Magistrate appoints Banyan Tree as legal aid for Kasab

The magistrate at the district magistrate's court at the Esplanade court house in South Mumbai announced today that a Banyan tree outside the premises of the court house would be used as legal aid for arrested terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab since all the lawyers of the city have refused to take up his case on ethical grounds. On December 5th, a resolution was passed unanimously by the Bombay Metropolitan Magistrate Court's Bar Association, which has more than 1,000 members, saying that none of its members will defend any of the accused of the recent terror attacks in Mumbai.

The honourable magistrate said that since under the constitution, the trial cannot proceed unless the accused is provided legal aid, he had no other option but to appoint a tree to represent the accused terrorist in the court.

"I cannot force any lawyer to take up his case, can I? Any person who would dare to represent this man would be branded as a terrorist sympathizer and in all probability be lynched to death by an angry mob"

The judge revealed that at one point of time he had decided to appoint some animal to represent Kasab, but the news leaked out and he received threatening phone calls from angry activists of PETA who threatened to stage a dharna outside the court if any "poor and innocent" animal was forcibly used to legally represent the "butcher of Faridkot" who unleashed terror in the precincts of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai.

"Fortunately, the quaint old Hindu traditions of marrying a tree to ward off evil influences came to the rescue. If a banyan tree can be used to save a bride from becoming a widow, why can't it be used to save some lawyer from becoming dead meat at the hands of a furious mob?"

But the news that a banyan tree would be used as a stand-in for a lawyer has not gone well with environmentalists and tree-huggers. 'People for Trees' a NGO dedicated to the task of increasing green cover in Mumbai issued a statement decrying the decision to use a tree to represent Kasab.

"Trees are alive and have feelings too like humans. Just because we can't hear plants or trees expressing their thoughts and feelings does not give us the right to use them for nefarious purposes such as defending evil terrorists and exposing them to the fury of angry mumbaikars who might burn or chop the chosen tree in disgust. The banyan tree outside the court house too has a right to life and should not be exposed to any dangerous situation that might arise out of the decision by the magistrate to use it as legal aid for Kasab" said the statement denouncing the court's decision.

We decided to interview the spirit of the banyan tree at the center of the controversy using the services of a shaman trained in the art of communicating with nature spirits. The banyan tree expressing his views through shaman's tongue said that he had no misgivings or doubts about representing the terrorist responsible for the death of hundreds of mumbaikars.

"I think its a great honor for me and for the entire plant kingdom that I should become the first tree ever to replace a professional lawyer. After all in the history of mankind, millions of people have been massacred, butchered, burnt alive and even eaten by fellow humans. Yet at no time in history have lawyers refused to defend brutes responsible for such horrors. Even child-eating monsters of Noida got legal defence who unscrupulously used every trick in the books to get them exonerated. If this case represents a turning point in the history of mankind, I feel proud to be part of such a historic trial"

Meanwhile, after Muslim organisations refused to give burial at their cemeteries to the nine terrorists who were gunned down by security forces, cops decided to dump all the bodies in the Arabian sea off the coast of Mumbai. "It is very appropriate that these m@%c^##''s should be thrown back into the same seas that they used as a route to invade our city" said Ramakant Pandey, DCP, Mumbai South.

According to some reports filed by fishermen, the sharks swimming in the high seas, who like the rest of their clan have no qualms in eating their own babies, have refused to eat the dead bodies of the nine terrorists.

10-year old Babloo too hates politicians

'I hate politicians! I hate them, I hate them, I hate them'

Babloo Arora is just a 10-year old school-going kid living in Bandra, Mumbai, but he has already learned how to hate politicians like all the adults in his family. Son of affluent businessman, Ranjit Arora who exports jewelry to east European countries, he believes politicians are responsible for all his troubles and hopes that by the time he has grown-up, India would become free of politicians.

"Yesterday, I got beaten up by my classmate after I stole his tiffin-box and ate his lunch' said Babloo, 'Bloody politicians! Why can't they introduce strict laws that would prevent school-children from beating up their classmates? We need laws that would allow school authorities to immediately rusticate students who use violence against their fellow students"

"There should be a limit on amount of home-work given to children too. My parents don't allow me to watch TV unless and until I finish my homework. Every second day I miss out on my favorite cartoon show because the damned homework takes so much long to complete. If our politicians were not preoccupied with making money, they would have noticed the tremendous amount of suffering children have to undergo due to ever increasing homework."

"But why would our politicians care about children? After all we don't have the right to vote like adults. Children are not their vote-banks!" rued Babloo.

Babloo is also upset at the inability of our politicians to control runaway inflation. "Earlier I was able to buy pizzas, burgers and diet cokes thrice every week. My pocket-money of Rs. 2000 every month also allowed me to buy at least 5 video game titles and 10-12 movie DVD's. But nowadays I'm forced to cut corners. I've cut down my pizzas and burgers consumption from thrice a week to twice a week. Thanks to inefficient politicians, I'm left with no choice but to beg my dad to increase my monthly pocket money by 500 rupees, if I want to continue playing same number of new video games on my playstation as before."

"Politicians have ruined my life!" added Babloo sobbingly, 'I would not be suffering the way I'm had it not been for complete and total abrogation of duty by politicians and their complete indifference to the plight of young children"

Asked to elaborate, Babloo said "My parents are very ambitious and want to see me on TV. They have huge expectations from me and wish to see me become a big television star. They have pressurized me into joining singing and dancing classes so that I can become trained enough to participate in reality shows. Now, I really love singing and dancing, but at the same time I'm scared to death of my parent's reaction if I fail to qualify for any TV show! Its high time our government bans reality shows on television featuring little children. But sadly, our politicians just don't care about the plight of children"

"When will our politicians wake up from their collective apathy and try to solve the complex problems that kids today are facing? How many kids will have to be lose their childhood to class-room violence, excessive homework, increasing inflation and song-n-dance television shows before our politicians wake up from their slumber and take decisive action to provide children with safety and security they deserve?"

Foot-in-the-mouth Epidemic: Causes and Cures

As if the horror of the terror attacks in Mumbai last week was not enough, the long-suffering people of India are now being subjected to an unending stream of verbal gaffes from the mouths of our clownish politicians. While politicians all over the world are known to suffer from foot-in-the-mouth disease, in India this disease has taken an epidemic proportions amongst India's political class.

First we had the gaffe-machine Shivraj Patil, who at the time of taking charge of Home ministry wanted to have a meaningful 'intercourse' with terrorists, explaining patiently to media why he failed to meet the terrorists who attacked Cama Hospital and CST station ( "Before I could reach there, the terrorists who had attacked one of the hospitals, the Cama Hospital, had left and those who attacked the railway station had also left") Perhaps our ex-minister wasted precious hours changing his clothes! Shouldn't the terrorists have been thoughtful enough to provide him details of exact time and places of the attacks to allow him time to change his clothes and be ready for the 'intercourse'? Dumb terrorists!!

Then Patil junior who three years back considered bar girls as big enough security threat to Mumbai to warrant expelling them from the city made casual remarks about the terror attacks being a small incident. This was followed by BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi making crass comments about women wearing lipstick and powder taking to streets.

And now Kerela's chief minister VS Achuthiyanandan has outdone all the above by insulting the intelligence of our canine friends by claiming that not even dogs would have visited the house of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan's dad, had Sandeep not died in the terror attacks. 

Troubled by the fresh outbreak of the foot-in-the-mouth disease, we decided it was time to get to the root of the matter and make an attempt to understand why Indian politicians are suffering so badly from this disease and what measures can be taken to cure them of this dreadful malady. In this context, we met Dr. Dhingra, a world renowned specialist in foot-in-the-mouth disease at Jaslok Hospital which he is currently visiting on private requests from certain high-profile politicians who have been diagnosized with this disease. After pleasantries were exchanged, Dr. Dhingra explained to us the causes of the outbreak of this disease and some of the reason politicians of this country were highly susceptible to it.

According to him, the main cause of this disease is having a very big mouth which allows easy entrance of large extraneous items like feet which normally would find it very difficult to move into normal-sized mouths. Since having a large mouth capable of spewing out meaningless rhetoric and empty promises is very essential trait for anyone desiring to enter politics, politicians tend to have larger mouths than the rest of the population thereby making them more vulnerable to be attacked by this disease.

Another reason for the prevalance of foot-in-the-mouth disease amongst the political class is lack of spine in politicians. "A straight, strong and an erect backbone is very vital in keeping the lower limbs of the body at a safe distance from the mouth. Since politicians generally tend to be spineless, their feet find very little resistance in reaching out to upper parts of body like mouth." said Dr. Dhingra.

"Thirdly, politicians as a class are more greedy, avaricious and covetous in nature than normal people. Due to their greedy nature they lack discernment and sagaciousness found in normal humans and as a result tend to instinctively devour whatever comes within close grasp of their large mouths. As a result, any freely flying or floating feet find their way into their big, fat mouths."

"And lastly, since politicians generally live in their ivory towers, protected by black cat commandos and isolated from the masses, they usually don't keep their feet on the ground. Since ungrounded feet tend to fly or float at higher levels more easily than grounded feet, they have more propensity to enter mouths."

Dr. Dhingra was cautiously optimistic about the prospects of our political class being cured from this dangerous disease. He observed that while it was very difficult to completely free the country from this epidemic inflicting our ruling classes, its not entirely impossible. In response to our request, he provided a three-point remedy which can be helpful in eradicating the scourge of foot-in-the-mouth disease

"Firstly, it is very necessary that our politicians should be made to bite dust every time they put their feet in their mouths and also every time they stand for elections. If they are properly fed with dust at regular intervals, the chances of their feet finding the way into their mouths would reduce considerably"

"Secondly, they should be stripped of Z-level security, government provided vehicles and other such perks and perquisites which insulate them from the cares and concerns of the masses. Once our politicians learn to keep their feet firmly on the ground, their feet would tend to fly around less."

"And finally since big mouths and spinelessness are genetic defects which are highly predominant in the political class, there is not much that can be done to cure politicians who suffer on that account. But the people of India can at least try to make our local, state and national governments foot-in-the-mouth disease free by ensuring that they elect to legislatures only politicians who display backbone when faced with crucial issues and who talk less but work more" 

Hoax calls bring about end of the world

Sydney, 1st Feb, 2013

Two hoax calls that were made to US President Sarah Palin and   Pakistan President Arif Zardari last night brought an end to world civilization after these calls triggered off a nuclear holocaust resulting in probable death of over 3 billion people, half of world's population.

Last night, a caller pretending to be Indian Prime Minister, Lal Krishna Advani called Zardari and told him scoffingly,"Kambhakt Zardari, hamare nuclear missiles tumhare Lahore aur Karachi ko poori tarah se tabaah kar chuke hai. Ab Islamabad ki baari hai! Bhaag sako to bhago, Zardari..Hahahaha" ("Our nuclear-loaded missiles have landed on Lahore and Karachi and blown up both your cities. Islamabad is next! Run if you can!! Mu-ha-ha-ha!!!)

A panicky Zardari immediately ordered nuclear strikes on New Delhi & Mumbai in retaliation which resulted in counter-strikes by India. India hit back strongly by nuking Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Hyderabad. And Pakistan went up in smoke!

At around the same time, US President Sarah Palin also received a prank call by a caller claiming to be Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev. The prank caller informed Palin that Russia has nuked New York, Los Angeles & Chicago. "Luk aauoot auf yer veendow, Saraah. You veel soon see a beautifool mushroom claood aauootside!"

Sarah Palin got panicky, shrieked "OMG! OMG Nuk-u-lear war is upon us!" and ordered half a dozen Russian cities to be nuked. But due to missile-launcher malfunction, a couple of them landed on Chinese soil by mistake. Within next half an hour, US was inundated by nuclear missiles from both Russia and China landing on all its major cities. All of its major cities were totally incinerated. Pentagon reacted by firing more nuclear-loaded missiles over China and Russia. And both China and Russia went up in smoke!

With over three-quarters of population of US, Russia, China, India and Pakistan facing nuclear winter, the world as we know has come to a disastrous end. All because of two hoax calls and two dumb presidents who couldn't detect a petty prank.

According to political analysts, this terrible nuclear holocaust could have been avoided had the people of US & Pakistan not appointed political novices like Palin and Zardari to their highest seat of power.

This was not the first time that the two leaders fell prey to a prank call. In 2008, when Sarah Palin was running for vice-presidency, she got hoaxed by a Canadian DJ who pretented to be French President Nicholas Sarkozy. In the same year, Zardari was fooled by a prank caller who claimed to be India's foreign minister Pranab Mukherkee and threatened Pakistan with military action.

Palin survived the ignominy and ridicule that followed the hoax call, won republican primaries four years later and was elected America's president early this year after bitterly fought elections against former President Barack Obama who not only completely failed to revive US economy but also got his country further embroiled in disastrous war campaigns. Zardari too survived veiled military threats by India and continued ruling Pakistan for another four years.

Unfortunately for all of us, the world couldn't survive the two hoaxed presidents.

 

Stunned by serial condemnations, terrorists vow to stop serial blasts

Stunned and shocked by the spate of condemnations coming from several quarters after serial bomb blasts in Assam left over 77 people dead, terrorists from all over India vowed to put an end to mindless acts of violence. Coming together under the umbrella of United Terrorists Alliance of India (UTAI), they issued a joint statement expressing remorse for their activities and pledged not to perpetuate any more terrorism on the nation.

Yesterday, a series of carefully coordinated bombings shattered the midday bustle of markets in Guwahati and other areas of Assam killing 77 people and injuring over 400 people.

Soon after the terrible incident which left the people of Assam appalled and dismayed, condemnations flew thick and fast.

Sonia Gandhi described the serial blasts as a 'mindless and heinous crime, felt tremendous distress and called for a united fight against terrorism. "I condemn this mindless and heinous crime perpetuated by those who are inimical to our country. Terror shows its ugly face once again in our country and we should unitedly combat this menace in a sustained and comprehensive manner," she said. Home Minister Shivraj Patil too joined Sonia Gandhi in condemning the blasts.

To the great dismay of terrorists, the surge of condemnations didn't stop with Sonia Gandhi and Shivraj Patil. President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too couldn't resist condemning the attacks and described the blasts as barbaric and cowardly. "Such barbaric acts targeting innocent men, women and children only highlight the desperation and cowardice of those responsible,'' Singh said in a statement yesterday. `

As if the series of serial condemnations emanating from the mouths of Indian politicians was not enough, United Nations (UN) too joined the condemnation spree with its General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon strongly condemning the 'act of targeting civilians' and adding emphatically that there can be 'absolutely no justification for such indiscriminate violence'.

To add to the misery of the terrorists responsible for the Assam blasts and the recent blasts in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and New Delhi, even terror-sponsoring Pakistan condemned the blasts. Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in a statement that 'terrorism and extremism in all forms and manifestations need to be eradicated'

Clearly, the bagful of condemnations coming from all over the world has had the desired effect on the morale and drive of terrorist groups and has left them bereft of the desire to indulge anymore in acts of terror.

"We are distressed and saddened by the series of condemnatory statements issued by eminent dignitaries of the world and as a result feel compelled to put an end to our acts of terrorism" said Sadiq Khan, spokesman for the newly formed United Terrorists Alliance of India.

"We feel tremendous hurt that our well-calculated acts of terror have been called as 'mindless' by congress chief, Sonia Gandhi. It comes as a huge shock to know that our Prime Minister considers our acts as barbaric and feels that we are cowards acting out of desperation. And to make matters worse, UN secretary-general has robbed us of our desire to continue perpetuating terror on the people of India by saying that there can be no justification for indiscriminate violence "

"These statements of condemnations has left us feeling shamefaced, remorseful, demoralized and dispirited. With so much disapprobation, disapproval and strong pressure on us to quit, we feel that it is no longer possible for us to continue indulging in acts of wanton violence and terror. Harsh words used against us by the leaders of the world has broken our spirits, destroyed our motivation and made us realize how unloved we are and how unwelcome and unpopular our acts of violence have been. Sadly, we have been left with no other option but to quit" the statement said.

Indian Scientists Debate: Is Flying Spaghetti Monster for real?

Inane surveys ought to be banned. They are generally a cause of great deal of futile debates and purposeless controversies. Another pointless survey featuring Indian scientists has indicated that over half of them believe in the existence of Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) and has very predictably raised howls of protests from several quarters who believe that there is some inherent contradiction in scientists believing in invisible, scientifically unverified flying noodle monsters.

The survey conducted jointly by The Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture of Trinity College, Connecticut and India's Centre for Inquiry, Hyderabad has thrown up results that confirm that India is the headquarters for invisible monsters. Only 12 percent of the 1100 respondents were categorical that they didn't believe in monsters; 13 percent weren't sure since they have been haunted by monsters they didn't believe in. As many as 26 percent had no doubts that flying monsters do exist while 30 percent did not believe in flying noodle monster but in a higher power that is capable of creating invisible flying monsters.

"So far nobody has shown me any monster, leave alone a spaghetti monster . The only monsters I believe in are monsters-in-law" is the blunt response of Nitin Nightsure, leading mathematician ith the Institute of Mathematical Sciences attached to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai.

Narisetti Innauah, chairman of the Centre for Inquiry, an outfit that believes in following the rational spirit (whatever it means) is a worried man. He is worried about the insufficient level of "scientific temper" among the researchers. "Scientific temper is something that comes from having unquestioning faith in supernatural stuff revealed by leading super-scientists of the world - stuff like how a big blast created our universe or how invisible strings that are at the core of all matter determine how universe works. Scientists having faith in supernatural stuff revealed by priests or charlatans is a clear contradiction that is unacceptable and will hamper the country's effort to become a scientific superpower."

(Interestingly, the present day superpower of the globe, United States of America became a superpower only after developing and testing the "atomic bomb".  Robert Oppenheimer, the American  physicist who directed the project at Los Alamos that developed the first atomic bomb believed in supernatural Indian gods like Krishna and quoted him "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" while enjoying the beautiful mushroom cloud generated by the first ever nuclear test.)

Not all scientists agree with Narisetti. "I know several scientists who believe in the flying noodle monster, yet produce excellent science papers" says Physicist Suresh Chandvanker of the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Material Sciences, TIFR. "Flying Spaghetti Monster being the creator of life is just an unproved theory. There is no contradiction simply because scientists are also very much human beings and also believe in unproved theories like time travel, black holes or parallel universes. If its acceptable for a scientist to believe that its possible to travel into past or future without provable ability to travel in time, why should a believer in FSM be ridiculed for his beliefs?"

Chandvankar himself believes in flying spaghetti monster, but not in the form of an idol or a stone statue of his noodly appendage. "My concept of FLM is complex. It could be drawn from nature and the hundreds of tentacles of the monster may be symbolic of the hands of nature affecting every field of life.

Cell biologist Satyajit Mayor, Dean of the National Centre for Biological studies in Bangalore, puts it differently. "You don't need to believe in FSM if you can understand a little bit more about the natural world around us. If I hold faith that Flying Spaghetti Monster is responsible for the way the world works, why would I want to understand the natural world at all? he asks, "My search is over if I accept that the cell is created by FSM"

Chandvankar counters his argument by saying, "If I believe that a cell is created by chance and not by FSM, it would mean that chance is more intelligent than me, since I don't yet know how to create a cell. I would rather believe that some flying monster created life than believe that I'm more stupid than chance."

But another top scientist theoretical physicist Asoka Sen, professor at Harish-chandra Research Institute at Allahabad doesn't mince words expressing his scorn for the noodly monster. "I work on the string theory that involves looking for invisible strings that only string theorists like us can conceive, see, understand, believe and accept. Since all matter in all of the universe is made up of these invisible strings there is no room for invisible spaghetti in this," says Sen unequivocally.

Quite interestingly, the oxford dictionary definition of 'spaghetti' is pasta in the form of long strings. Do scientists and religionists believe in the same noodly higher power, the only difference being that while the former believe that the universe is made up of edible noodles while the latter believe that edible noodles made our universe?

There are some nutcase scientists who believe that we are all noodly monsters pretending to be humans which would explain the paradox of noodles being the minutest form of all the matter of the universe and yet also being the generators, operators and destroyers of the universe. According to these screwballs, the tiny, undetectable “strings” that make up all matter, energy and forces in the entire universe are not strings vibrating and wiggling to ultimately determine what force or energy or bit of mass each string becomes,  but tiny, undetectable flying spaghetti monsters and the different forms of energy and matter are formed by how many and in what manner they wave their noodley appendages.

The maverick scientists believe they have a unified theory of everything in their appendeges..er..hands, a unified theory that not only unifies gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces, but also unifies the string theory of scientists with the flying spaghetti monster belief of the religionists.

But because these maverick scientists are regarded as fruitcakes by the rest of scientific establishment, they are never included in any survey of importance. They sit back and laugh at the infantile delusions of the two groups of scientists on either side of the debate - one bunch that has never seen any spaghetti monster yet believes in its existence, the other bunch that cannot even come to a definite conclusion whether chocolate is good or bad for health, but fancies that they have discovered how the universe was created 14 billions years back without the assistance of spaghetti monsters.

Litter-ate India: We dont need no "educational exercise"

Recent comments made by a local councillor blaming Indians for the litter crisis in the city of London has caused tremendous heart-burn amongst litter-ate Indians residing in the British Isles.

Miss Ivimy, 53, who sits on the Tory-run Hammersmith and Fulham Council in London, outlined her concerns in an email to Nick Johnson, chief executive of H&F Homes housing association. “I know that in India throwing rubbish out of a window and total disregard for the cleanliness of a public area is normal behaviour and I dare say a number would change behaviour if firmly told that in London this is not acceptable behaviour,” wrote Lucy Ivimy.

Though the Tory councillor later apologized for her comments after being accused of racism by Indians (who when in India treat all Africans as drug-peddlers), it has also brought into focus the habits of vast majority of Indians who firmly believe that every inch of open public space outside the door-steps of their homes is part of huge garbage dump built exclusively for the purpose of littering.

While Lucy may have erred in blaming couple of Indian families for the litter around the garden at Woodford Court, she certainly doesn't deserve to be called a racist. At the very most, she deserves only a mild rebuke for her ignorance of the glorious Indian culture, her lack of sensitivity in assuming that we need "an educational exercise" and her inability to understand the philosophical foundations of all our activities (and also inactivities).

Yes, Madam Ivimy, it is perfectly normal in India to have total disregard for the cleanliness of public areas and completely acceptable to throw garbage at every available place. But we don't disregard cleanliness out of sheer apathy or laziness as you perhaps believe. There is a reason behind everything we do and if you were aware of the complex set of factors that lay beneath our seeming acceptance of dirt, filth and garbage, you would have at least been very sympathetic, if not appreciative of the uniqueness of our culture.

We Indians being philosophical in nature have the unique ability of amalgamating philosophical propositions into our day-to-day existence. Long before the chaos theory became fashionable in western scientific circles, we had not only understood the principles behind this theory but also decided to apply them in our lives to appreciate the theory better. According to the chaos theory, chaos and disorder is the natural condition of our universe and all material things are in a state of constant decay and ruin. According to one prominent Indian philosopher-cum-televangelist Asaram Bapu, we should be like a leaf or a twig floating in a river going along graciously with the flow of the water rather than a rock who resists the current of the water but eventually breaks up into pieces under the relentless pressure of the strong currents.

 

While western societies struggle to maintain order and work hard to prevent natural decay of their institutions, towns and cities, we believe in taking the path of least resistance and letting the universe take its own course. We also don't mind helping the universe with whatever means available to us. Since garbage is the only thing that a poor nation like us can afford to throw away freely, we throw garbage all around and help the universe in its quest for chaos and disorder.

A mark of greatness is not just the ability to embrace philosophical axioms into our daily lives, but also to effortlessly merge contradictory ideologies into a holistic whole. Quite many westerners who visit India find it odd that while the general landscape of our country is dilapidated, yet most of the homes of people in the middle and upper class income bracket are clean, appropriately chic and well-maintained. The contradiction in the spruceness between the public and private spaces of the country can easily be explained if we take into account another ancient axiom that we believe strongly in - that our body is our temple and hence should be well-maintained. Since we treat our homes as extensions of our bodies (both being our private domains where we are kings and all that), we take great care to keep our interiors in good condition and leave the chaos theory to take care of the exteriors. Quite ingenious, right? Greatness comes naturally to us.

But every once in a while, universe throws to us people or situations that complicate matters for us. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was one such fellow who was dropped down from the heavens to make our lives difficult. This queer little fellow didn't understand the chaos theory and insisted that we should keep both our private and public space free of garbage. Not just content to sweep the streets (despite being a high caste hindu) to show people the way, he went ahead and proclaimed that 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'.

Since we take our godliness very seriously and since destiny forced us to take this queer fellow seriously, we were forced to take the alien concept of cleanliness very seriously.  But being clever folks, we found a brilliant way out that allowed us to bestow equal respect both the theories - the chaos theory and 'cleanliness is next to godliness' theory. We decided to keep our towns and cities clean symbolically.

(An important part of being Indian is belief in value of symbolism. Symbolic tokens often serve as good substitutes for the real thing in our country. The symbolic value of, say a Nobel prize won by an Indian often exceeds our interest in knowing the reason why the prize was conferred and allows us to feel pride in the achievement of a fellow Indian without the hard work of having to understand the mind of the genius to whom the prize was bestowed.)

Realizing the importance of symbolism, our government found an easy solution - as a mark of respect to Gandhi's beliefs, our government started naming everything after his name. Statues of his bust were erected at every corner and every third road of the country was named MG Road. A splendid way of honoring Gandhi's cleanliness mantra without actually doing the dirty work of keeping our corners and streets clean.

In conclusion, it needs to be stated resolutely. We don't need an "educational exercise" to prevent us from throwing our stuff out of our windows. But arrogant western lawmakers and citizenry need an educational exercise to understand how admirably India manages to straddle conflicting worlds, philosophies, ideologies and beliefs without falling apart.