The Ones that did not make it to Wiki Leaks!

The recent Wiki Leaks was truly hilarious in some ways.
One that took the cake was that the Saudi King suggested released Guantanamo Bay detainees be implanted with electronic chips to keep track of them, like they do horses and falcons - sounds like something out of a Hollywood block buster!
The other cables seem to indicate that US diplomats are a genteel lot considering what potential secrets could have been passed on through those secure cables! Here are a few that could have made it to the list.
Cable from the Italian consulate in Delhi to HQ: Looks like India has better Italian leadership than Italy has.
Cable from the Chinese embassy to HQ: Looks like the Chinese are not going to have an erection.. er. election any time too soon..
Cable from US Secretary of State to US Consulate in Pakistan: We will let the Pakis continue to support the suicide bombers in India; that way they will be more busy bombing Mumbai and Delhi leaving us alone in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cable from Kenya to HQ: I strongly recommend that the President rename the White House to some other, for instance, Black House, because Kenyans and many Africans refer to the loo as their White House. It's truly disgusting.
Cable to HQ from the US embassy in Delhi: The Consulate has run out of toilet paper. Please expedite the process of sending the necessary item immediately before the Consul General is forced to use an adult diaper!
Urgent communique from the US president to British PM visiting South Asia: In India the agenda should be to blast the Pakis out of their wits and when in Pakistan give the Indians a good blastng. That's true diplomacy. As they say be a Roman in Rome!
Cable from a US diplomat on tour of Iran: Just found out that the Iranian president has a soft spot for Mickey Mouse movies and wears Mickey Mouse adorned underwear. Recommend that we put an embargo on these two items as well, if we already have not.
US Consul official on hotline from Saudi Arabia: URGENT: Our stock of Bloody Marys destroyed when US fighter jet carrying them over in a diplomatic pouch got shot while flying over Kuwait. Recommend express delivery of the same!

Elegy on the death of a Cow

Once upon a time in the sleepy town of Malkapur a cow died by the roadside. Rumors soon spread all over town. There was one group that claimed that the holy Cow had been poisoned by the Muslim community to vent their disapproval of the Hindus. Another group claimed that it had been poisoned by a Hindu posing as a Muslim to create animosity between the two communities. There was a third group that claimed that the cow had been poisoned by a Hindu posing as a Muslim who had originally been a Muslim. None were ready to believe that a healthy cow could have died a natural death.
In the riots that followed five people were killed, two of them burnt alive in their houses.
The Central Reserve Police Force was deployed in town and a dawn to dusk curfew imposed. The authorities ordered an autopsy on the dead cow, bowing down to public pressure.
The kith and kin of the five who were killed were compensated handsomely by the government. The brethren of the dead cow of course got nothing except for the pride of place on the streets and highways where they strolled around chewing newspaper that told the horror stories of the Hindu - Muslim clashes with commentaries by eminent analysts.
The local veterinary hospital claimed that they did not have the facilities to perform as sophisticated a procedure as an autopsy on a dead cow. So the body of the cow was placed in a mortuary for months before it was sent to Delhi for further investigations.
The authorities realised that the autopsy by itself was not important. If the cow had been poisoned the Hindus would riot. And if it had not been poisoned the Muslims would riot for the injustice done to them earlier.
Finally after much deliberation the result of the autopsy was buried under sheets of red tape and the dead cow was soon forgotten by one and all as everyone waited expectantly for the India Pakistan cricket series to start.

To do or not to do, that is the Question!

Just something I noticed offhand that seemed rather odd to me.
I have noticed that people in the more secular Kerala have started observing symbolic gestures that I noticed were more commonly performed by North Indians.
FOr example, a perfectly ordinary looking young man travelling on a bus makes a symbolic religious gesture by touching his chest twice and then his upper abdomen when he sights a temple through the window. Older men make more dramatic gestures like folding their hands in reverence and then touching the forehead under similar circumstances. Christians are not far behind in adapting this new trend. They fold their hands and make the symbolic gesture of the holy cross on sighting a church from a moving vehicle.
What if they hadn't happened to notice the abode of God and instead had picked thier nose, or worse, farted?
Would than then amount to blasphemy?
And what about the passengers sitting on the other side of the aisle on the bus? Should they be deprived of performing the same symbolic ritual just because they happened to sight a garbage dump on their side of the bus while the pious fellow on the other side of the aisle crossed his hands in relgious fervour for having the luck to sight a temple/ church at the same time?
These symoblic gestures to sound to me little less than hypocrisy and sycophancy. I hope we imibe the more sensible of symbolisms from other cultures.