Up to the Gumba, and beyond

Some things should be revered. Not god, no. Hardworking people and people who give their lives in name of god or philosophy to meditation (no harming anyone) should be respected, even though might possibly be delusional occasionally.
 

That also includes the Nagi Gumba in the Shivapuri hills. It is a popular trekking spot for students of BNKS, especially senior boys. And the reason for it is not as religious as I would hope. We (I admit, I am guilty) go to the Gumba to check out the Aanis(nuns). It’s not like going to some place to check girls out, because it’s not looking for random hot Aanis that we went for--it’s a specific person.
 

We somehow discovered that she was 22 last year (that’s 23 now), but that has not deterred anyone from going up there, because it’s not like she has a boyfriend anyway. The Gumba probably has collected tens of thousands in donations simply because of her. And it’s not a secret anymore: last time when we were going to Shivapuri(we were not going to go there), the guard dais us if we were ‘going to the Gumba to check out the Anis’. I was surprised—shocked, actually—and embarrassed, because I had assumed that it was ‘our little secret’. Now my friends don’t tell their parents that they are going to the Gumba.
 

I realized only very recently that the guard dais were not even referring to that Aani in particular—it seems that a lot of young men go to the Gumbas to check out the young Anis. And that brings be back to where I started from: should they be revered, because they chose a life of isolation and no ahem, materialistic pleasures? I thought so, but now I am not sure. Respect: yes, reverence: haha, who am I kidding!

The Real Buddha hookup

The so-called ‘Buddha Boy’ has been drawing a lot of national and international media attention lately. He apparently comes from some hick-town that is far, far away from any place with decent internet connection, mediates a lot, does not eat or sleep for long periods of time, and has the ability to control the uncontrolled growth of facial hair that happens with people of his age and ethnicity. What is this person, and is he really a god? Such questions have baffled even the most ardent critics. Oh, this reminds  me of the time the real Buddha hooked up with a porn star.

You might have heard of a certain Siddarth Gautam, also known as Buddha. You might have also heard that he meditated under a tree for so many years and got ‘knowledge’ or whatever. If you look at the history more carefully, you will realize that he was disenchanted from meditation after the first four days of going hungry and staying under a tree and being dumped upon  upon by birds frequently. It was then that a lassie by the name of Sujata came to him. After that historical records go fuzzy, and become clear only after a certain interval has passed when Budhha has become a more ‘normal’ person, although an intelligent one. We can only guess what happened during the time periods, but here, religion comes to help. We are told that Sujata told him that to become a real knowledgeable person, he must live like a normal man, and then offered him Kheer, which you will recognize as rice pudding made from lots of milk.

You might guess where this is going. Sujata and Gautam hooked up, and did things that were so different and weird, weird, weird, that even the ancient Indian historians, who are not the ones to shy away from describing sexual acts, decided this would be too embarrassing to write and so covered it up with euphemisms. I will not try guessing what transpired between them—it must have pretty kinky—but after some period they broke up, and Buddha went on his way to become one of the most influential philosophers of all time. Meanwhile Sujata presumably used her talents and went on to become a successful professional in the adult entertainment industry. We encounter Sujata once more in Buddha’s biographies-- when Buddha is in his late fifties-- as an experienced just-retired professional who presumably reached the heights of her trade.

Anyways, the point here is Buddha could have had a son outside the wedlock, and it could be a topic for great conspiracy theories, novels, and movies based on the novels. Tom Hanks could play the role of a Buddhist historian who discovers Buddha’s lineage in the secret society of Rickshaw-pullers and Porters in Bihar who have no idea about their ancestry, and even if they did, so what, because that dude (Buddha)is not gonna come down to Earth to feed his progeny for free.

The state of our Nation

A lot of people are worried about the state of our nation, and so to find the solutions they ask me questions like ‘Do I look good in Purple?’, ‘How come there are so many tomatoes in my vomit’ and ‘Do you know how I can get into Harvard?’. These questions, and the people who ask such questions make me very worried about the future. If everyone started worrying so much about tomatoes in vomit, for example, wouldn’t all tomato farmers starve of hunger? And what if everyone started testing purple on themselves? What would happen to the producers of green fabric?

The problem lies not with those self-centered narcissist individuals who do not care for tomato farmers or producers of green fabric, but an entire generation in general. All those young people are so obsessed what they eat, and what they wear and where they go to study that there’s a very good chance that a majority of our population, which makes a living by selling low-quality inferior goods, will go out of work very soon.

It has been the Nepali tradition to make a living by cheating people. A lot of lives depend on it. For example, do you know that if everyone started wondering where there titaura came from, the titaura industry would be shut down within two weeks, causing direct unemployment of 12,000 people, and indirectly affecting millions? You see, those hard-working traditional titaura-makers make those delicious treats by crushing the fruit pulp under dirty feet so that all the foot juices reach the innermost parts of titaura(it’s the foot juices that give titauras their juicy flavor), and then put some spit onto every batch to give them some natural texture. These pretentious young people, who are demanding quality would put entire villages of hard-working villagers who spend their entire day getting their feet dirty for the titauras and drinking water even when they not thirsty for the sake of spit, out of work? And then the death of the entire titaura culture is yet another aspect. We have just too much to lose if we lose the titaura industry.

Titaura is just one local example out of many, many others. These days, people have started wondering what goes into their beer. Preposterous. You cannot think about beer and drink it too. All the peoples of the world, including the beer bozos Americans, beer maniacs Germans, and the sex-crazed French have drank their beer for millennia without thinking too much about what goes into making them, and now comes some smarty-pants Nepali who wants to know if it is true that beer is really distilled horse urine. I tell you what—it is! What’cha you gonna do, protest and put all those poor horses out of jobs so that they are killed for meat or actually ridden by someone? Do you want to see those poor little ponies being ridden on by some big-fat man with a whip, or just sitting around, having fun, and drinking a lot of water and peeing a lot? It’s up to you.