Of big fat Indian weddings, Rock, paper, scissors and other generalities

A lot seems to be happening around the world today. Really, the people who must write sections for "Oddly enough" at Reuters must be celebrating with joy at the sheer number of events that far transcend "incredulously amazing".

Lets start with Liz Hurley's big fat Indian wedding, arguable the "wedding of the year", which couldn't get any more famous with big elephants, lots of trumpets, and other exotica like ice sculptures in the middle of (the desert Indian state) Rajasthan. No, that was a mistake. It DOES get better. Apparently, they have been sued by a group of responsible Hindu citizens who feel that the marriage rites were but a travesty to the pure and scared event that a hindu wedding ceremony is. Because? No reasons given. Oh well. Next, it turns out that the father-in-law himself disowned his son because the latter - under the auspices of his new wife of course - snubbed him at a [sic] 30,000 pound dinner organized in his honour. Duh. If someone organized a 30,000 pound dinner for me... But then, if I were getting married to someone as supremely hot as Liz Hurley - nah, I'd still go for it.. But come on people. So they didn't precisely follow hindu rituals - perhaps, there were tulips rather than marigolds. Isnt the fact that 2 people who (presumably) love each other got married count for anything? And seriously, don't you have anything better to do than waste money on frivolous lawsuits against people you are likely to have o direct connection to?

Anyway. Topping this was my serendipitous discovery of the .. World Rock, Paper, Scissors Society! Yes, that such a thing exists is a marvellous reaffirmation of the obscenely huge amounts of time some people have in order to devote it to such (trivial?) pursuits. Did you know that there are official strategies to play this game? And that the math involved in calculating probabilities of what the other persons are going to put forth based on a history of what you've put forth is rather advanced? That people who play this routinely do these calculations in their heads in a matter of seconds, before they decide what to play with?

I didn't either.

And since this post started with the easily hurt sensibilities of the hindu populace of the world, lets end it with a particularly interesting piece of news which I chanced across - that really showcases just how many good-for-nothing-too-rich-to-care people are out there. Apparently, the California school curriculum system was sued by .. yes, another hindu watchdog group in California which argues that the textbook syllabus in American schools portrays the religion in a bad light. Go figure. I'm too lazy to recount the entire scenario here.. but the links before should give you some idea of whats happening.

Yawn. more later.