by Sarah Aijaz

You have met them. You have read them. They have eaten your food. They have drunk your wine. And they bore you. Twenty one types of flamers you should watch out for.

1. Lol Logic Man: “If you’re naked, then what else will happen, hah? LOL”

2. Mr Curt & Wikipedia: Chap who checks out Wikipedia before commenting, and always starts a sentence with: “Get the proper facts. First of all…”

3. The Angry Metro-City Facebook Man: “It’s the corrupt politicians, you bastard! Not us, the poor people!”

4. The Short-Term Solution Purist: “Kick the bloody minorities out!”

5. Naive Senior Citizen: “The morals of this country have gone down.”

6. Wake Up Guy: “Wake Up, India! The entire story is a lie by the government!”

7. No Nonsense Misanthrope: Commentssocynical thereis nopunctuationorspace onlyafullstop that marks theultimatefinality of thethought. (With deadpan expression.)

8. LANGuageHOLOC,AUST! ANGRY… Guy: Comments so charged with emotion, everything is capitalised, punctuation is thrown around like confetti Indian award show-style. (Ends with at least four exclamation marks, and makes no sense.)

9. Radical Truth Messiah: The history “professor” who’s either read too much Saffronised history or Marxist history. (Commonly used sentence: “If you read the PROPER history…”)

10. Random Godwin Crusader: “Hitler was right.”

11. The Racist Quim: “Go back to Pakistan!” “Bloody Aryans invaders!” “Economy is down because of underworld Muslims, but media won’t say!” “Education in India is horrible, because jobs are going to lower caste people!” “Hey! Minorities! Living in our country, so follow our rules!”

12. Apologetic Patriot: “Guys! We’re all Indians. Let’s unite and be one nation under the sky, because divided we fall. Have we forgotten the lessons of the Mahatma? Saffron for Hinduism, Green for Islam, White for Christianity and Blue for PEACE! That’s the only language I know. Ahimsa is the true way!”

13. Ban-It Bloke: “The government should ban such practices!” “Why hasn’t the government banned such a book? Say, it is hurting the sentiments of the people, say.” “This organisation should be fully banned.”

14. Capitalised ‘Shocked’ News Noob: “OMG! What is happening in INDIA? I am SHOCKED!”

15. Truth Assassin: “You’re all morons” (Logs out, listens to Gorgoroth, or something).

16. PC Peace Keeper: “Newspapers should not publish this sort of news! It will incite violence. The job of a newspaper is to keep peace. They have a responsibility, as this is very sensitive information. Very disappointed with TOI. Truly careless reporting.” (It’s always TOI).

17. Negative Nostalgia Man: “Ladies and gents! The seeds were sown by the British, and still we are fighting today.” “You can’t get Kohinoor back, what you will get Swiss bank money back, hah?” “Where is the Kohinoor? That only says a lot about our government, always licking British soles.”

18. Delusional Statistics Person: “What are you saying? 55,6079,48575,90 raised to the power of 54 Indians own NASA! And, the moon. Everything. India will be a superpower. We are the best. Read the statistics! It’s all there. Even Google is ours and we have the most universities and students.”

19. Forever Ashamed: “I am ashamed to be Indian!”

20. Forever Proud: “I say, why are you ashamed, sir? If you are so ashamed, then go to London or Chicago or something! There only you will be better.”

21. NRI-Hater: “Dear, NASA-boy.. Fuste’fall, you are not even here. So better shut up.”