Jesus in India

Jesus in India is one of Mr Pumpy's pet interests, may the Good Lord help me!

As far as I'm concerned, if the Pope says Jesus ascended into heaven with Beyonce dancing around in a red dress, he should know, and that's fine by me; why complicate it?

However, cycling with a partner does require give and take...

"I'll be over by the trees checking my bike," I said. "Call me when you find something news-worthy!"

Jesus spoke Oobal!

Mr Pumpy is fluent in Universal Hand and Body Language (UHBL), commonly known as Oobal.

Oobal is a Visual Language (VL) that can be understood by all peoples, regardless of culture, language, brain capacity, television watching habits, or height, and allows Mr Pumpy immediate access into the intimate lives of the locals; their cares, prejudices and strange views (of Westerners), which can have its tight spaces, believe me.

('Cycle lightly, fair cyclist!' is my motto on this particular issue, having cycled ah, not so lightly at times in the past, and then having had to cycle out of town, fast. 'The jungle is no place for the obtuse!' is another saying I'm keen on, and I'm not talking about trees.)

Oobal

Oobal was developed by expert linguists at RMIT University in Melbourne (where I used to teach!), and is based on earlier work done by anthropologist Margaret Mead, the very same tourist-numbskull who thought Pacific Islanders lived a life of sharesy happy hippydom.

How deluded can you get?

After leaving the Pacific Islands, it seems Margaret got lost in the jungles of Indonesia (it figures!) and got into watching orangutan mating rituals (as you do!).

She then had another brilliant idea, viz.; break all communication down into its foundational constituent building blocks (FCBB) at the Orangutan Level (OL), and everybody will be able to talk to everybody, all at once!

People will understand each other, wars will cease and everybody will live happy sharesy lives of hippydom, which does sound a bit like the internet, I must admit. (That, Margaret, I tell ya, she was ahead of her time!)

These FCBB blocks, or Word-Actions at the Orangutan Level (WAATOL), became Oobal.

Mr Pumpy swears by it!


"They're telling me that Jesus rode a bicycle, Feely, and He seems to have created quite an impression!" said Mr Pumpy.
"Fascinating, Pumpy!" I said. "Can you ask them if He used a Mac or a PC?"
"Very funny, Feely! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to do some more research!"
"Fine, whatever, I'm under the trees...," I said.


"Now they're telling me that He drank a lot of beer, fathered many illegitimate children and they never want to see another Mexican Miracle Worker as long as they live!" said Mr Pumpy. "However, MIRACLE WORKER might be translated as AID WORKER, so I'm not sure we're talking about the same Jesus."
"What's Oobal for Mexican, Pumpy?" I said.
"Well yeah, that's a problem too," he said, "but they might have been saying that we can trade the two kids for the two bicycles, but we must bring them up as Buddhists!"
"Buddhists?" I said.
"The only other possibility is a very strange tale about a giant bird that came down and fornicated with a tree, but I can't quite believe that, so I'm going with number one, number two a close second!"

Suffice to say, we never got to the bottom of it (unlike Margaret Mead) so after some lengthy goodbyes and 'Yeah, those Mexicans, you gotta watch 'em!' and 'Thanks for the offer but we're very attached to our bikes!', just to cover both possible bases, we pushed on.

Cycling with Mr Pumpy is mind expanding! :)