God Goats Humans Kids

B takes his son to St.Thomas mount. That's a small hillock in chennai where St. Thomas was allegedly killed. There is a church built by the portuguese at the summit. And there is this tall, fiarly imposing statue of a Golden colored Jesus. So B's son sees people praying to the statue and asks B if he could too. B agrees. So the kid apparently brings his palms together, in standard Hindu prayer style, and tries to reach out to Jesus with a non-silent 'Gajaananam Bootha ganaathi saevitham'* shloka**! :). Funny and profound, no?

I don't know if Jesus or Ganesha had gotten confused, but adult humans are certainly a confused lot. In the context of the above incident, the basis of a lot of recent ill happenings seem ridiculous.In 'The unbearable lightness of being', Milan Kundera says that how someone treats those weaker to him/her determine's his/her niceness. He goes on to say that the human race is pretty much screwed up going by the way it treats animals. He talks about a more powerful species (hypothetical) coming in and treating us the way we treat, say, hens and goats and rats and guinea pigs, or something to that effect. 'Half a kilo boy meat, preferably thigh piece', someone from that species could say. Or use 20 year old women as 'guinea pigs' for untried drugs. Their biology classes could include dissection of 3 year olds to understand the human digestive system. Morbid, no? But we have Darwin, Survival of the fittest, Food cycle, Food web et al to explain the whole thing. OK, i could use some LSD now.

Anyways, all trash aside, the image of a kid saying 'Gajananam' to Jesus atop St.Thomas mount seems idyllic, and brings a smile. On that note, happy 2009 people.

*Shloka - A sanskrit hymn...
*Gajaananam - A shloka on Lord Ganesha...