C'mon baby light my fire

They got what they prayed for, plus a lawsuit

By Nury Vittachi
*

All over the world, highly trained newspaper columnists (“good-for-nothings”) spend long hours every day doing research, which is a combination of finely-honed skills: reading, making phone calls, staring into space, and drinking themselves into a stupor. They seek interesting, original “source material”, which is journalistic jargon for “something I can copy out so I can go home”.

But not this column. With its huge network of well-connected readers, this is a partnership, with each side having its own clearly defined function. You do the work. I get the money.

        Religious devotees were outraged when a businessman opened a bar right opposite their temple in a small town in India, I heard from reader Pola Singh.

           They were horrified at the idea of people gathering to drink and eat and sing and fall over in a place just a few meters away from a site where people did sacred, religious things, such as gathering to eat and drink and sing and fall over.

           So temple monks led the congregation in a campaign against it. They prayed. They beseeched their idols. They burned vast amounts of incense.

           Had the gods heard them? Apparently not. The grim day came when the bar was complete and almost ready to open for business.

That night, there was a huge storm. There was a bright flash. Lightning struck the bar and burned it to the ground.

           The following day, temple devotees, strolling to worship opposite a pile of ashes, were naturally rather smug. Until the bar owner filed a lawsuit suing the temple and the congregation for being “directly or indirectly responsible” for the destruction of his property.

           Temple leaders quickly denied that any of their actions had any connection whatsoever to the sudden and dramatic demise of the building opposite.

The argument ended up in court. The judge examining the case said: “I don’t know how I' m going to decide this case. But it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and we have an entire temple and its devotees who don't.”

           This story teaches us an important principle to live by. Be careful of what you wish for, as its previous owner may have a lawyer.

           A reader told me about one man who recently did receive what he wished for. A night-shift taxi driver named Shen was sitting in his car in Huainan, China, praying for a passenger at three o’clock in the morning.

           One appeared. “He had a lot of home appliances, so I helped him put all of his things into the cab,” Mr Shen later told the Xin’an Evening Post. “I noticed he had a fish without a tail, and I thought how much it looked like the fish in my freezer at home. But then I laughed at myself for even having the thought.” There are probably thousands of people who go out for a walk with a fish at 3 am in Huainan city.

           The taxi driver later returned home to find a burglar had broken into his house and helped himself to all the home appliances, plus the tail-less fish he’d saved for dinner. The well-organized villain had everything but a getaway car, which Mr Shen had thoughtfully provided.

           This leads us to a fascinating conclusion: I can now go home. 

Comments

[vickna]

OMG!
he did not!!!
hahahahhah!!!

[Vince A]

If the temple leaders decided to pray publicly, visibly, and incensily that they win the case, the judge would have been trapped in a logical pretzel.

If the judge says "these guys' prayers do work and caused the bar to burn down so I give this case to the bar owner", then he contradicts himself because the temple leaders' prayers clearly don't work (they lost the case after all despite praying to win).

If the judge says "these guys' prayers don't work so I give the case to the bar owner, he also contradicts himself because their prayers do work (they won their case -- and a marketing coup for the temple).

[Vince A]

Gagh. Too much incense. What my keyboard meant to say in the end was:

If the judge says "these guys' prayers don't work so I give the case to the temple leaders", he also contradicts himself because their prayers do work (they won their case), resulting in a marketing coup for the temple (our prayers work)

[Nury]

Dear Vincent, I really like the way you have extrapolated the story onwards. v. clever. It cries out to be made into a short story -- do you fancy doing it or shall I?

[Vince A]

Hi Nury, Thanks. I have stretched it as far as I could. I leave any further stretching to you :-)

[Quentin]

not dissimilar to a movie made by Billy Connelly - the man who sued God. Good movie wherein the man's boat was struck by lightning but the insurance refused to payout on an 'act of God'. So he set out to prove in a court that God did not exist, and if he did, then to sue his representatives on earth - the churches. So if the church proves God exists then they're going to get sued, if they get themselves off the hook by denying God's existence, then they're out of business.... and so on. Watch the movie for the ending.

[Rika]

Coincidence?... Luck?... Hand guided by ghosts/angels/devil?... Only came across Nuri's columns very recently, realising that he writes one every single day, and asking myself: How on earth is he doing that? I have to wreck my brain to come up with something weekly that is at least what I consider half decent - don't know about the two readers of my site. Then found the little calendar, and what are the odds that from 31 July columns I click the one that explains it all? BINGO!

From now on I will rigorously thrive of this site. Yay... good ones this week Nuri! That will keep my unspoilt audience happy until next week and I can go home!

[Nury]

Dear Rika, thanks for your kind words--I had a visit to your site and found it great fun. (Click on Rika's name at the bottom of her comment above to go straight to her page.) As for how I write so often, I'm not sure what the answer is. One thing is that I get up early -- six o'clock this morning and straight to work on this site in my pajamas, before getting into a suit and heading off to the office to do my real job. The other thing is the pressure of having readers. Once you know you have a few, then you can't let them down--I'm sure you feel the same!
Nury