Lacto Divinity!

As a person who was affected by this Ganesha milk gulping episode, let me tell you about my experiences that day. I woke up in the morning when my mother was looking at the Ganesha idol in our pooja room rather suspiciously. "What are you doing Mom?" I asked her with the intention of taking the conversation towards getting some bed coffee.

"I am not sure. Do you find something wrong with this Ganesha" she asked me.

I rubbed my eyes and examined the idol. Nothing remarkable about it. It was just a blackstone idol of Ganesha. The tip of the crown seemed to be a little chipped off. "It is in good shape Mom, we just need to polish it a little I guess" I told her. She shook her head. "Why is he not drinking any milk then?"

I did not understand her statement. "What? Come again?". She was still looking at the idol."Ganesha is not drinking milk in our house."

I searched for our cat. Might be his name was Ganesha. I always referred to that cat as "The cat" but various members of my family had various nick names for him. "May be he is sick." I proposed a solution. My mother looked at me seriously. "Ganesha doesn't get sick."

Just then, our servant maid rushed in. "Madam! Ganesha drank our milk. Ganesha drank our milk." She was very excited. "Look Sitamma, I am sorry Ganesha drank your milk. I will pay for that. How much?" I was getting fed up of this cat. He always drank the wrong milk.

Sitamma was overexcited, "why money? oh Ganesha drank our milk. I am thrilled. I don't know what to do!" and she ran away perhaps to convey the news to the rest of Nelloreans.

I turned to my mother. "Before I go mad, kindly tell me what this Ganesha episode all about."

She told me. I listened to her with a blank expression on my face. "Don't tell me you believe this" I couldn't believe she fell pray for such a rumor. She calmly switched on the TV. Doordarshan was showing a temple in Maharastra... People were lined up to see the idol drink milk. "Half a liter is being a sold at 10 Rs saar!" said the watchman. I nodded. Suddenly BBC came live with a milk drinking episode in London.

I put on my shirt and dashed to the front door only to stop inches before the gate. I ran back into the house and asked my mom, "Is it only Ganesha or every God form is drinking milk?" I did not want to run one hundred meters to the nearest Ganesha temple if Saraswati was also drinking milk. Her temple was just fifty meters away.

When I reached the temple, there was a big line. People were dressed up in formal ethnic wear holding cans of milk bought perhaps in the black market. My turn came one hour later. Vinayaka was looking at me kindly. The purohit, a very impatient guy he was, asked me roughly "Aye? Where's your milk can? Don't have one? Idiot. Get out of the line. There are people waiting." I was pushed aside but I could stand there to see the drama. Milk was poured in a small container and kept near the Ganesha idol with the brink just in front of His trunk.

Surprise! Surprise! The milk disappeared from the container. "Bojja Ganapathaiah" everybody cried. I was baffled. I tried to see if there were any pipes running from that place. It took me five minutes to come up with a plausible scientific explanation. "Eureka" I shouted and turned back only to be greeted by a "Yuvashakti" organizer. He had a steel hook in his hand. He was patiently demonstrating that even his hook could drink milk. But Indians! and Nelloreans further! They just ignored him.

But I do have one reason to believe it was all created by Ganesha... The Mass Hypnotism. I hadn't seen any such mass hysteria program engulfing the entire globe until then and I am confident (pakka, lock keejiye) that I wouldn't be hearing about another one of this proportion in far and distant future.