So, apparently, the floods in Kerala are a heavenly intervention, brought down upon an ungodly people for committing the transgression of allowing women-who-menstruate into the Sabarimala temple. That makes complete sense, actually. Because paradise was lost because silly woman #1 Eve ate the apple from the tree of knowledge and gave it to her husband, too; that poor sucker who clearly had no will of his own. And, the entire Ramayan happened because silly woman #2 Kekayee allowed her ears to be poisoned by evil woman #1 Manthara, thus paving the way for evil woman #2 Surpnakha to hit on the righteous Lakshman, which led to silly woman #3 Sita sticking her foot out of the Lakshman rekha and getting herself kidnapped. The Mahabharat happened because Duryodhan mistook a pond for a polished marble floor and fell into it and silly/evil woman #1 Draupadi laughed at him.
Illustration: Bhaskaran
And, the universe is full of woe because silly/evil woman #2 Pandora opened the box that released all the evils of humanity into the world. The Trojan war happened because evil woman #3 Eris, the goddess of chaos, chucked an apple titled ‘To the Fairest’ to silly women #4 #5 and #6—Hera, Athena and Aphrodite—and they fought like wildcats over it. And, India lost the World Cup semi-final in 2015 simply because silly/evil Anushka Sharma showed up in the stands and distracted honest, hard-working Virat, causing him to take his eye off the ball. Also, when affairs happen, it is always the single other woman who is dubbed a ‘home-breaker’, but her married lover is never dubbed a ‘home-betrayer’. And when a woman gives birth to a girl child again and again even after repeated attempts and abortions, it is always her fault even though it is the male chromosome that decides the sex of the foetus. And when a man beats his wife, it is always because she wasn’t quick enough to serve him his food, or she answered back too saucily or because she looked at another man with lust. And, women get raped again and again in our cities and villages because they insist on wandering about, laughing, eating chow mein and are never quick enough to address all potential rapists as bhaiya.
Basically, woman are either evil or silly (or both), and everything bad that happens in the world is their fault.
So, may be, if women-who-menstruate say a sincere enough sorry and vow not to tempt Lord Ayyappa in his bachelor digs forever, then the flood waters will recede and all the Army and the funding that’s being ‘poured’ into Kerala can be sent back to guard our borders and build immense steel statues of freedom fighters whose ideals we have forgotten, but whose names we continuously invoke.
The other theory doing the rounds is that the flood hit Kerala because it is full of (evil) Christians and Muslims who (along with all these menstruating Hindu women who want to barge into Sabarimala) deserve to be drowned. This silly/evil theory is on par with the claim that the 2004 Tsunami hit Indonesia because it was “full of Muslims” and Thailand because it was “full of sin and paedophilia”.
The truth is that Kerala is reeling under the flood for a series of complex reasons, some man-made, some natural. No ‘angry God’ caused the deluge, and the healing work that needs to be done cannot be conveniently outsourced to Him either. We humans will have to do our bit, working together with generosity, determination, genius and jugaad.
editor@theweek.in