The wrong bride, the long name, the early train, the priest and the satanic-erotic writer etc

Traveler's Tales from Around the World (à la Nuri Vittachi)

Hello People,

For this week’s newsletter I thought I’d get you to gasp and giggle with a round up of some of the stranger stories I’ve come across from around the world. Please do feel free to add ones that you think deserve a place on this list in the comments section.

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Bride marries sister's groom after power cut during wedding ceremony

• We start off in India where last week in the town of Ujjain in the central province of Madhya Pradesh, a power cut - quite a common occurrence- led to the less common occurrence of a bride marrying her sister’s groom by mistake.

  The two sisters were to be married at the same ceremony (to different, unrelated men), but what with the similarity in their wedding attire and the darkness caused by the blackout, they accidentally swapped grooms. The incident came to “light” only after the couples went back home and their conjugal bliss turned to bewilderment. Luckily, the matter was cleared up amicably by all involved and the couples got re-married to the right partmers the following day.

• Meanwhile, in Indonesia, a couple in East Java are asking President Jokowi for help in sorting out bureaucratic hurdles with getting their son’s name registered. This might seem like a reasonable request and an unreasonable hurdle, until one learns that the baby boy in question has been given 18 names: Rangga Madhipa Sutra Jiwa Cordosega Akre Askhala Mughal Ilkhanat Akbar Sahara Pi-Thariq Ziyad Syaifudin Quthuz Khoshala Sura Talenta.

  The boy reportedly goes simply by Cordo. His parents haven’t yet managed to get him a birth certificate, even though he was born two years ago. But they remain unwilling to compromise their nomenclatural loquaciousness.

  They believe that all 18 names have deep philosophical meanings containing their hopes and prayers for his future. “The meaning is for the child to become a worldly figure who is known across the world. To become an individual who doesn’t think limited, narrowly, or primordially, but to have a global insight as well as the initiative and power to realize his great insight. Strong but softhearted and compassionate,” Arif, the father has said.

  In Indonesia, naming conventions are amongst the loosest in the world. Names can be long or short, but more often than not, they are startling. Indonesian appellations varyingly derive from Sanskrit, Arabic, multiple local and European languages, as well as the fertile imagination of parents.

  One of the country’s top defense lawyers, for example, is called (I kid you not) Hotman Paris Hutapea. I also came across some called Batman Bin Supraman.

  

  And once I read an article about someone called “Andi Go To School.” Goto (as Andi Go To School went by) was a policeman from Central Java, whose father, also blessed with an unusual appellation - Bullking, named his son thusly in the hope that it would make Andi love going to school.

• When I lived in Japan my favourite nrews story was about the profuse apology issued by Japan Railways because one of its trains left a few seconds…drumroll…EARLY!

  Japanese Rail Operator Says Sorry For 'Inexcusable' Departure 25 Seconds Early

  The “disgraceful” incident happend in Notogawa Station in the central Shiga Prefecture, when a train mistakenly pulled away from the platform at 7:11:35 a.m. instead of 7:12. "The great inconvenience we placed upon our customers was truly inexcusable," Japan Railways said in a response.

  The whole thing put me in mind of my college days in India, when I’d once taken a train from Delhi to the city of Cochin in the south. It was a 2,800 km journey with a scheduled travel time of about 45-hours. My train eneded up being an entire twenty-four hours late, so that it pulled up at the platform in Cochin at the same time as the train that had departed Delhi the day after I’d left. There had been no apologies by anyone.

• And lastly, for this newsletter two stories from Spain, my current home.

  The first one is a misguided attempt at being woke, wherein the country’s postal service issue what it called “equality stamps,” in a variety of skin tones. The idea was to mark the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder in the United States and stand against an “unfair and painful reality that should not exist.”

  So far, so creditable.

  Only problem: the stamps that featured darker people were worth less! The cost of the stamps starts at €0.70 for the darkest color, and as the shade grows progressively lighter, the value steadily goes up to €1.60 for the palest.

  

  Pic Credit: Associated Press

• And finally, possibly one of my favourite headlines of all time:

  Spanish bishop quits for love of erotic writer

  Spanish bishop, Xavier Novell, quit his job after falling in love with a woman who writes Satanic-tinged erotic fiction ( and is a divorcee to boot), making for a better story than any of his girlfriend’s books, me thinks.

  Novell was known to be hardliner on matters like abortion and homosexuality, but Satanic-eroticism proved to be the apple in his garden of Eden. According to some “sources” the Pope told Novell to undergo an exorcism after he began the relationship with the author, fearing Satanic possession!

  It gets better: Novell, who has a degree in agricultural engineering and who was ordained in 1997, is now reported to be working for a company that extracts and sells pig semen.

  *****

  So folks, trust this whirl around the world gave you some thing to chuckle about. Do add any choice nuggets from your part/s of the world below.

  And as usual, share this newsletter with yout friends and family.

  Hasta pronto,

  Pallavi