Medium, Nothing "Well-Done"?

Every weekend, I look forward to catching up with my "favourite" serials on Indian television. And one of the main reasons I look forward to this time is that, it has never happened that it hasn't inspired me to ask some fundamental questions of life.

Just take my today's thoughts as an example:

1. As far as I remember, taking aatmas of dead people is a task allocated to Yama (and his Yamdoot) in Hindu Mythology. Since when was the task "outsourced" to the scythe-bearing Death?


2. And is that why sadhus (tr: sages) now recognize Death? Is this what they mean by "Global Village"?


3. Death being such a mean, old (yup, mean and old both) thing, shouldn't its aura be black, and not such glowing bright Rin-ki-safedi white?


4. Luckily, the old remedies(?) to frustrate the Death still work (remember the tale of Savitri and Yama?)


5. There might be worse reasons to die than just because your wife cannot care to follow Karavachauth, right? (And standing near a Sati-Savitri might be more deadly than just jale pe namak (tr: rubbing salt on...) in this case)


6. Incidentally, how do you know that someone sitting next to a temple in a place completely foreign to you is Gyaani Mahatma (tr: An Enlightened One)? As a corollary, how exactly does a GM look?


7. On an unrelated note, why do all women take a bath on suhag-raat (tr: wedding night?)?


8. If somebody is suspected to have died of poisoning, and if there is a beverage glass lying nearby, the conclusion is obvious. So, after discussing and saying it out loudly many times, and packing off the glass to forensics, why are some people surprised when they hear that the beverage contains poison? Is it short-term memory or are they surprised that they got it right?


9. If police are tracking somebody who used to work in the place where a murder was committed, why should it come as a news to the commissioner that the aforem. person used to work in the aforem. place? What happened to all lines of communication in the investigation?

As you can see, despite the doubts about television's IQ (or lack of it), it does keep providing me such food for thought weekly... Nothing better to relax on a weekend..

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken


P.S. Can anybody give me the English translations of the Hindi words I have used here? For a detailed description of "Karvachauth", see Madhavi's comment below.

P.P.S. And no, in my opinion, suhag-raat != honeymoon. Honeymoon normally extends much more than "that" one night.

Quote of The Day:
Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done.
- Fred Allen (1894 - 1956), on the radio program The Big Show, Dec. 17, 1950