The story of Ganesh

So it all begins in the land of Hindu gods. Think tropical jungle, waterfalls, all of that good stuff, and maybe some magic looking mist floating around for the real 'god land' effect.

Firstly, we have Parvati, a mother goddess and by all accounts a hottie so picture a milf only make brightly coloured, hindu style. She is kind of married (I don't think they made it to the registry office) to the god Shiva. Shiva is a top god boss man, a creator as well as a destroyer so think of a VIP business man mixed with warrior and give him a few extra arms for good measure.

Being both a creator and a destroyer makes Shiva a busy man. Long hours, frequent work related trips, not much time at home. Needless to say Parvati is often lonely, especially when she wants a bath and there's no one to guard the door (hindu god land is apparently rife with demon perverts).

One day she decides she's had enough of dangerous bathing and decides that if Shiva isn't going to get down and dirty to provide her with a child\bathroom guard, she will just have to take matters into her own hands. Literally. You know when you are soaking in the tub and you rub your skin and a kind of dirty paste comes off? Well she mustn't have washed in quite a while because she gets enough of this stuff to sculpt a young boy. She breathes life into him (yes his first moments alive are his mum pashing him, but is this so much worse than our own entrance into life?) and presto chango, she has a son. Too easy.

She swans off to the bathroom leaving her new son Ganesh to guard the door.

In the mean time Shiva returns home to spend some time with his darling wife, and what a bonus, she's in the bath. Good times ahead. The only problem is that there's some young punk guarding the door who won't let him through ( remember Ganesh doesn't know this is his dad and visa versa.) Being a busy man with no time to waste on young fools Shiva draws his sword to do a little over-time destroying, and slay this kid. It's too bad for him that Parvati has created quite the fighter and that the slaying proves to be more difficult than he first thought.

There are different versions of exactly what went down next. One is that Shiva and Ganesh fought one on one (boring). In the comic book version that my dad gave me when I was young there was a massive battle with Shiva bringing his whole army and Ganesh kicking ass, thousands dead and blood and guts everywhere.I think we all know which version makes the better story.......

Anywho, the ending is the same in both accounts, (Shiva is after all top god) and he finally cuts off Ganesh's head. Finally he can enter the bathroom and maybe get a little post-slaughter loving.

Cue the incorrect buzzer noise.

Parvati is pissed off. Despite the fact she didn't notice the whole 'battle raging at her door' thing she is still not going to let Shiva off the hook for murdering the son he never knew he had. No doubt she summons all her goddess powers to give him an almighty ear full and lets him know that if he doesn't fix this then she is going to make sure that his precious time off will be a living hell. He begs forgiveness (Aw baaaaaabe, I'm sorry!) and promises to make it right. She reminds him that their son has no head. Tough situation.

Finally they come to the obvious solution. Parvati tells him to walk into the jungle and cut off the head of the first thing he sees and bring it back to fix up their darling boy. What she forgets is that when dealing with a weary and sexually frustrated man post battle\son slaying is is important to BE SPECIFIC. She really should have used the word person instead of thing.

Shiva runs off, eager to please, and the first thing that happens to cross his path is an Elephant. So Shiva does what he's told, off with it's head, and back to Parvati to make amends.

I feel that by this time Parvati is simply relieved that he didn't come back with a leg or a twig so she happily takes the elephant's head, pops it on the corpse, breaths a little life, and voila! We have Ganesh and hopefully Shiva has a little loving.

And they all lived happily ever after.