Nov 20, 2003

The Story of Celery -Alok Naik

This story takes us back; aeons ago, in the mystic folds of time; when there lived an insignificant little wizard. Uh, for that was his name, spent all his time dabbling in white magic. One day, while taking a walk on the ethereal plane, Uh stumbled upon the all-powerful weapon - the Hammer of Thor. Forged in the fires of everlasting light by the great god Thor himself, the Hammer transformed the little wizard into a mighty warrior. For the rest of his life, Uh fought evil and brought peace to all edges of the globe. He finally died of a heart attack when his wife stopped nagging him.

Uh's son, Oh, was a good for nothing oaf. He dreamt of becoming an engineer and four years in a hostel left him a physical and mental wreck. He dismantled his father's dictatorship and established a democracy; and this move set all good people of the land shivering in their shoes. Oh then went to Micronesia to help uplift the downtrodden. There he found an uninhabited island habited by cannibals who had him for dinner.

Thus was the once prosperous land shoved onto the path of destruction. One thing led to another, till civilization ground to a halt and industrialization took over. The next head of government was Celery; the same Celery who coined the term "Yabblins". He ruled more or less wisely for many years, doing the best he could. Then came news, one fine morning, that in far off India, a great war had begun. Celery immediately sent for the Hebrew translation of the Mahabharata (for Celery could understand only Hebrew); only to find that the Mahabharata had not been written till then. At this Celery grew exceedingly angry, for he wanted to know whether the opposition parties would ask him to interfere in the war (how reading the Mahabharata would have helped Celery is unclear to the present author). When a nuclear exchange seemed imminent, Celery took up the Hammer of Thor and rode out on his bicycle (for the horse was, by then, out of fashion) to set things right.

Celery reached the grim battlefield of Kurukshetra just in time to see the great and noble Bhishma pull out shafts from his body and remark, "These cannot be Shikhandi's arrows. Surely they are Arjun's, for they burn the flesh..." Celery watched in awe as Arjun steeled his heart and sent well aimed arrows from his famous bow, that pierced the grandsire's armour, cut down his flag and killed his charioteer. With so many arrows in his body that not an inch of intervening space could be found, the grand old warrior fell from his chariot.

The battle stopped as the fighters came running to pay their respects to the fallen commander. Celery stood at a respectful distance and was wondering what to do next, when a smart man in a pinstripe suit popped up before him. "I'm from Popsi and my company would like to sponsor this break in the war," he said brightly. This crude attempt at commercialization so angered Celery that he hit the Popsi man with the Hammer of Thor and sent him flying to America. Celery was moved by the great drama unfolding around him (for details, refer 'Mahabharata' by Ved Vyas), but there was work to be done.

He contacted the Supreme Commanders of both sides and asked them to give up their nukes. He was, however, bluntly told that India would not give up the nuclear option as long as Celery had the hammer. Celery returned home, a dejected and broken man. He lost the next general elections and the Communists came to power. Celery was duly executed along with family and friends. The Communists ruled for some time, and then gave up because no-one listened to them any more. The destruction of the once-beautiful land was thus complete, and as a final act, Celery's granddaughter threw the Hammer of Thor into the Pierian Spring's clear waters where it slowly sunk out of sight.



Yeah, so some phrases seem like you've heard them before. So what?

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