enlightenment@1500bucks.com

chee chee chee chee ravijunkie the cow woke up on his plush, white mattress, in his plush, white room, with examples of astonishingly bad art tacked up on he walls around him. he woke happy, safe in the knowledge that the figure in his bank account had multiplied many times over during the night. smiling to himself, he ran his fingers through his long, deliberately unkempt hair. it helped the masses believe he was more interested in the spiritual than the corporeal, after all. the fact that it was trimmed carefully to stay the same length was always lost on them. ‘thank god for the semi-literate,’ he mumbled.

today was the day.

sitting up, he looked out the window at the rabble stretched out before his palatial mansion. they came from all across the country, across the globe, somnolent idiots backed by little-known educational institutions, all utterly devoid of minds of their own. they looked towards him for support, for comfort, for tacky breathing exercises that acted as placebos, giving ambiguous meaning to their pointless lives. for 1500 bucks per person, who was he to refuse?

but, today, there were other things to think about. he thought about his guru, the other sleazy cow called maharishi jogi yogi who, decades ago, had done pretty much the same thing, conning naive englishmen into paying for his helicopter rides. 'life was simpler then,' thought chee chee chee chee ravijunkie (the extra 'chee' had been added because his numerologist said it would also help make his inane documentaries hits at the box-office.

practicing his simpering, androgynous tone and absurd fanning motions before the mirror, chee chee chee chee thought about pithy lessons he could spit out today. he knew that, no matter what, the mob would weep copious tears of joy and head for their air-conditioned cars in a state of pious stupidity they had quickly grown accustomed to under his tutelage. 'life is like a box of mithai', he thought, 'all colours and prices'. nah. wouldn't do. what about 'be kind to animals. if they were human they would probably be kind to you'. that could work, he mused, if he were to bring a tear to his eye at the mention of the word 'animal'.

and then, it was over. after an hour of spitting out inanities, all lapped up by the stupid, chee chee chee chee looked around one last time and headed for his helicopter. the instructions had been given. the rabble could always survive on the crappy books he had left behind. if not, another chee chee chee chee could always make an appearance a decade later. there was no shortage of pseudo-spiritual morons in india, after all.

when he left, the only major changes occurred in things like formal letter pads, building boards, web site addresses and gaudy stickers pasted on local trains. overnight, they began to read: 'the art of leaving'...