Wednesday, January 03, 2007

A post script to “I Should Have Just Prayed For The Cubs”

A post script to “I Should Have Just Prayed For The Cubs
This PS is intended to show that some forms of psychosis(others would call humor) have a tendency to run throughout a family.

Several weeks after my surgery, life and all parts of my anatomy had returned to our version of normal. As I walked in the front door, my wife informed me that a small box had arrived via UPS earlier in the day. I ripped through the packaging but noted that there was no return address. Inside was a new but old fashioned, transistor radio. The side of the pocket sized, white radio contained block lettering stating, “Indira Gandhi and the people of India offer their most sincere gratitude.” After a minute, I threw back my head and laughed.

Years earlier, we had honeymooned in India. We didn’t do this because of a lifelong desire to see Mum Taj Muhal’s burial shrine. We chose India because my mother in law worked for the US State Department and was stationed at the embassy in New Delhi. She had a big place with plenty of room and had offered to let us stay with her if we would come and visit. In addition, she arranged for a car, driver and pretty much anything a first class tourist would want. We had a really great time.

When we arrived in India, Indira Gandhi had just placed the country under Marshall law. It didn’t seem to have a huge effect on us but, as you would suspect, did the locals. Indira, like most Hindu’s, had a very strong dislike, no let’s call it hate, for Muslims(see India versus Pakistan). One of her first acts, under marshall law was to help India get a grip on its out of control birth rate. She would have her police go to any activity that might be a gathering place for young men of child creating age. Those young men would then be forced at gunpoint to a local hospital where teams of doctors were waiting to perform vasectomies. If those young men just all happened to be Muslim, oh well. After the procedure was performed but prior to the Novocaine wearing off, the young men would be handed a brand new transistor radio( apparently quite the trade) and shoved out the door.

Some twelve years later, I had totally forgotten about Indira’s parties. My younger brother had not.

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