A 32-year-old Indian man admitted to cutting off four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to continue working as a computer operator at a relative’s company.

Learning to say ‘no’ sounds easy, but for some people, it can be harder than crippling themselves for life. Case in point, a Gujarat man who staged an “accident” that left him missing four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to tell his boss that he wanted to quit his job. Earlier this month, Mayur Tarapara showed up at a police station in his native city of Surat to report that four mingers were missing from his left hand. He claimed to have been riding his motorcycle to a friend’s house when he suddenly felt dizzy and passed out on the side of the road. When he woke up 10 minutes later, four fingers on his left hand had been chopped off. Police initially believed that the man’s fingers had been stolen for black magic rituals, but their investigation found huge holes in Mayur’s story.

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An Indian devotee who accidentally dropped his iPhone into the collection box at a Hindu temple while making a donation was told that the phone was now the deity’s property and could not be returned.

Last month, a Chennai man who was visiting Arulmigu Kandaswamy Temple in Thiruporur with his family to offer prayers, felt his iPhone slip out of his pocket and into the hundial – a metal donation box – just as he was making offerings to the temple’s patron deity. The man, referred to only as Dinesh, approached temple officials and explained the incident, demanding that his handheld be returned. To his surprise, they refused, claiming that rules did not permit them to return anything placed into the hundial, willingly or accidentally, because it is the deity’s property.

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In a case that recently scandalized the Karnataka High Court, a woman filed a cruelty case against her husband, claiming that he cared more about their pet cat than about her.

An Indian woman was scolded by judges in Bengaluru for filing a frivolous cruelty complaint against her husband in which she mostly complained that the man pays more attention to their pet cat than to her. Justice M. Nagaprasanna observed that no specific allegations of cruelty or harassment were made in the complaint. Instead, the plaintiff focused on the husband caring for their feline more than for her, claiming that whenever she confronted him about his behavior, they ended up arguing and hurling insults at each other. The wife apparently also complained about the cat attacking and scratching her several times and the husband doing nothing about it.

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The newly-opened Surat Diamond Bourse in Gujarat, India, is a massive office complex made up of nine rectangular buildings interconnected through a central “spine”.

For 80 years, the Pentagon held the title of the world’s largest building, but it was recently dethroned by the Surat Diamond Bourse, a massive diamond-cutting and trading hub, that exceeds the Pentagon’s area of 66,73,624 sqft by almost 55,000 sqft. The sprawling 15-story complex covers more than 35 acres of land on the outskirts of Surat, in India’s Gujarat state and features over 4,700 office spaces and workshops, as well as 131 large elevators that make traveling between the nine buildings of the Surat Diamond Bourse a breeze. Interestingly, surpassing the Pentagon was never the plan; instead, Indian architecture firm Morphogenesis just struggled to meet the huge demand for space.

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An Indian family recently went viral for their decision to send their old Suzuki Wagon to the grave rather than the scrapyard in a lavish burial ceremony attended by around 1,500 people.

They say you shouldn’t get too attached to material possessions, but try telling that to the Polara family in Padarshinga Village, Gujarat, who recently said goodbye to their 18-year-old Suzuki Wagon R by laying it to rest in a lavish burial ceremony attended by over 1,500 locals. The Polara believed the popular hatchback to be their “lucky” car so they wanted to say goodbye to it properly, rather than abandoning it at a scrapyard after nearly two decades of faithful service. Patriarch Sanjay Polara told reporters that he owns several more expensive cars, including an Audi, but credits the old Wagon R for being instrumental in achieving prosperity for his family, so he wanted to do something special for it.

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Devotees at a temple in Vrindavan, India, queued to drink the water dripping from an elephant sculpture, believing it was holy water from the feet of Lord Krishna, but is was only condensation from the temple’s air conditioning.

Shocking videos showing dozens of people at the Shri Banke Bihari temple in the city of Vrindavan queuing in front of a wall-mounted elephant statue to drink the liquid dripping from it once again brought into the spotlight the barrier between religious devotion and critical thinking or even common sense. it was reported that all these people believed the liquid to be Charan Amrit (sacred water from the feet of Lord Krishna), when in fact it was merely condensation from the temple’s air conditioning unit. Temple authorities issued a clarification to convince people to stop drinking the dripping liquid.

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Scammers in India managed to set up and operate a fake branch of the country’s largest bank, the State Bank of India, for 10 days in order to trick people into paying to secure stable jobs there.

The people of Chhapora, a village in India’s Chhattisgarh state, were surprised to see a branch of the State Bank of India opening up in their modest settlement, but while some were skeptical from the very beginning, many saw it as an opportunity to get a stable, decent-paying job. 25-year-old Pintu Dhurve was one of the six people who managed to secure employment as a cashier at the newly opened SBI branch, for which he paid 580,000 rupees ($6,900). There were some red flags, like the complete lack of work to be done and the absence of ID cards for employees, but the SBI logo at the entrance, the 1000 sq. foot “workspace”, brand-new furnishings, and operational bank counters all convinced him that the bank was legit. It wasn’t!

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Doctors at a hospital in New Delhi, India, were shocked to find a live 3-centimeter cockroach in the small intestine of a patient complaining of stomach ache and indigestion.

A 23-year-old man recently came to the Fortis Hospital, Vasal Kunj, to complain about stomach problems that he had been experiencing for about three days. He complained of severe abdominal pain, and difficulty in digesting food which resulted in frequent bloating. The man had consumed street food at a night market a few days prior and suspected that to be the cause of his health problems. Doctors decided that the best course of action was to conduct an Upper Gastrointestinal (GI) Endoscopy, a procedure that examines the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract, to hopefully discover the cause of the man’s symptoms. What they certainly didn’t expect to find was a live cockroach chilling in the man’s small intestine.

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An Indian couple is wanted by police for scamming dozens of unsuspecting victims by promising to make them look young again with the help of an Israeli time machine.

Rajeev Kumar Dubey and his wife Rashmi Dubey pulled off one of the most incredible scams in the history of mankind. The Indian couple owned a therapy center in Kanpur, India’s Uttar Pradesh state, where they allegedly convinced people that they were aging rapidly due to excessively polluted air and claimed that they could reverse the process with the help of an “Israel-made time machine” and oxygen therapy. The Dubeys are suspected of having deceived many elderly people looking for a way of regaining their youth and filling their pockets with 35 crore Indian rupees ($4.1 million).

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An Indian woman recently filed for divorce from her husband of only 40 days, claiming that he only bathed once or twice per month.

The unnamed woman from Agra, in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, approached the local family counseling center to complain about her husband’s poor personal hygiene, claiming that he rarely ever bathed, wore dirty clothes, and suffered from bad breath. She could barely stand close to the man, let alone be intimate with him. As a result, after only 40 days of marriage, the woman asked for a divorce. When questioned by the counseling center, the husband, Rajash, admitted to bathing only once or twice a month and cleansing by sprinkling his body with Gangajal (holy water from the river Ganges) once a week.

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A Pakistani father fearing for his daughter’s safety allegedly made her wear a surveillance camera on her head so he could keep an eye on her.

There is nothing a good parent won’t do to ensure their child’s safety! For example, one Pakistani man recently went viral on X (Twitter) for installing a surveillance camera on his young daughter’s head so he could monitor her activities throughout that day and make sure she was alright. In a viral video titled ‘Next Level Security’, the Pakistani woman is shown being interviewed while wearing a CCTV camera on her burka-covered head. Asked about the bizarre accessory, she said that it was his father’s idea, adding that she had nothing against it because she knew her parents were concerned about her safety.

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An Indian doctor is being accused of causing the death of a 15-year-old boy after operating on him while watching YouTube videos on how to surgically remove gallbladder stones.

Ajit Kumar Puri, a doctor at the Ganpati Hospital in Saran, India’s Bihar state, stands accused of causing the untimely death of a local teenager by operating on him without having the proper knowledge or skills. The boy’s family claim that they brought him to the hospital last week after he had vomited several times. He was admitted and his symptoms subsided, but Dr. Puri decided that he had to operate on the boy to remove a gallstone that was causing the vomiting. After sending the teen’s father away on an errand, the doctor operated on him without the family’s consent of the family, but this resulted in a sudden worsening of the boy’s condition. Eventually, Dr. Puri decided that he should be transferred to another hospital, but the patient died on the way, and the doctor went on the run after leaving his body on the steps of Patna Hospital before going on the run.

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The city of Vadodara, in the Indian state of Gujarat, is crawling with giant crocodiles following the overflowing of a local river caused by record rainfall.

As if having to deal with the water flooding their homes and streets wasn’t enough, the people of Vadodara have to be on the lookout for giant crocodiles waiting to snatch their animals or even attack them. Videos of giant reptiles walking through the streets, chilling on house roofs, or swimming in canals with dead animals between their jaws have been doing the rounds on Indian social media ever since the Vishwamitri River overflowed last week. The river is home to hundreds of freshwater crocodiles, at least two dozen of which were caught in Vadodara between August 27 and 29.

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Three remote villages in India’s Madhya Pradesh state have become famous for their ‘thief schools’ where children as young as 12 are trained in pickpocketing, theft, and robbery by seasoned criminals.

The three nondescript villages – Kadia, Gulkhedi, and Hulkhedi – located about 120 km from the state capital of Bhopal are reportedly nurseries for young criminals, with parents actually paying ‘tuition fees’ of  200,000 to 300,000 rupees ($2,400 to $3,600) to have their offspring trained in “dark arts” like pickpocketing and bag grabbing in crowded places, carrying out robberies, bank account thefts, evading the police, and even withstanding beatings in the event of being apprehended. These so-called ‘thief schools’ have produced some of the most infamous criminals in India’s history, so they are sought after by impoverished and less-educated families unable to give their children a proper education.

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An Indian teenager was accused of emotional blackmail after going on a hunger strike for three days to pressure his poor mother into buying him an iPhone.

A short video shot by a smartphone shop owner in India went viral last week for featuring a teenage boy who confessed to going on a hunger strike for three days to convince his mother to buy him a new iPhone. The woman, who reportedly makes a living by selling flowers outside a temple, is also featured in the video and has a facial expression that pretty much says everything about her inner struggle. Shared by Indian journalist Abhishek on X (formerly Twitter), the video has been viewed over a million times and has sparked a heated debate about gadgets as a status symbol and the entitlement of younger generations.

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