The weekly weird

Published February 24, 2024

Why butter chicken is at the heart of a legal battle

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Two Indian restaurant chains are locked in a legal battle over claims to the origins of butter chicken. Owners of Moti Mahal, a famed Delhi restaurant, have filed a lawsuit against rival chain Daryaganj, for falsely claiming to have invented the dish, as well as dal makhani (buttered lentils).

Moti Mahal claims its founder, Kundan Lal Gujral, created butter chicken in the 1930s when the restaurant first opened in Peshawar, Pakistan, before it moved to Delhi.

Daryaganj, established in 2019, claims a member of its founding family, Kundan Lal Jaggi partnered with Moti Mahal’s Gujral to open the Delhi restaurant in 1947, and the dish was invented there, so it has the right to also lay claim to the dish’s creation.

The Gujral family is seeking $240,000 in damages, and is also alleging that Daryaganj has copied the layout of Moti Mahal’s website and “the look and feel” of its restaurants. Testimonies of people who can link the brand to the dish they consumed decades ago could be critical to the case.

World’s oldest video game vlogger

An 88-year-old Chinese gamer earned a Guinness World Record as the oldest video game content creator on video platform Bilibili.

Yang Binglin, aka ‘Grandpa Yang,’ is a viral sensation in China, who shares clips of his gaming sessions on the video sharing platform Bilibili, and boosts more than 280,000 followers.

Yang’s accomplishment was celebrated by the platform on social media. Yang encourages his young fans to make a schedule that ensures they do not over-indulge in gaming.

Man builds and sails in an ice boat

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Minsk-based Ivan Karpitsky’s has a passion for ice and snow sculpting, and first gained fame, in 2020, when photos of his ice violin first went viral. Since then he has been coming up with more impressive projects every winter.

This year he made a functional boat entirely of ice. Photos and videos on his Instagram page show the Belarusian man painstakingly cutting rectangular blocks of ice and then gluing them together using water, and chiselling away at the frozen lake to carve out the base of the boat.

Since not much technical information is known about Ivan’s boat, it’s impossible to guess the size, but it seems big enough for one passenger, maybe even two.

Extra limbs removed from six-legged spaniel

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A spaniel, born with six legs, that was found abandoned in a parking lot in Wales has now had her extra limbs surgically removed. Ariel, who was named for The Little Mermaid character because the additional appendage with two paws looked like a flipper, ran through the grass outside a veterinary hospital as she adjusted to life on four legs.

Greenacres Rescue took in the dog who had multiple birth defects, and raised funds for her surgery.

The hospital, which is part of the University of Bristol, had never performed such an operation. The extra legs extended from the right hindquarter and appeared to be of no use, dangling beside her wagging tail.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 24th, 2024

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