Wednesday, March 07, 2007

"He will volunteer ..."


One of the most enduring memories from my many years of reading Asterix comics is this episode where Getafix, the druid, goes to a conference. His journey takes him through dangerous territory infested with wild animals and Roman soldiers, so he takes Asterix and Obelix along. On the way, he meets several druid friends who are also heading to the same conference.

Sure enough, they are stopped by a bunch of Roman soldiers. On being told that they were going to the druids' conference, the soldiers' leader asks them to prove that they are indeed druids. So, Getafix asks for a volunteer. And the leader points to one of his men, and says, "he will volunteer".

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I was reminded of this Asterix episode when I read this:

Irrigation expert H.N. Nanje Gowda on Monday demanded that the former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda go on fast to bring pressure on the Centre to initiate a dialogue between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to find an amicable solution to the Cauvery dispute.

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To close the Astrix story: With a look of utter horror, the victim steps forward. He drinks a potion offered by one of the druids, and finds grass growing on his skin ...

3 Comments:

  1. Rahul Siddharthan said...

    Actually no, he brays like a donkey when he tries to talk... not an inappropriate analogy with our politicians.

  2. Tabula Rasa said...

    ah, i thought rahul would have beaten me to it but he hasn't. in school we used to have "volunteer duty" (heh!) where every day four kids were picked up according to roll number and packed off to various parts of school such as the main office, supervisor's office, etc., to act as dogbodies for the day.

  3. Abi said...

    Rahul: Well, I guess my memory is not all that sharp. I must have read "grass growing on a soldier's skin" in some other Asterix story...

    TR: Tell me about it! I too endured such 'volunteer' work in schools, and it is still the source of some of my worst memories.