Paris – From money-grabbing Americans to a football fan willing to do anything for his idol. Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.
Romance lives on
An Indian businessman has built a replica of the Taj Mahal for his wife – and she is not even dead yet.
Anand Prakash Chouksey put up the impressive marble-clad home – a third-sized copy of the mausoleum the heartbroken Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built for his favourite wife, Mumtaz – in Burhanpur, 800km (500 miles) from the original in Agra.
As well as a symbol of enduring love, Chouksey – who altered the plans to incorporate a meditation hall for his wife – hopes it reminds India’s bickering Hindus and Muslims of the beauty of compromise.
“We want to send a message of peace and religious harmony. There is a lot of hate around. Love solves all problems in life,” he told AFP.
Killer hen party
There was nothing peaceful about a traditional Indian wedding procession with fireworks and a brass band that scared 63 chickens to death.
Ranjit Kumar Parida says his poultry had heart attacks from the “ear-splitting” racket as the parade passed his farm at midnight in the eastern state of Odisha.
“I asked them to lower the volume… but the groom’s friends shouted at me,” Parida told AFP.
Experts confirmed that loud music can knock chickens off their perch.
But there’s was happy ending – except for the chickens – after police convincing the warring parties to “solve the matter mutually”.
‘I’m rich!’ Er
And they call them smartphones…When an armoured truck spilled thousands of dollars across a California freeway, drivers scurried to scoop up armfuls of cash, many reaching for their mobiles to immortalise the moment on social media.
“What would you do?” one said on Instagram.
A man and woman who joined the crazy dash for cash locked themselves out of their car, and ended up under arrest for blocking a lane of the freeway.
After an in-vain appeal to give the money back to the bank, police in San Diego have been following the social media trial.
“There’s a lot of video evidence” said Curtis Martin of the California Highway Patrol, much of it put online by the people who picked up the cash themselves.
If the money is not returned, they can expect a “knock on their door”, he warned.
Mara, Dona and Diego
Football can also have a strange effect on people’s brains, particularly in Argentina, where fans of the late Diego Maradona created a religion, the Church of Maradona, to worship the striker.
One such superfan, Walter Rotundo – who named his twin daughters Mara and Dona – is celebrating after his son Diego (naturally) was born on the first anniversary of his idol’s death.
When he discovered that his partner was due around the date of Maradona’s death on November 25, he booked a caesarian to give fate a nudge.
The bouncing four-kilo (nine-pound) baby was born on cue on Thursday.
Rotundo – who has a tattoo on his back of Maradona holding a picture of his girls Mara and Dona – told AFP that the birth will forever transform the “day of sadness” and mourning into one of joy.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Pexels
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