A Recurring Indian Parable – Tragedy or Farce

In modern times in an ancient land, there lived four secular Hindu families, each with one son. They believed in freedom of religion and abhorred conversion by sword, but were accepting of religion for a price. They regularly checked the going price for Christianity and Islam published daily in the Secular Slime of India Press. They lauded Islam's attenuated virulence and its emulation of Christianity by practicing conversion by money, and vehemently criticized and lamented the miserliness of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Sikhism practicing tightwads. Being secular, they wanted to educate their only children, the sons. They had already aborted the female fetuses to avoid facing the dilemma of deciding whether to save the money for daughters' dowry or wasting it on impractical things like education. They were broadminded about daughter-in-laws and vowed to look for ones with good dowries or at least basic training for performing Suttee. Their children were friends and had been subjected to unwitting indoctrination, when their parents at social gatherings, heatedly debated such secular controversies like the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin and undergo immaculate conception while dancing, whether Mohammed's parent's were Muslims and did he shave the hair on his unmentionable body parts prior to his contact with angels and other hygienic creatures, the unquestionable medical benefits of male circumcision and the shameful barbarism of female circumcision or the phallic symbolisms of Shiva Lingam and Ganesh's trunk. The parents with their exaggerated sense of self-importance useful to mask an inferiority complex induced self-loathing, were blissfully complacent and smugly satisfied with their blindly fanatic
secularism.

To broaden their male children's education and worldview, after much soul-searching psychoanalysis, they decided to send the sons Marx, Rousseau, Freud and Voltaire to a finishing 'Madresseh' to polish their secular upbringing and education. They set out for Deoband, the divine dam where lies the educational Mecca, called 'Kala Azar' University. After going through basic training, primers of detonation, advanced terrorism, they obtained a doctorate in 'E(e)lam'.

Now in the course of the study of the solitary book, which constituted their total education, they had heard that there was a Garden of Eden between their Mecca and their homeland and decided to explore it. They relaxed in this verdant oasis and having partaken of the otherwise forbidden grape in this paradise (Peri Desha), their chaste thoughts turned to the promised virgins. After hours of disappointment and carafes of fermented grape-juice, they started bragging about their respective skills (Vidyas). Voltaire picked up a bone and said, 'I am going to construct a complete skeleton from this'. Rousseau said, 'I will put skin, muscle and ligaments on it'. Freud said, 'I can do better, I will put all the organs in it'. Marx arrogantly sneered, 'I am the smartest of you all, I will breathe life into it'.

Their secular intelligence far exceeded their wisdom and judgment. They performed as proclaimed and the lion roared, leaped and in a whirl struck and severed the Achilles tendons and hamstrings of all four in a lightning flash of sharp claws. Thus captivated, hamstrung and vulnerable, but still polite seculars, they introduced themselves to the lion and asked its name and requested some time for reasoned debate just like the one between Yagnavalkya and Gargi.

'I am Pak Chor Khan and I believe in the survival of the fittest and screwing as many females as I can, to propagate and proliferate my kind and get a sampling of paradise. There is a time to live and a time to die and a season for all things and currently I am hungry, so from each according to his ability and to each according to his need', the lion said as he devoured Marx to the background cries of 'Noble savage' and 'Untainted by civilization and its discontents' and deathly silent dissent emanating from Rousseau, Freud and Voltaire respectively. Having finished the appetizer, he devoted his attention to the fishy course of Freud. 'You foolish fraud, no one except a sick psychopathic sex maniac has sexual dreams of his mother. Creatures want to mate with young nubile, fertile, fecund females and when compelled to keep it in the family, I have thrown in my sick Lot with daughter-in-law at worst, rather than act like some stinking Odd-y-pus', chuckled the lion, between munching morsels of id, ego and superego subconsciously.

Unable to stomach the entire dish of Freud due to its awful rotten smell, he left the bulk of it for the buzzards and other such species of social scientists with a taste and tolerance for decaying nonsensical drivel. The lion dug into the flashy Rousseau but stopped midcourse on inequality, leaving choice pieces of him to nourish Rousseau's abandoned hungry orphans and thus make amends for his unfulfilled social contract. 'From one just dessert to another', quipped the lion, as he Mirandaized Voltaire with his jaws. 'I agree with you completely, but will defend to your death, your right to remain silent, if you disagree with me. Whatever you say will be of no use in preventing you from being eaten. I'll be candid, you are not the best possible meal in the best possible world, nevertheless I won't pan it, just gloss over it.'

Pak Chor Khan burped and proceeded to take his after dinner stroll to the Indian National Secular monument. He stared at the inscription:

All secular fools are created equal and they are endowed by their foolish Creator with certain inherent and unalienable rights and amongst these are Death, Domination and the pursuit of foolishness, as long as they think Tit for Tat is pornography for Purines and Pyramidines.

His illiteracy did not permit reading, nor did his mind any tolerance or understanding, so Pak Chor Khan, muttered under his breath, 'All of them have the same taste, these seculars! I have eclectic tastes and have attempted to consume Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Hume and Locke. Many may say they have good parts and bad, I say that is all Kant. Most of these philosophers are unpalatable and indigestible. I know, I have cut my teeth on them and agonized after partaking of them.' He reflexively indulged in his favorite pastime, the use of his only razor sharpened organ to spray the monument with his scent and retired to his harem to daydream of paradise, as he lasciviously eyed the youngest female cub in his pride.