Monday, August 21, 2006

Gott in Himmel!

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Two news stories floating around the blogosphere that I can't resist commenting on.

The first courtesy of n over at random rambles which informs me that the gods are supposedly drinking milk again.

The thing I don't get about this is - why would you feel proud of a God who drank milk? I mean think about it. You're a God. You're feeling a little thirsty. You've got all these thousands of brain-dead devotees who will get you whatever you want to drink. On the house. So what do you ask for? A glass of 30 year old Laphroaig? Some vintage Napoleon cognac? Perhaps a delectable Alsatian Riesling, finely chilled? Or a Vodka martini, shaken not stirred? No. These gods want milk! Milk! Fed to them by a spoon no less. Talk about milksops.

Listen, I'm mortal, but anytime anyone comes trying to curry favour with me by thrusting a tablespoon of double-toned under my nose I swear I'll spit in his or her face. Instead these wimps we've got for deities are lapping the stuff up. Are these really the kind of beings we want to trust the universe too - those who can't even hold a drink? Give me the old Greek gods any day - at least they knew how to have a good time.

Personally I find this deeply disappointing. I have no real hope of making it to heaven, but I've always thought of it as a fairly exciting place, mostly because I've always pictured this ambrosia stuff as being real dynamite - kind of like liquid Exstacy. Watching these gods lapping away at their teaspoons of Amul's finest though, I can't help but wonder if the nectar of the gods isn't a lot more vanilla. Imagine spending your entire life being pious and self-sacrificing only to be rewarded for all eternity by Roohafza milk shake.

***

The other wtf story of the day comes courtesy of km, Desipundit and Sepia Mutiny and features the new Bombay restaurant called Hitler's Cross, which apparently has bad old Adolf as its patron saint, and is a bid, according to its owner to:

"tell people we are different in the way he was different"


presumably implying that they are megalomaniacal restaurant chain that will now proceed to annex Poland and France and murder six million people with their terrible cooking. [1]

One wonders where the owner, one Punit Shablok, got his marketing fundae from. IIPM perhaps? I suggest he finds a blackboard and proceeds to write "Different is NOT better" about 10,000 times.

Talk about bad taste. What sort of person (except maybe Mel Gibson) would want to eat in a restaurant that blatantly associates itself with Hitler? Somebody should give these folks a taste of true Nazi hospitality - invite them into the restaurant, take down their names for a reservation, then ask them to wait five minutes in the 'waiting area' where they're promptly gassed to death and converted into soap. It would serve them bloody right.

And what I want to know is: what does Churchill have to say about all this?

[1] So what do you call Indonesian Fried Rice in one of these places - a Nazi Goering?

19 comments:

Tabula Rasa said...

nazi goering! :-D

Szerelem said...

falstaff, some of our gods really know how to have a good time too!
Note Shiva who is perpetually high, has an awesome sex life and is quite the dancer as well.
Or Krishna who could make love to a hundred gopis at a time...ok this just made me wonder given Krishnas love for milk and butter is there some relation between milk and carnal pleasure? Is that why our gods are lapping up milk? they prefer sex to booze?

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

i'm jus thinking if not for these so-called Gods and Goddesses of India, most ppl would die of the lack of entertainment in their life(Godmen are another form ,though)

ggop said...

Nazi Goreng..
(Groan) You were just waiting to use that in a sentence weren't you? :-)
gg

The Man Who Wasnt There said...

ha ha...incidents are these are grist to your windmill isnt it?:)

but really on making it to heaven
promises of 72 virgins (or is it a 72 yr old virgin? :| ) is a much better than deal than ambrosia dont you think?:P

But oh ofcourse I forgot..you will quite obviously wont make it to heaven...I can imagine you canoodling with Paris Hilton ....

in apropos to the 'Hitler' post how strong is the Jewish community in India to raise the ruckus? yes yes notwithstanding the fact that it goes against commonsense,propriety and all the jazz the bottomline as the properietor says is 'this name will make it stand out'. And the restaurant is indeed getting the publicity..

Anonymous said...

you should probably start a new category in your blog "populist slander"...
you love to pick up stuff that bloggers having fun poking at, and join the melee give it your two cents ... Although this one was readable compared to your previous attemppts, inspite of the humour being deliberate and forced...,

I m sure your faithfuls wouldnt let this comment go unnoticed..

Falstaff said...

tr / ggop: Ya well. A man's got to do what a man's got to do.

szerelem: Good point. But I'm not sure why the two are mutually exclusive really. I seem to remember some story about Shiva casually swallowing some poison so lethal and having his throat turn blue - anyone who can do that should be able to handle a couple of drinks and still be sexually active.

swathi: Ya, specially now that movie channels have been banned.

man who wasn't there: Don't you have to blow other people up to get 72 virgins? Plus my objection to that is that is precisely that they're virgins - one inexperienced sexual partner is bad enough - 72 of them I don't need.

I guess my point is that it isn't just the jewish community who should be raising a ruckus. Surely you don't need to be a jew to find Hitler morally reprehensible and the idea of someone naming a restaurant after him disgusting. Hopefully one won't need to kick up a ruckus though - hopefully people will just avoid the place like the plague.

anon: I'm not sure what your point is. But whatever.

Anonymous said...

my point is i m just plainly pained to see you writing for audience... A so called "niche" that takes prides on being niche... and you too seem to be happy about entertaining the masses... Following a thread , cross referencing posts, inspired by what others write, eager to blurt out your opinions too like an jack-in-the-box school kid... it surely doesnt befit someone with your capability to come up with original pieces ... And though you have so many categories for your posts, they ve all become the same in terms of texture and style... its like you ve settled down for some success formula....
When a person is appreciated long enough for a work of creativity, he or she tends to create for appreciation, rather than for himself or herself..
This may not be pertaining to one particular post, but just a trend that i belive i see in your recent posts and the comments here...

If you choose to shrug this too off with a "whatever", then I guess you are well and happy with your little coterie...

km said...

What if an idol spat out the milk and said, "no low-fat?"

That would be a miracle.

n said...

i've been meaning to update the post.. today's HT has an article abt a Christian miracle now..a statue of Mary leaking sweet-smelling oil.

Falstaff said...

anon: Ah, so that's what you were saying. Thanks for the feedback, but I have to say I find your claim that the writing on this blog is becoming formulaic a little hard to swallow. Read the last 15 posts - I hardly think your assertion that they're all the same in texture and style is valid. And I'm not sure who exactly this coterie of people I write for is supposed to be.

Okay, so you're not amused by posts that point to links going around the blogosphere and add some silly badinage around them. Fair enough. I'm not claiming they're brilliant or anything. But I enjoy writing them anyway, which is kind of the point, isn't it. I mean, this is a blog - I'm writing this stuff for a lark. It's not some deep, meaningful artistic exercise.

I agree with you completely that it would be sad if one started writing to please an audience instead of to please oneself. I'm just unconvinced that that's happening here. So my suggestion is - don't take stuff so seriously, ignore these 'jack in the box' posts if you don't like them, and if one month from now you still feel that all I'm doing is writing formulaic posts that pander to some niche audience, then drop me a mail saying so. Does that work for you?

km: What? You mean you think Ganesha isn't madly weight conscious?

MockTurtle said...

I actually did try that experiment. The first time the milk drinking idols made the news my hostel-mates and I bought one and fed the poor thirsty creature both beer and rum served up in a saucer. They were both sipped on by His porous clay trunk. I suppose osmosis does not distinguish between liquids.

ggop said...

n,
You got to be kidding! There was a South Park episode with the same theme aired recently on Comedy Central.
(statue of Mary leaking blood)
-gg

n said...

@ ggop
this is better. It's perfumed oil :)
very marketable

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