Indian Judge Who Said Peacocks Reproduce With Tears Becomes Laughingstock

NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — Justice Mahesh Chand Sharma said this at a ceremony to mark his retirement from the Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday. He was speaking on the Indian national bird, the peacock, in a passing reference to his last order as a judge in which he said the cow should be made the national animal of India. The national animal of India is the endangered tiger. The cow is holy to Hindus, who form a majority in India. The judge had delivered the verdict on a petition on the dismal state of a cow shelter near Rajasthan's capital, Jaipur, where some cows died after unseasonal rains recently.

Speaking of his last verdict at his farewell, the judge said not only the cow, even the peacock is holy. He said Lord Krishna, a Hindu god, and the holy men in Hinduism were often seen with peacock feathers because the bird itself was celibate, a brahmachari. The judge said the peacock never had sex with the peahen and has offspring when the peahen drinks the tears of the peacock.

While the judge did not reveal how or which yogic posture the peahen takes to drink and conceive with the tears of the peacock, the comment nearly broke the internet in India on Wednesday.

Many in India and abroad couldn't believe that a senior judge, who decided on criminal cases, could think on almost creationist lines. Like in the United States where Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is mocked at by alternative theories of how animals and humans came into existence by divine will.

The word "tears" and "to cry" have new connotations now in India.