Thinkers’ Park

You must have heard it. Its the story about a chicken.  No one knows why it did, but it did, and some crazy little puppy(philosopher) insisted on asking “why did the chicken cross the road”? Let’s see what different people had to say about it:

1. Aleister Crowley: This chicken had discovered its true will.
2. John Locke: Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty.
3. The Bible: And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road.” And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.
4. Freud: The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
5. Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.
6. Oliver Stone: The question is not, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” but is rather, “Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?”
7. The Pope: That is only for God to know.
8. Louis Farrakhan: The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the “black man” in order to trample him and keep him down.
9. Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
10. Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken 2000, which will both cross roads AND balance your checkbook, though when it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999.
11. Plato: For the greater good.
12. Aristotle: To actualize its potential.
13. Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
14. Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.
15. Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.
16. Joseph Stalin: I don’t care why it crossed the road. Catch it!! I need its eggs to make my omelet.

(source: published too many times on the web)

Ok, that was really good. Khudos to the author. But this topic was brought up in the Paradoxes community in orkut. A few more interesting additions came up.

Protik:

1. The Late Arafat: Because it was a Jew.
2. Israel: Because it was a Palestinian terrorist wanting to blow up the other side.
3. George W. Bush: Because it had just found out that on the side from which it crossed the road, Saddam Hussain had hid weapons of mass destruction.
4. Jesus: Because the chicken understood that I am the Way and crossing the road was one way.
5. The Prophet (whose name be praised): Because the Chicken did not want to be halaaled,and wanted to die a natural and cursed death.
6. Raj Thackeray: Because the Chicken was a Bihari and it had no business being on THIS side of the road, which is for Maratha Manus.
7. Lallu: Because the chicken was a Bihari and it was oppressed by MNS and Mr. Raj Thackeray.
8. Mamta Banerjee: Because the chicken was colluding with the Left front Government in West Bengal and people’s protest made it leave.
9. Adolf Hitler: The chicken was a Jewish Plot.
10. Neo-Nazis: The chicken did not cross the road. It was a Jewish Plot and pure fiction like the alleged holocaust.
11. Dr. Manmohan Singh (Indian PM): The chicken crossed the road, but in India it will come right back because the Reserve Bank and the Finance Ministry are taking due steps to ensure that the chicken comes back and to insulate the Indian chicken from the world chicken.
12. Chinese Govt: Chicken? What chicken? We don’t have chicken in China that cross the road without the approval of the People’s Commissar and no, there is no such thing called Chinese Avian Flu, that is capitalist propaganda.
13. Cuba: The chicken crossed the road to voluntarily contribute itself as its socialistic effort to the People’s Cauldron so that the people may eat without having to chase the chicken.
14. The chicken’s Mom: It crossed the street because it did not want to mow the lawn or clean its room and I was asking it to.
15. The chicken’s boyfriend: It crossed the road since it had not met me for two days and wanted some action.
16. Chicken in question: wtf? I crossed the road because I did not want to end up as chicken soup for someone’s soul or dinner and particularly not Sandesh’s dinner!

Louis:

Mr. Lula, the President of Brazil: We must thank God for the narrow streets we have in our Country, because never in our history so many hens crossed so many streets.