Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Simian Brigade - 4

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And then there was this Father's tall tale about the birth of Ganeshjee.


Apparently one day in the Himalayas a large number of devatas came on a deputation to Shivjee in his Kailas mountain and pleaded with him to kill a ferocious demon called Gajasur, meaning an elephant-rakshas, who was going berserk and running amok.

And Shivjee told his wife, Parvati, that he would be going out on a mission (yet to be accomplished) and would return soon. And Parvati waited and waited for a week but in vain. And Friday arrived and it was the weekly date of shampoo bath for Parvati, like for all South Indian ladies even now.

And the wife and husband were then living in a cave on Kailash that didn't have a proper front door to keep peeping toms away. So, Parvati needed a guard to keep out any males from the entrance. So she took a mound of sandalwood paste and made a figure of a cute boy with it.

By the way all the sandalwood trees in India have been felled and the wood has been sold by smugglers to China which is a country that wants everything in the world, with a voracious appetite. The chap who cut all these trees was called Veerappan...literally an epitome of valor, although he was dubbed a brigand by the police. Poor Veerappan was killed by the police while the baron-politician-smugglers who employed him are thriving. And they have now taken to illegal red-sanders-export to China.

Anyway those days lots of sandalwood paste must have been available in the Kailash mountains and so Parvati had no problem. After she paste-sculpted the figure, she breathed life into it and, lo and behold, she got a son whom she loved and called Vinayak. She then asked this kid to stand at the entrance and forbid anyone to enter the cave, come what may, till she finished her oil-bath.

And meanwhile Shivjee killed Gajasur and beheaded him and carried his elephant-head as a trophy for his wife...curious gifts they had at that time.

And as he tried to enter his own home, Shivjee was asked by the child Vinayak to get lost. And Shivjee was enraged at the temerity of this new kid on the block and promptly beheaded him much like what the fanatics are doing to the British journos now. 

And meanwhile Parvati finished her bath and came out and saw her beheaded son and started crying. And Shivjee tried to console her but in vain since Parvati was inconsolable at the death of her creation. 

And Shivjee promptly attached the elephant-head he was carrying in his hands to the lifeless torso of Vinayak and, lo and behold, Ganeshjee was born.

Father didn't tell us what Shivjee did with the head of Vianayak that was lying on the ground and why he didn't fix it back on the torso of Vinayak thus saving his trophy for his wife. 

Recently there was this news item that an intrepid Russian has agreed to undergo the first head-transplant in the world:
  
http://www.newser.com/story/205382/guy-volunteers-for-worlds-first-head-transplant.html

The Simian Brigade of Hyderabad furiously contest the claim that it is the first head-transplant of the world and point out to the birth of Lord Ganeshjee as the precursor to it; and claim that our Hindu ancestors were the first to invent plastic surgery.


And when they read about the new science of robotics they asked what it was all about. And were told that it is the science and craft of making humans out of lifeless matter: 








And our Simian Brigade laughed away the claim and pointed out that Parvati breathed life into a sandalwood figure long long ago, no!


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