Friday, 25 April 2025
Friday, 25 April 2025
Hunger Games: Bhopal investor summit edition
Bhopal witnessed a scene straight out of The Hunger Games at the MP Global Investors Summit, where some attendees apparently fought tooth and nail over plates of puri sabzi.
Viral videos from the summit showed people scrambling, pushing and even snatching plates from one another in a desperate attempt to secure their share of the free meal. Witnesses claimed that broken plates and scattered food covered the ground as attendees fought to keep their prized lunch intact.
Social media erupted in laughter and criticism. One user on X quipped: “Forget investments, MP just proved that ‘survival of the fittest’ applies to investor lunches too!.”
Another joked: “If this is how they fight for puris, imagine the boardroom brawls over actual deals!” Either way, next year’s investors might want to come prepared — not with business pitches, but with elbow pads and a strategy to secure their lunch safely.
At Noida society, swimming pool is ‘mini Kumbh’
When life gives you Noida, make it Prayagraj. Residents of a housing society in Uttar Pradesh, unable to attend the grand Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, decided to bring the holy experience to their doorstep by transforming their society swimming pool into a mini Triveni Sangam.
Armed with sacred water from the real Sangam, society members gathered around their pool, performed rituals, and took a dip while chanting “Har Har Gange” with full devotion.
A viral video captured the scene, showing women in traditional attire offering prayers around the chlorinated-yet-now-sacred waters.
Meanwhile, another unusual “holy dip” service is making waves online. A man in Prayagraj, Deepak Goyal, has gone digital with faith. For Rs 1,100, he immerses printed photographs of devotees into the river on their behalf. A viral Instagram post humorously labelled it as “Next Level AI Idea – Next Unicorn Company Spotted.”
Digital India: Woman dunks phone at Mahakumbh
A woman at the actual Mahakumbh in Prayagraj took devotion to the next level when she decided to help her absent husband take a dip, virtually.
In the video, she is seen holding her smartphone while on a video call with her husband, who appears to be comfortably in bed, presumably unable to attend the event in person. Smiling at the camera, she approaches the riverbank, holds up the phone to show her husband on the screen, and then submerges the device into the water multiple times. Some reports suggest up to six dips.
After completing the ritual, she pulls the phone out, shakes off the excess water, and the device appears to remain functional, though a brief glitch on the screen hints at possible minor damage.
Whether the phone fully survived its sacred dubki remains unclear, but the moment has certainly left a lasting impression on the internet and added another sidelight to the Mahakumbh 2025.
With many unable to attend the event in person, several resorted to creative solutions, sharing their experiences on social media. Some printed photos of loved ones and dipped them in the water. Others symbolically bathed by reciting names.
Some unkind users commented that if the phone had slipped into the water, the husband would have achieved salvation directly. Others tagged friends, suggesting they try the same method. Some dubbed her “Gopi Bahu 2025” – reference to a TV character who washed a laptop with soap and water. Others joked that her husband should “dry his hair” to avoid catching a cold. Some suggested the phone’s sins were washed away too.
"Saara Instagram bhi naha liya. [All of Instagram took a holy dip because of you]. Thank you),' one user said.
Chennai parents climb walls, take exam stress to new heights
Board exams in India are serious business — so serious that some parents in Chennai literally climbed walls to make sure their kids were revising.
A photograph published in The Times of India’s Chennai edition on February 21 has gone viral, showing anxious parents scaling the boundary wall of Kendriya Vidyalaya Meenambakkam, where CBSE Class 10 exams were underway.
Eyewitnesses say parents dropped off their kids and then… just didn’t leave.
Soon, some of them were seen climbing the school wall to sneak a look inside. Those who couldn’t manage a full Spiderman move settled for peeking through small holes and crevices in the wall.
Social media reactions have been equally divided. While some called it peak “helicopter parenting,” others sympathised, saying, "Arre bhai, board exams hai, tension toh hoga hi."
Drunk UP groom garlands bride’s best friend
People generally drink on two occasions – when they’re happy and when they’re sad. But what made an Uttar Pradesh groom arrive drunk at his own wedding venue is still unclear.
The 26-year-old from Bareilly was late to his own wedding owing to a drinking session with his friends.
Upon arrival, he allegedly started misbehaving with the bride’s family. Apparently, the groom’s family was not satisfied with the Rs 4.5 lakh dowry and demanded more.
Things crossed all limits when it was time to exchange garlands, and our man ‘mistakenly’ garlanded the bride’s best friend who was standing by her side like a true friend.
The furious bride slapped the groom and walked off.
What followed was a fight between the two families who threw chairs at each other before police arrived.
The cops detained the groom and his friends for insulting the bride's family and ‘disturbing peace’. A case has also been registered for demanding dowry. The person who sold illicit liquor to the groom and his friends was also arrested.
Another reported version of the story is that the groom wanted to marry a woman of his choice. So we don’t know if the garlanding error was a drunken mistake or an act of rebellion.
Thane man chews off friend’s ear at party
A party in Thane turned into a scene straight out of a crime thriller when an argument between two friends ended with one allegedly biting off and swallowing a piece of the other’s ear.
The incident took place on Wednesday morning in a Patlipada housing society. According to the complaint filed by a 37-year-old man and his 32-year-old friend were partying with others when things got heated.
Before anyone could say 'Arre bhai, chill maar,' 37 allegedly latched onto 32’s ear like a hungry vampire, bit off a chunk, and gulped it down.
The Kasarvadavali police booked 37 under section 117(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for voluntarily causing grievous hurt while 32 was rushed to hospital.
Magic potion miss for Indore’s bald people
Sulking over a bad hair day? That’s a privilege. Ask the thousands of people who gathered in Indore’s Dakachaiya area, tired of not having any for years.
One Salman bhai from Delhi, claimed to cure baldness with a ‘magic oil’ and a potion for Rs 300 and Rs 20 respectively. And that spurred on many without hair to line up for it from 6am.
The mass gathering was so huge that it even led to a traffic congestion in the area.
A video of the frenzy quickly went viral on social media. That made some suspicious of it being a scam similar to one that took place in Meerut a few months ago, and lodge a police complaint. Turns out, it’s the same guy who pulled off both the stunts.
As soon as the video garnered significant attention, Salman disappeared from Indore leaving a lot of hopeful heads disappointed.
Man jumps off terrace, gets electrocuted, still throws bricks at cops
Just when you think you've seen it all, Chhattisgarh delivers a plot twist straight out of an action movie. A man in Durg turned a busy marketplace into his personal stunt set — attacking strangers, smashing cars, dodging police, and even surviving an electric shock after jumping off a building.
The chaos unfolded near Ganesh Temple in Indira Market when the shirtless man climbed to the fourth floor of a building and began pelting stones at terrified onlookers.
As police tried to intervene, he upped the ante by climbing onto a shop roof, taunting officers, and threatening to jump.
And jump he did, crashing onto high-voltage wires, setting off sparks in the most electrifying stunt of the year. Bystanders gasped, assuming it was game over.
But no. In a moment that left netizens dubbing him the “real-life Wolverine,” the man, despite being electrocuted and falling onto another rooftop, miraculously stood up again — only to resume hurling bricks at the police.
Social media went wild. “Cast this guy in action movies. No VFX needed,” one user quipped. Another declared, “Hollywood - 0, Desi-wood - 1.”
Eventually, police managed to subdue him and rush him to the hospital, where he remains in critical condition. But if his past stunts are anything to go by, he might just walk out and start another action sequence any day now.
Bihar’s baby making scheme
Mukesh Kumar thought he had found the dream job that only required a very specific skill set: making a woman pregnant.
For weeks, the 27-year-old laborer from Vaishali, Bihar, waited eagerly for the woman he was supposed to impregnate. According to an ad on Facebook, he’d be paid Rs15 lakh for his "services." Even if he failed, he’d still walk away with a couple of lakhs. Easy money, right?
However, Mukesh found himself scammed, ghosted, and significantly poorer. The irony? His phone’s caller tune is a government alert warning against cyber fraud.
“My wife was three months away from delivering our first baby and I just thought I could utilise this time and the money,” said Mukesh.
This bizarre con, dubbed the “All India Pregnant Job Service,” has ensnared hundreds of hopeful men across Bihar and beyond. The masterminds? Not some high-tech gang operating from glass-walled offices, but unemployed, tech-savvy village youths using cheap Chinese smartphones from makeshift “offices” in fields and orchards.
DSP Priya Jyoti, who leads Nawada’s cyber police, called the operation a multi-headed Hydra…cut one scammer down, and two more pop up. Since 2024, the police have arrested 11 people linked to the scam, but that barely scratches the surface.
“You could arrest a hundred of them, and there’d still be a 101st waiting to pull the same stunt,” she was quoted as saying.
Goa problems: Idli, sambar, vada pao and Ukraine war
A BJP MLA, Michael Lobo, last week identified why there has been a decline in international tourists heading to the beach state of Goa.
According to him, the real culprit is lurking in beach shacks: idli-sambar.
Lobo, in a recent reported statement, warned that some beachside eateries were serving idli-sambar and vada pav—two dishes so powerful, apparently, that they could scare off European tourists.
The other minor issue, he admitted, was the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, which has slightly inconvenienced Russian and Ukrainian vacation plans.
“There’s a hue and cry because of the drop in tourism numbers,” he said. “But look at what’s happening! People from Bengaluru are setting up shacks and serving idli-sambar!”
This, Lobo implied, was a betrayal of Goa’s brand.
(Compiled by Aniket Jha, Atrayee Bose, Subharup Das Sharma, Sriroopa Dutta, Payel Das, and Sohini Paul)
