Above & below: Chanting Hindu priests preside over the Archaeological Survey of India digs ...
Humour
Have Dream, Will Dig for Gold:
India's Latest Strategy to Save Sinking Economy
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Archaeologists began excavating an abandoned palace in northern India on Friday after a popular Hindu “holy” man said he dreamt 1,000 tonnes of gold were buried underneath.
The dig at the fort of Raja Rao Ram Bux Singh in Daudiakala village, Uttar Pradesh, India, started after Swami Shobhan Sarkar relayed his vision of the treasure to a federal government minister three months ago.
Barricades have been erected to control the crowd gathered at the site where a 12-member team from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is conducting the excavation, led by ASI deputy director P.K. Mishra.
Mishra told reporters that the team began excavating on the basis of findings from the Geological Survey of India that suggested gold or silver could be buried.
Deepak Chaudhary, a supervisor at the dig, said “drilling machines had hit something that seemed different from earth” about 20 metres (66 feet) under the soil.
“We can establish it’s the treasure only after we dig that deep,” Chaudhary said.
The gold-dreaming ‘holy-man said that he was worried about the “collapsing economy of India” and so also wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Reserve Bank of India about the “hidden treasure”.
The nation’s economy has been slowing sharply under the weight of corruption at every level of the country’s government and society.
“I cried the day I realised that India is going to collapse economically. I talked to my long-dead, Late Bhaskaranandji and Late Satsaganandji Maharaj, in my dream,” he added.
“I told the spirit of the king still roams around the palace and has pleaded to me to liberate it by digging out 1,000 tonnes of gold buried beneath his palace.”
“It is a hidden treasure for the country,” he said.
The man performed prayers on Friday and marked out the points to be excavated by the archaeological team, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Local district magistrate Vijay Kiran Anand said the excavation work would take at least a month to complete.
[Courtesy: The Raw Story. Edited for sikhchic.com]
October 20, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Jagtar Singh (Chandigarh, Punjab), October 20, 2013, 6:36 AM.
Finally, a plan!
2: Mavis (New York, USA), October 20, 2013, 6:38 AM.
F*#x*%g morons!
3: R Singh (Canada), October 20, 2013, 7:53 AM.
What was the Archaeological Survey of India doing all this time, that it took a charlatan to have a 'dream', to convey the project to a minister? No wonder the rest of the world is sans riches ... for the lack of 'holy' men, of course. It would be a good idea to get them busy with the hoes, and be actually productive for once in their lifetimes, instead of sleeping through all the hunger and poverty, and dreaming out riches to save the nation and all those good things!
4: Kevin Harrison (United Kingdom), October 20, 2013, 10:02 AM.
Are these blokes for real? No way! They are escapees from the loony bin. But which loony bin? Do they have one big enough for all of those involved in this - er - D-I-G?
5: GC Singh (USA), October 20, 2013, 10:13 AM.
Instead of going for hidden treasure under some ancient Hindu temple, I wonder why no holy man has ever thought about a simpler way of solving India's economic problems and dreamed of the account numbers and code numbers of Swiss/Off-shore banks where trillions in gold and currency, looted and plundered from India's poor, lie deposited by its political/business mafia. No hefty digging involved there ... it'll be easy pickings!
6: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), October 20, 2013, 11:51 AM.
Could've been worse! He could've told the Indian politicians to murder their first born, to gain wealth. I'm not joking, it's happened before ... read the Bible, for example. There are always enough ignorant fools who will listen and act on such 'divine' proclamations.
7: Kaala (Punjab), October 22, 2013, 11:11 PM.
Wow, what a dig! This dream surely will save India's sinking economy!
8: Raj (Canada), October 22, 2013, 11:53 PM.
There's a saying in Punjab, "Bevaqoof de sir tay sing nahin hunday" -- "Idiots don't identify themselves with horns on their heads." Now I know what they look like. Morons, is the right word.
9: Kaala (Punjab), October 23, 2013, 12:40 PM.
The main reason for the economy sinking is corruption - political, moral and financial. There is institutionalized corruption here, whereas elsewhere there may be individual cases of corruption. No amount of gold being dug out can help, it will be plundered like other resources.
10: Ting (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), December 09, 2013, 12:13 PM.
I'm sure 100 tonnes of gold would be totally safe from any corruption and immediately put to good and sensible economic use. HA! Not in India, for sure. Or any other country, for that matter.