warning: evil mangoes of death en route to U.S.!

Remember how I said y'all should run out and buy Indian mangoes, just as soon as they hit U.S. shores? Well, you might want rethink that one. I just saw in The Hindu that the first shipment of Indian mangoes is on its way to the U.S. They had a picture of the U.S. ambassador to India, sitting there smiling in front of a table holding a bunch of big juicy Indian mangoes. Little does he know that these could very well be evil mangoes of death. Let me explain.

As I had mentioned earlier, one of the best things about summer in India, perhaps the only perk of 105 degree weather, is a delicious in-season Indian mango. They are expensive as hell, but delicious, and there are literally about 500 different varieties. Just the other day I bought a kilo of these enormous mangoes. I cannot remember the name of the variety, but I think it probably translates to "evil death mango" in Tamil. There was a lady selling these on the street. It was super hot that day and I got home and after resting for a little while I decided to pick out the biggest one and eat it. I rinsed it off and dried it and then peeled off the skin, chopped it up and ate it. About one hour later the problems began, and for the next 36 hours or so I was in total hell with a bad case of "the boths" -- which for the uninitiated means an illness characterized by liquids coming uncontrollably out of both ends of your body.

I think this mango was marinated in raw sewage before I got my hands on it. I guess the only way to safely eat a mango is to wash it in chlorine bleach before you peel it. There really must have been some majorly raunchy sewage on it if it was enough to cross-contaminate the mango as I was peeling it. By the time Chellapandi showed up, I was in the full throws of "the boths." She informed me that the reason I got so sick was because the mango is a "heating" food and I ate it right after being out in the hot sun. Furthermore, the mango had been sitting out in the sun. Here in Tamil Nadu pretty much all foods are classified as being "hot" or "cold," and this has little or nothing to do with actual temperature of the food, but something about the qualities of the food and what people believe they do to your body. My friends have now concluded that the "heat" of the mango does not "sit well" at all with my body and they've told me to stay the hell away from mangoes. I tried to explain to them that probably the mangoes had been marinated in sewage but they weren't buying the germ theory whatsoever. And you know what, maybe they are right. It's situations like these that can serve as evidence both for the validity of germ theory as well as local theories about foodstuffs which appear somewhat mystical to Westerners.

Other items in the news of late: The Indian authories have issued an arrest warrant for Richard Gere, who grabbed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS awareness rally and kissed her multiple times on the cheek, attempting to act out a scene from his movie Shall We Dance for the entertainment of the audience. Well, the audience was pretty shocked, or at least the right wing politicians who were there. And now he could possibly serve 3 months in PRISON. That's right. Shetty has been charged as well, because she didn't STOP HIM. Both Gere and Shetty have been charged with "doing obscene act in a public place" and "indecent representation of sexual activities." The magistrate who viewed the video footage observed that the demeanor of the actors during the incident was "highly sexually erotic" and "transgressed all limits of decency with the potential to corrupt society." One of my lady friends here in Madurai said they shouldn't throw Richard Gere in jail but they should definitely throw Shilpa Shetty in jail because she didn't try to stop him engaging in what was tantamount to "rape." As much time as Richard Gere has spent in India, you'd think he would have learned a few things. At the same time, if folks here think a public kiss on the cheek is bad, they ought take a stroll on the South Street Bridge in Philadelphia sometime. Speaking of that bridge, hopefully that godforsaken thing has been torn down by now.

Richard Gere and Shipa Shetty's "highly sexually erotic" and "obscene act" with potential to "corrupt society." It would have been better if they had just acted out your run-of-the-mill gang rape scene from a Bollywood or Kollywood movie. Then no one would have batted an eyelash.