The Magnum Opus II: The story of the Amsterdam Central Station

A 2 year old, little boy once went to Amsterdam with his father. In the city, the little boy was completely awestruck at the Amsterdam Central Station. Built on the edge of the North Sea, the terminal looked like the half submerged head of a giant sea monster. He could not stop wondering about the station and asked his father how the station seemed to be floating on the sea. Then his father told him the story of the Station’s construction.

Hundopus, the giant sea creature with a hundred tentacles, had become very upset and disappointed at being unable to wear shoes. In his anger and frustration he had started swallowing a lot of the ships that sailed the waters of his home in the North Sea. Most of these ships were Dutch and were sailing to and from the port city of Amsterdam.

The sailors and the people of Amsterdam were growing weary of the menace that Hundopus was turning into. They met at the city’s waterfront but no one had the courage to capture Hundopus. They asked each other “Who’s going to catch Hundopus?”

Somewhere in the background, a giant red excavator was just waking up from his sleep. He yawned and stretched his arm and people said “Yes, we have found our guy”.

The excavator was completely taken aback and before he knew what was happening he had been pushed towards the sea. Scared and completely at his wits’ end he started looking around for a way to escape, when he spotted his friend, the giant red dump truck.

“Don’t worry pal, we can do this. I have an idea!” he said.
“Get me a large pair of our famous wooden shoes and some very long rope”, he told the people.

They tied the shoes to the rope and threw them far out into the sea to lure Hundopus to the shore.

Hundopus desperate to try on the shoes lunged forward to grab them. As soon as he did that the dump truck and the excavator started pulling the rope in.

When Hundopus’ head emerged close to the shore, the red excavator knocked him a deadly blow. Hundopus fell unconscious and his tentacles landed all over the place. The dump truck and several of his other friends immediately dumped earth and stones over the tentacles and they become rail tracks. Then the red excavator and his other excavator friends carved out a hollow into Hundopus’ giant head and made the Amsterdam Central Station out of it.

The Magnum Opus I : The Day Julius Caeser Sought Asterix's Help

A long, long time ago, there lived in the sea, a creature called Octopus. Octopus had a large bulbous head and eight tentacles. Octopus had two cousins, Hundopus and Milopus. Hundopus had a hundred tentacles while Milopus had a million of them. Octopus lived in the Mediterranean Sea, Hundopus lived in the North Sea and Milopus lived in the Caribbean Sea.

Every once in a year they would all meet. On once such occasion they decided that they wanted to wear shoes like humans. Hundopus, suggested they go to Italy, known for its superb shoemakers, around the world.

So, the three of them travelled to the Shoe City of Italy, Vigevano. The shoemakers in Vigevano were astounded at their request. They told them that it was not possible to make a hundred shoes of the same size, let alone a million.

That made the sea creatures very angry. They started attacking the humans and destroying their cities in Italy. The Italian emperor, the mighty Julius Caeser and his army could do nothing against these giant creatures.

Caeser then remembered the little village of invincible Gauls in Armorica, who constantly defied him. He called upon the village’s most valiant warrior, Asterix for help. As always, Asterix rose to the occasion. He drank the magic potion that gave him superhuman strength. Then he and his best friend, Obelix (who was permanently super powerful because he had fallen into a cauldron of magic potion when he was a baby) fought Octopus, Hundopus and Milopus. The duo beat the living daylights out of the sea monsters (Biff! Bang! Thwack!) and threw them back into the sea.

Turning of the Tides

Once upon a time there lived a family of piggies on the banks of the river Ganges, in Howrah. As is usual, they lived in the dirt and squalor of a dumping ground made by the neighboring factories and slums.

One day as the tide was ebbing; the piggies decided to go on an adventure and dived into the river. They swam out to the mouth of the Ganges and the tide pushed them out further, into the Bay of Bengal.

They swam ashore and walked up the beaches of a 5 star resort in Mondarmoni. They went in and ordered themselves the deluxe suite at the resort for the night.

The man at the reception laughed and asked them “But do you have the money to pay for the room?”

And the piggies replied, “Of course! Why don’t you turn us around and look in our belly?”

To the utter disbelief of the man, the piggies indeed had coins in there. He took the money and lent them the suite.

The piggies had a fabulous time at the resort, lapping up the sun, swimming in the sea and eating good food.