes in Ukraine soured their relationship. It reached a point where it looked like Prigozhin’s Wagner group were trying to launch a coup. In the end, the same fate fell upon Prigozhin, like all Putin’s Russian adversaries - “Accidental” death in mysterious circumstances.
Neeraj Chopra, confirmed his status as the GOAT sportsperson from India. He not only won the Asian Games gold, which saw him in an epic duel with Kishore Kumar Jena, but also became the World Champion - the only gold missing from his kitty. The World Championships saw 3 Indians finish in the top 6. A podium full of Indians in Paris 2024 is not fantasy anymore.
Eras Tour by Taylor Swift was the most expensive tour for an artist, comprising 151 concerts across 5 continents. But it is also the highest grossing tour by any artist, as it has raked in over $1B in revenue. A film about the concert starring Taylor Swift was also a blockbuster at the box office with earnings of over $250M. No harm to her Reputation. Issue #184 was our little dedication to the Swifties out there.
Whole eye transplant was successfully carried out for the first time. Till now, eye transplants were restricted only to the cornea, but for the patient who had an accident that destroyed the left side of his face, the doctors attempted to transplant an entire eye. Currently, the eye is yet to communicate with the brain but the scientists are hopeful of establishing the connection using stem cells. This was indeed an eye-opener for everyone.
Yukon to South Carolina. That’s the distance traversed by a Chinese balloon before being shot down by US authorities. It increased tensions between the US and China. China claimed that they are not spy satellites, but the USA did not buy that argument. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken postponed a trip to Beijing over this row. It was determined that no critical information was transmitted to China and this deflated the tensions little bit.
Elon Musk, the enfant terrible of the business world, decided to do something drastic - everybody in the business world wishes their product becomes a verb. You don't search on the internet, you Google it. You don't photocopy a document, you Xerox it. You don't post on a social media app, you Tweet it. He took a sledgehammer to all these business idioms and decided to rename the social media company X inc and remove all references to Twitter/tweet. The social media app is currently valued at about $20B, less than half of the $44B that he paid. gEniUs!
Animal & Adipurush polarised opinions, but the makers laughed their way to the bank. Animal, criticised for toxic masculinity and misogyny, starred Ranbir Kapoor and an extremely chiselled Bobby Deol. The director, Sandeep Reddy Vanga, has promised a sequel called Animal Park. Adipurush, an adaptation of Ramayana, was criticised for its clunky graphics and dialogues. Even when graphics are low and dialogues slow, the box office numbers can still steal the show!
Raymond shares fell after it was announced that its chairman Gautam Singhania divorced from his wife Nawaz Modi. Nawaz Modi and her 2 daughters complained of physical abuse along with corporate governance lapses in the company. They have sought 75% share in the Singhania family assets in the divorce settlement. The saga also saw Vijaypat Singhania complain about the way his son had treated him. Gautam isn’t the Complete Man his company claims to be.
If you paid close attention to the acrostic in this edition, it spelled out
M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S
H A P P Y N E W Y E A R
We’ll see you next year 🥳🍻🎉
Stay hydrated,
❤️ IWTK