No matter how low you set the bar on ‘21 weird things that can happen only in India’, there are always a few new ones which come along and set it considerably lower. They baffle you with the absurdity of their content, while actions and words of those involved makes you wonder whether Rabri pulling a reverse cowgirl on Laloo would make for a better watch.
But, enough about THE NEWSHOUR.
Two such incidents that challenge the human intellect recently happened in Haryana and Punjab, or as people call them, Roadies Battleground XCVIM. It is also weird because normally you would not associate acts of irrationality from people of these states, who live a simple life, complete a full 4 hour work week on a Monday, eat aloo paratha, make love to bawli poonch, listen to Guru Maharaj Honey Singh Ji and have char botal vodka. Well, I should not be mean to them, especially to the Haryanavis. They already deal with a lot of fucked up things like Khap panchayat and eating chinese loaded with rape-inducing hormones, and to be fair, they do sporadically take breaks from their insipid routine, smoke some grass and slaughter their daughters. So, the fun part is taken care of!
It started with one Jagat Guru Rampal Ji Maharaj, or ‘Poor man’s Asaram Bapu’ holding the state government and the police hostage for almost 2 weeks in Hisar. As many as 42 summons were served to him for contempt of court and charges of murder over the past four years, and yet he conveniently failed to show up there even once, waving a middle finger to the ‘honorable’ court citing the same reason what a 4 year old kid gives his school teacher on his absence – Nahi aa paunga, pant mein potty ho gai hai. His supporters cock-blocked all intended penetration by the Haryana police outside his ashram and held placards to the them with slogans like ‘Leave Baba Alone’, ‘Baba Roxx Yo’ and ‘Baba on the dance floor, Baba likes to partaayy’.
Media called him a ‘self-styled Godman’ as opposed to the many ‘Manish Malhotra-styled Godmen’ that exist in the country. Which means that he did not own flashy robes, Jimmy Choo-tiya shoes, pose for a Kingfisher calender and puked golden eggs on his followers. Finally, when the police managed to nab him after a fortnight of violence with half a dozen people dead and hundreds injured in the process, the government declared the ‘operation’ as a major success, because iss baar, modi sarkar hain na yaar. It was a success indeed. After all, who gives a fuck about those insignificant, half a dozen people, who came to the ashram thinking Comedy nights with Kapil was being shot there, and ended up being dead and finally meeting their creators, Palak and Guththi. India has larger problems to deal with than worrying about a bunch of dead people, like questioning how Kejriwal can have paneer pasanda with butter naan for lunch, as he is just an aam aadmi. He should only have sattu and pyaz, with hari mirch on the side.
Turns out, Rampal was once an engineer employed with the irrigation department of Haryana and was allegedly sacked for his ‘carelessness’. Which brings me to my question – Are there engineers in Haryana? I thought every parent in Haryana wanted their child to grow up and have a career in Splitsvilla.
After being removed from his job, he took the next logical step that any engineer would take – got MBA degree from IIPM, started ideating and pitching his obnoxious vomit on people and turned entrepreneur with a low seed capital-high ROI business of advising people on matters of life and investment, basically turning into a consultant for booze & Co., all the while maintaining that he is a reincarnation of Sant Kabir. His arrest also brought to light the larger relevant question facing the society today – Did he actually bathe in milk, which was then used to make kheer as prasad for the followers? At this, even Spartacus went “You win. I lose. Nicely done”. To be fair, media reports said that the milk contained intellectual energy from Baba’s armpits, which was then spat on by Kapil Sibal. So, yes, dessert was On the house!
While Haryana was getting all the attention due to Rampal’s episode, the neighboring cousin Punjab felt completely left out. As always, some people from Chandigarh came to the rescue with an idea that not only made the news about Rampal look like dog poop, but also had Robert Vadra saying “Are you serious” in an infinite loop. Sanjeev Kapoor called it ‘greatest invention in culinary history of India’.
It so happened that another Godman, Ashutosh Maharaj, died 10 months ago due to his practice of indulging in excessive self-entertainment, at his ashram in Chandigarh. His bhakts, who claim that Maharaj ji is not dead but has taken a samadhi, thought of respecting the last words of their guru before he went into his samadhi, which were “Enough with Tori Black. I want CHILL now”. So, they packed him neatly in a cardboard box, and stuffed him in the freezer, alongside boxes of frozen pizza, parathas and Rahul Gandhi’s brain, to chill. TRUE STORY.
Thus began the curious case of #frozenbaba, who has been lying in a two-bedroom sized freezer for many months, and everyone from his followers to his son wants a piece of that frozen ass now, which they would later probably microwave, sprinkle with some oregano and chilli flakes and have it with bhayankar thandi beer on a lonely friday night. When i last heard, Dominos has started giving out coupons for ‘Buy one get one free frozen baba’. Although he has been declared clinically dead, and the court has given orders for the cremation of the body, these orders are taken with the same level of seriousness as “Baith Jaiye, Baith Jaiye”.
In a country like ours, where religion is often used as a mechanism to drive out social evils like logic and reasoning from the society, these Godmen possess Lalit Modi like marketing genius to bring customized, ready to eat, easily consumable beliefs to a vast majority of people, who come to seek answers from them on topics like, “I’m 17 year old male. After having sex four times a day, I feel weak the next day. For about five minutes, my vision goes blank and I can’t see anything properly. Also, when I get extremely angry, a volcano erupts in my pants and molten lava flows everywhere. Please help”. It only helps their cause, when they get support from people of another highly enlightened class, who think plastic surgery and nuclear bombs were invented in India.
Now, I am pretty hopeful that in the coming days, we would hear more of such Godmen, who are capable of amazing feats like levitating or doing push-ups on their you-know-what. For now, I will get back to working on the list of ‘21 weird things that can happen only in India’. Oh! I just heard someone say, “Science is pygmy compared to astrology”.
An engineer gone random 