A Blessing In Disguise

She does not want her school friends to read it. But she wants your comments on it before she submits it for the school mag. So she has asked me to post it on my page. Plz comment.

A blessing in disguise
You own everything. You are on the top of the world. But your life still misses something. You feel lonesome, you are alive and happy in the lovely world of God, but your heart still cries.

So it was with the small child. It was missing someone. Being a small child it did not know how to spell out its emotions to its parents. It would sit with legs crossed and hands joined and with small pearls like drops over its pink, rosy cheeks. It would pray, every day. It needed something to make its life complete. It prayed to God to complete its life by giving it the blessing that will bring solace in its life.

The child cried and prayed for two long years.

Then a day came, when the child felt the world change. It received its wish. It was so overwhelmed that it was not able to pay attention to God’s voice when He said, “My child this is a most precious gift. Not every one gets it. Be careful!”

Now for all these years, the devil too had been observing the small child. He noticed that that the child had paid no heed to the divine warning.

The devil saw his chance. He followed the child to its beautiful home where it lived with its parents. He knew that the small child was too young to take care of such a precious gift on its own.

You all must be wondering what the precious gift was. Just read on.

The child and the precious gift grew up together. The child became a teenager. It was now time for the devil. His entry into the scene was now imminent

The teenager cared about its precious gift and used to advice it about the good and the bad. But the devil wanted to prove the teenager wrong and the devil used every method to separate the teenager and the precious gift. The precious gift started to keep away from the teenager and spent its time with the devil. The teenager could no longer hold on to it. The precious gift was now giving it tears of sadness instead of tears of tears joy. The devil won the heart of the child and poisoned the heart of the precious jewel towards the teenager was only sympathizing with the child.

It is said that by love one can obtain anything that one wants but here the devil’s glib tongue had overthrown love.

The teenager was actually an elder sister who as a little child had prayed fervently to the almighty to give her a gift of a younger brother, a precious gift indeed.

This is an appeal to all the brothers to understand their sisters’ love and emotions. They care really for you and have a very soft corner for you. They live for you. They want to protect you, even though they may seem too firm and straight forward you.

Actually it’s those who sympathize with you and encourage your bad habits who are your sour enemies.

Sisters are “Blessing in Disguise.”

An Attached Bathroom!

Usually, ten plus two years is so short a period in the story of a nation, that you could liken them to maybe a couple of months of human life. They flit across, almost unnoticed by history. Not much changes in that much time.

Not the last dozen Indian years.

Hark back to 1997.

How many males then would have sent a ‘mail’ to their females? That too a new one every day!

What did terms like ‘net’ and ‘network’ mean?

Actually, a whole new dictionary needs to be written for new meanings that have been given to words we once learnt in school, as also for the arcane, newer terms. For instance, the word processor sill draws a zagged, red line under ‘texting.’ Can any one of us survive without the service?

Today, the Nokias, the Samsungs and etceteras have taken over the world. Effortlessly, they have become the ubiquitous companions of all men. Even more so of women. So much that many of the fairer sex keep them snuggled in such soft, intimate places, that the small hand- sets have become targets of envy of both the males and the Sun. Both manage even a peek into those valleys only if they get extremely lucky, and that is not everyday.

No male or his female goes to bed without their respective mobiles. They may do so without each other.

The biggest change however is in the attitude of women; young, old, and middle aged, towards life in general and herself in particular, especially, in the smaller towns of what is known as the urban(e) India.

SHE has changed in all senses of the word, sexually, sartorially, socially, sensually and spiritually. The change has been systemic and successful. It has also been determined and irrevocable.

Observe, for example, how casually, very middle of middle class parents, from very conservative, small town ‘mohallas’, have started sending their uninitiated, unmarried, nubile daughters, to work in cities, to which they themselves have never been to. Once there, the girl fends for herself, armed only with her degree and her new found independence. Far away from the scrutiny of the near and dear ones, she blooms!

Even as near as mid Nineteen Nineties, such events were unheard of. They happened only to the ‘forward’ and ‘modern’ girls of Delhi and B’bay. There too it was against the norm rather than the rule. A suitable boy was the only target for every parent of a pretty lass. No more.

The newfound economic independence has also liberated the girl’s father. Questions about dowry etc are now out of question. It is not uncommon for him to grill a prospective groom to determine whether he would be suitable for his daughter’s career plans.

On most occasions the daughters free their parents of even that much trouble. They find their own partners.

Along with HER, her HIM too has changed, more nilly than willy. In 2009,the condition of the male belonging to 40-50 age group, is the worst. The poor guy has been hit by a steamroller and has been swept aside. About fifteen years or so into his marriage, he has found that he is no longer living with the female he had once married. From being the lord and master of all he once beheld, like his father and uncles, he has had to do a quick makeover and has stepped back to being a mere co-pilot, companion and suitor.

‘An attached bathroom,’ quipped a much-married, fifty plus, lady, while describing her doting husband. Essential, comfortable, indispensable even, but entirely forgettable after use.

The best part is, that she whispered this to the mother of the girl, to whom her son was getting married, at that very moment!

The Jungle Belle

It was ,My first and thus far, solitary visit to a real Jungle. It is In Madhaya Pardesh, a few hours drive from Nagpur. My kids were with me and we loved the trip……….I met her there….read about it in her own words….
Published: women era oct2008 first issue
The Jungle Belle

Far, far above me, the sky was breaking out of the night’s passionate embrace. With every passing heartbeat, it was shedding a layer of its inky cloak. In almost perfect synchronization, the sky’s new bride, a shining, somewhat crimson faced, dawn, was moving in, shyly but surely.

My own chosen mate too had not waited for a moment too long; his task done, he had dismounted and disappeared in the thick foliage, without as much as another glance at me. But before leaving, my paramour had had proved to be exceptionally strong and virile, surpassing all my expectations, quenching my thirst, fully.

Just a few, deliciously torrid minuets ago, our brief courtship had culminated in an explosive climax. And to admit the truth, I had demanded nothing less. For days at end, my urge to procreate had been driving me berserk.

I wished my lover had stayed. But there can be no hoarders in the jungle. Life itself is ruthlessly transitory here. One learns to celebrate each moment, as it comes…. if it comes. I was satiated. I was thankful. I was full; my belly with his seed and the earlier shared dinner; my heart with his love and hope. I was going to be a mother soon, I was sure. Even the usually sultry pre-monsoon, Central-India, daybreak felt pleasantly cool to me. I sucked in a lungful of its vibrant, spanking clean air. It promised rain, but not just as yet.

Thus sated, I turned and fairly pranced towards my favourite grove.

It is a large, fresh water pond, skirted on all sides by huge trees that always stand so proudly erect, that they remind one of alert sentinels guarding a palace. Which it actually was, my very own. It was the perfect place to lie down and snooze for a while, and give his sperms time to fertilize my eggs. That is if they had not done their job already. Actually I was being plain lazy.

All around me the jungle was waking up, but so noiselessly that one could be forgiven if one thought that there was no one else around, except the hungry birds. Their intermittent, shrill twittering seemed even more strident due to the all-pervading quiet. A lot of them were gliding over the water, looking for any fish that may have woken up too early; flying so close to the surface that occasionally their eager, outstretched claws, would tickle its calm visage, and set off a series of smiles. The fluid, widening ripples, in turn, let out loud gurgling sounds, which were hauntingly musical to my ears.

I stretched by the lake, enjoying the tranquil solitude. A cool, invigorating breeze had begun flirting with the innumerable leaves of the trees, rustling them, and teasing them into an ungainly yet soothing rhythm. In order to welcome me, they shooed the wind on to me. It caressed and tickled me, playing with my hair, making me feel even better.

My eyelids began to droop. Above me, the sky and dawn had mated too and their newborn, the as yet mellow, amber ball of fire had emerged to play, from the gates of heavens. I blinked, as it peeked bashfully at me, from behind the top-most branches of the trees. I made up my mind to luxuriate in a long bath, later in the day, when the same baby orb would grow young, hot and fierce, like my lover had been. A sigh of contentment escaped me as I closed my heavy eyes. All was well with my little world!

But ecstasy cannot last for long, not when humans have something to do with it. In just a short while, their Gypsy was there. On their part, they had taken care to drive in as quietly as possible, yet the rancid fumes belched by their vehicle, the low guttural growl of its engine, and the whimpering screech of its tyers on the gravel, were enough to wake the dead. Slowly I lifted my head, just a wee bit, hoping that they would miss me. But they had already sighted me. The binoculars were out.

There was at least two hundred yards of water between us. But I felt invaded. Oh! Was I bugged! I wanted to kick my self for lying down in the open. It really took an effort to restrain myself from rushing at them and giving them a piece of my mind. Instead, I just glared at them, my eyes flashing. They stared insolently back, gaping at my beauty. Gawd! Where does a lady go if she wants to hide for a while from the world?

I gave up, resigned to the fact of them being there. I knew they would have continued their shameless, voyeuristic vigil endlessly. All my plans towards a lazy afternoon were dashed. Instead, I decided to go home.

My mood, however, was still intoxicated by the delectable recent tryst. I decided to give them a blast, a view they would never forget. Yawing, I got up and stretched, letting them have a look at my wares. Even from the distance I could sense the current of excitement that ran through them. You would think that it was the first time that the poor sods had ever seen a female. It may well have been the truth; well at least, I am sure, that they had not seen one as beautiful as I am. My kind is getting increasingly rare. I may not have much of a bust, but an enchanting ass I do possess, and I may be a jungle belle but none of their so-called supermodels can ever hope to match my sexy catwalk. After all, my body is svelte, long and lithe and there is not an ounce of excess fat anywhere on me, despite my strictly non-vegetarian diet.

Languorously, ever so casually, pretending I had not seen them, I started moving towards them, deliberately taking a long, circuitous route. I was fully aware of effect I was having on them, as I swayed and swerved. I knew without seeing, that their jaws had dropped and their breathing had sharpened as they watched me close in.

It was only when I was almost within
eyeball-to-eyeball distance that I turned my majestic head to look at them. They were gawking at me, transfixed. Our eyes met, and I easily held their collective gaze. They were mesmerized. My mood swung again. What riled me the most was that there was a female amongst them. At least she should have been more sensitive to another of her sex! Blood rushed to my head, as I made up my mind to teach them a lesson. Slowly, ever so deliberately, I took a couple of steps towards them. Already, I could smell the odour of their nervous sweat, as it broke allover their excited, trembling bodies. I stopped, coiling my self, enjoying their fear, and was about to pounce, when a small child, nestling next to the quivering bosom of his mother, began to wail.

Here I was longing for a baby myself! I could not attack one, even though its parents may well have interfered in creation of my own. Slowly, I turned and moved on, into grass that was tall enough to immediately hide me. But not before I half squatted on my haunches and defecated in front of their Gypsy, to tell them exactly what I thought of them. I then swished my long tail to brush away the flies. Let no one say that the tigresses of Pench, Karamajheri Reserve, in Madhya Pradesh are heartless like their so-called keepers!

As I walked, I could hear them, now chattering away like excited monkeys. Looking up at the sky I mooned for the rains. At least for some months the gates of the Reserve will be closed and we will be rid of these pesky, nosey, interfering humans who had no business to be there, in my jungle. At least these had come armed only with cameras, unlike some of their brethren, who smuggle in snares, guns and what not. In a few years all of us magnificent beasts would be gone from this planet due to them. But do they care? They would easily recreate us on their computers and make movies about us.

Sardar Kushwant Singh had sent a letter to me praising this story. It is hand written on his own letter head. I treasure it. The story is one of my favourites and is inspired by a real life incident. I hope you like it

When I first saw her, Pooja was standing outside the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate of our city. A wave of TV cameras and mikes was threatening to engulf her, as they arched over her tiny form and converged before her taller parents.

The cameras drew my attention to her.

A thick crowd had formed an unwanted, jostling ring around the trio and their interrogators. I do not know whether it is the desire to see the news in the making, or a vicarious, voyeuristic, pleasure at knowing somebody else’s business, or simply the thrill of transmitting your bewitching visage across the nation, or what; but its is true, that the moment someone flashes a TV camera and a mike, they attract a horde of people, much like a skylight draws moths.

I was one of the moths. But I was looking at Pooja and not the cameras.

A mere wisp of a girl, it was easy to miss her, trying as she was, to disappear behind the folds of her mother’s sari. With some effort, I was able to catch her eye. For a moment, just for a moment, her defiant, smouldering, charcoal dark, pair looked into mine. Then she lowered hers.

That she was lost was obvious. Why she was so, was easy to understand, if you knew her story.

I knew it. Every body else present there did too. It had been all over the television. Let me tell you.

Ten years ago, she was born to parents, who had awaited a child for many years after their marriage. The long wait, ensured that there was only a mild disappointment at her gender, or her swarthy complexion, which contrasted sharply with her parents’ fair skins. Truly, only a parched throat knows the value of a sip of water.

Her parents were simple, reasonably well off folks. For the first nine out of ten years, life for Pooja had been fun, laughter, tantrums, toys, and school; till a fateful day, more than a year ago.

The day had dawned as usual, everyday like, in a flurry of early morning activities. Pooja never realized that it was a fateful day. No one did.

But then, fateful days are sly. Deliberately, they dawn like ordinary ones, so that they can catch us unaware. They go about their business quietly, hiding destiny in their wicked wombs.

That day, after putting Pooja on the school bus, her mother had picked the morning paper, handed it to her husband and had gone on to the kitchen to brew the morning cuppa,. It was daily routine.

She came back to him, with the steaming cups balanced neatly on a tray, and found him staring fixedly, at the paper. His face was drained of all colour.

Wordlessly, he handed the folded sheet to his wife. She too blanched visibly, as she recognized the shame faced woman, in the picture accompanying the news story.

The small item was printed on the inside pages of the city edition and on a more hurried day Pooja’s father could have easily missed it, but did not. On such tenuous, unexpected twists of cruel luck, are the lives of the mice and men dependent.

Later, that afternoon, Pooja did not find her mother home after school. She was not unduly concerned, being an only child she was used to taking care of herself. A neighbourhood aunt had let her in. But by the time it was late evening; the tiny tot had worked up a mighty tantrum to greet her parents.

A look, however, at their grim faces, warned her not to unleash her little storm. And from the way her mother pushed her away from herself, albeit gently, when she rushed to her, she sensed something was amiss, terribly.

Mother did not cook that night. Later, some relatives and friends dropped in. They all sat huddled together and spoke in hushed whispers, which would die altogether, whenever she came within earshot. That night, for the first time ever, the worried girl went to bed alone. She prayed, for her parents’ wellbeing. She thought that they were in some kind of trouble.

In his adjoining room, her father picked up the paper, again, and re read the headline for the umpteenth time, “Mid Wife Arrested For Exchanging Babies.”

The news item had alerted Pooja’s parents; their daughter’s colour was testimony enough. They too had gone to the police station, where the midwife was being held. The woman had nothing more to loose and admitted, readily enough, that their real son was living with another family in the same city.

She had sold him for a few thousand rupees. His adoptive parents had not wanted their child to know that he was not their very own. After all they were buying a real son with real money. The nurse had admitted during her interrogation, that it was her regular business. She was doing it to put her own children through costly public schools.

However in their case, the woman had not swapped the children. Pooja, she had got for free, from somewhere, and thus could not recall from where. Not that any one cared. The important thing was to get the boy back.

It was easier said then done. The boy’s incumbent ‘parents’ were not going to give up on their investment so easily.

It took a long court battle for the DNA test to be allowed.

The news was first published in a local paper. Later it had caught the imagination of the nationwide electronic media which is always desperate for new, slightly bizarre stories. It is a slave to a 24X7 devil, whom it has to feed constantly.

That day, after a year of judicial scrutiny, the CJM had pronounced the obvious verdict. Standing outside his court room, Pooja’s ‘mother’ was victoriously holding her son up in her arms.

Standing next to her, holding on desperately to her mother’s sari, the poor girl was facing the strongest, most potent, four letter word in English, ‘Mine!’ As in, me, my, ours …..MINE. It is the fulcrum on which our personal worlds revolve. Every emotion, be it, the much touted, ‘love,’ or its darker kin ‘hate’ (four letter ones again) is merely, its progeny. “Mine” comes before anything else.

A pretty young thing, from a national channel, asked her mother, “Madame, what will you now do with this girl?” Cheerfully, the lady in the limelight announced, “I will bring her up too. She is also like my daughter.” There were wide smiles of appreciation all around. Good people.

Distraught, Pooja looked up at her mother, who was too busy and happy to look down.

It had been an immense fall from the self-assured, peak of ‘my daughter,’ to an insecure, unsure, valley of ‘also like my daughter.’ On the way down, she had lost all that was hers. Everything, that she could once pick casually, without thinking, was now an obligation, a charity.

Later that day, her parents and her spanking new, fair skinned, brother visited almost every place of worship in the city, for obeisance before the munificent lord. “Bend, child, bend,” her mother would whisper fervently. Every time she would find her daughter staring accusingly at the Gods, and would urge, “Bend, for the almighty has blessed us!”

The Theory of Relativity

These days, I play a ‘three bucket trick’ on myself. I use three buckets full of water to take my evening bath. Water conservationists, please excuse, but the weather is swelteringly hot, and my work entails that I stand in the Sun, for at least a couple of hours, everyday.

I use a submersible pump to suck the water up; from a bore well that reaches the deep innards of mother earth.

The first bucket full is almost warm, maybe due to the heated pipes that it uses to travel. The next two are progressively cooler. The third one being coldest of the lot but is still not ‘COLD’ by any standards set by the centigrade scale.

I use bucket number two first. It is refreshing. It washes the sweat and the grime off. Next I pull up the bucket number one. After number two, it feels ‘WARM,’ but still it is H TWO OH! An increasingly rare commodity on this planet. I use a larger water jug to run through it as quickly as possible.

Then comes the treat of the evening.

Bucket number three feels icy cold! I pour it over myself slowly, jug by jug, enjoying each drop as it carouses down my body. It tingles, it invigorates, it cools my scalp, and sends the body temperature plunging. The trick makes the water feel much colder than it actually is!
I
t enables me to wash the day off. I feel like a new man.

Theory Of Relativity: Rule One: Our feeling of discomfiture or pleasure are relative to the immediately previous experience that we have had rather than the real and actual parameters of the incident.

Let me give you another scenario. Imagine that you walk from a non air conditioned environment, into a room which had an air conditioner running in it, till a few minuets ago.

Your immediate reaction would be “Wow! Thank God! Its so cool, mmmmm…!” However, the people who had been there in the room, for some time, when the AC was running full blast, would be sweating bullets and cursing the utility company for shutting off power!

Relativity!

The theory does not end here.

Rule Two: We constantly compare ourselves with our relatives (the term includes, parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, friends, nieghbours, colleagues et el, but excludes our children). We feel happy or otherwise in accordance with the conclusions that we draw from such comparisons and set our targets accordingly. All our lives we compete with them and only them, whether consciously or unconsciously. In their misfortunes we take a vicarious if camouflaged pleasure, in their successes lie our insecurities and jealousies.

You do not agree? Answer the following questions:

If you buy a new car, whether a Nano or a Merc, whom do you want to show it to? Mr.Tata?

If you go on a holiday to Goa, Lonavala ,Shimla or Bangkok, do you put the pictures on the local newspaper or on Face book and Orkut? Why?

If you dream your dream house, do you plan its layout, landscape, height, interiors etc according to the houses of your ‘friends’? Or to a certain Mr. Mallaya?

If a son is not doing so well in school, whom do we think of? Mr D.B. Ambani; or a distant uncle, who made his millions despite having no college education?

Need I say more?

A Glass Window!

Anybody born with ten left thumbs would undoubtedly agree with me, that it’s truly a catastrophe, if one of the four, on-duty, wheels of your car gives up on you. It is even more so, if it happens a Sunday morning, just when you are about to leave for your weekly, early morning, drive with your son, a ritual both of you await eagerly all week.

Its fun, the years between you just melt away and both of you become eleven year olds. Achyut is twelve and has to grow a bit younger to match my age.

Its fun, also, because we leave the ladies; his mother, my wife, his sister, my daughter, and the mobile behind at home. Guys can never have real fun in the company of females. They are such spoilsports. They disapprove, whatever their age (we tried taking his sis along, once),of a grown up man driving, with his son sitting in his lap, more so, when the son is holding the steering and the father a soft drink, which both are sipping. They think you are being silly, which is generally the idea.

“Go get somebody from that corner puncture shop,” I asked the domestic help, even as Achyut groaned in dismay and went inside to complete his homework. I picked up the papers to hide my own disappointment.

It was the yawing creak of the boot of the car, that made me look up. There he was, Achyut, yanking out the fifth wheel from its womb.

No! Actually it was someone else, but he could well have been his twin; the same lean, scrawny looks, uncut, disheveled hair, and age.

I walked up to him. “They have sent you?” He nodded, as he quickly sat dawn on his haunches and began to feel the underside of the car for a place to put the jack.

I stood by and saw him exert every nonexistent muscle in his body to turn the jack over, again and again. The task done, he took a breather, wiping his brow.

I took the opportunity to ask him, “How much do they give you?” “Fifty Rupees,” he replied evenly, casually, at ease, Income tax returns were the least of his worries.

“Every day?” I probed further, as I helped him lift the replacement tyre a bit, so that its holes were perfectly aligned to those of the denuded metal wheel of the car.

“No, every week,” said he, in the same flat, unemotional tone, as he began to expertly screw on, the first of the four screws. I noticed that his fingers were no bigger than those of my son’s, whose hand I just adore to hold.

He stood up, and began to heave at one of the screws with the help of a lever. The car was still sitting high on the jack, resembling a lame duck. I was still on my knees.

“Do you go to school?” He nodded, “Anu public.”

“Grade?” “Five.” I was about to say, “Same as Achyut,” but he gave a mighty jerk to the lever, putting his full twenty odd kilos behind it. As a result, the jack tilted at an angle.

“Hey!!” I yelled, as I hurriedly got up. The car was about to slip off the jack. It would have slammed down on a wheel whose screws were still loose.

Without a word, and in almost perfect synchronization to my upward movement, he went down, and put his tiny hands on the jack, trying to straighten it.

“Leave it,” I said, “you will hurt yourself!”

He ignored me and instead, started unwinding the jack, allowing the car to come down gently and rest on its wheel.

It then took him but a minute to tighten the screws, hard.

The shop from where he had come is almost a kilometer or so away from my residence. Unwilling to send him lugging a flat wheel all the way, I signaled him to put it in the boot and called Achyut out.

“I forgot to pull the hand brakes,” he said a trifle sheepishly as I eased the car out of my house. “Yeah,” said I, embarrassed that I did not check.

“When do you come to the shop?” I took the interrogation further. “At two, after school.”

“Isn’t Sunday off?” “No, no off days, but Sunday is payday!”

I braked the car. We were there. I slipped him a fifty. “This is for you, don’t tell any body!” I winked; he winked back, sagely, unsmiling. Did he ever smile?

I glanced at Achyut. He was fiddling with the car AC, trying to increase the blast of chilled air, I looked at the boy, now outside the car. He was already bent on the ailing wheel, trying to pull its tube out; the two were completely, even blissfully unaware of each other, as if the other did not exist.

There was just a glass window between them, but it was rolled up, tight.

I wondered at the way the Indias that coexist in one nation. Calmly they keep out of each others way, like planets dutifully adhering to their respective orbits.

But the Universe, vast as it is, is getting progressively crowded. There are other, newer planets, zooming around, fighting for survival, how long, how long, before they crash? How long, before the tiny, islands of prosperity, are swamped by the huge cesspools of poverty ,denial, and inequity that surround them? Are we doing enough to prevent it? Is mere legislation enough? Can a Nation afford to smile, till it hears the laughter of its children, all of them , jingle in the air?

Gates Through Windows!

This was my first ever published article it saw life through the cylinders of a press on 6th day of July 2007.Two years ago!
Ever since a certain Gate(s) introduced Windows to an unsuspecting world, it and its premier spoken language, English, have never been the same again. Other than the varied mouses, some balled others without one, that now infect our desktops (no longer just pieces of wood), along with some dreaded viruses that can really byte while cooing, “I Love U!”, there have been other mutilations of the language as we once knew it.

“OOPS” is no longer what you mumble in real dismay, when you step on the toes of your fairer dancing partner, neither is it uttered, (in utmost, unconcealed glee) when you spill coffee on the new suit of her latest suitor; it now stands for Object Oriented Programming System, what ever is that supposed to mean.

Remember there was a time, when the only ‘emale’ a normal, non geek, fellow knew of, followed the sixth alphabet of the English language and could make the poor man follow her for the rest of her life, if she so designed.

A mere decade ago, a male- female, telephonic conversation could well have gone on these lines:

Male (traveling abroad, but still living in the dark ages) : So Darling, I am putting the phone down. I hope you have noted down the list of things to do?

Female (newly enlightened by her fashionable computer classes and wishing to show off): Why don’t you send me a mail? Note the address please.

Male (After a long pause spitting each word out slowly):God forbid! Why would I send you one? I am and will be the only male in your life, till I live and afterwards too!

Or conversely:

Enlightened Male: It will take me at least a couple of weeks more before I will land up in India! Meanwhile I am sending you a mail honey! Will be of great use to you.

Uninitiated female, blushing pink: Hey wow! You are such a sweetheart! Any colour will do! Just make sure he is at least a six footer, well built, and please tell him not to be too gentle!

Or worse:

Female: My sweetie pie, you are spending your Birthday so far away from home! To shower love on you, I am sending you a mail.

Male( in a low, hoarse whisper) :Shit !how did you know? Who told you?

Won't Be!

Won’t Be!

Raja Krishan Dev was restless. He had no reason to be so, which made him even more so. Since his accession to the throne, life had been a bed of roses and soft bodies for him. The best of clothing, food, drinks and off course women, were his for taking and the finest of men vied with each other to bow and scrape before him.

However, it is a strange, but true fact, that an extended run of good fortune itself, sometimes, makes one as miserable as that of bad luck. In both cases, you begin to wonder, ‘Why me?’

So it was with the Raja.

One day he put a conundrum to his ‘Darbaris.’

“Get me something, on seeing which, a happy man would weep and a miserable man would smile!”

As a carrot for the competing knights, he put what kings usually put up as a prize; his daughter’s hand in marriage.

The pain, in case none succeeded, was that the entire coterie would be banished from the court forever. The Raja was fed up with them. Familiarity had bred contempt.

To tell the truth, the king’s unsoiled, untouched, princess was irresistible bait. Daughters of the boss man usually are. You get one, and your place in the Sun is assured. So the valiant nobles had left no stone unturned in finding the answer.

The answer however was not hidden beneath any stone. Thus none of them found anything.

Finally, one of them left for the jungle, because wisdom is often found in the wilderness. Civilised society and its confirmative, pre- structured thought processes usually stifle the mind. It losses its ability to think.

The knight did find a sage. And thus got his answer. The venerable hermit wrote something on a palm leaf, folded it, and handed it to the courtier.

“Do not look at it till you have shown it to your master,” commanded the wise man. The knight nodded gratefully. He rushed to the palace.

It was a full durbar and the emperor’s favourite ‘nautch’ girls were shaking their wares on the floor. They were at it so with such enthusiastic gusto that even the feeblest of those present felt aroused.

The emperor was happily enjoying himself, as he should have been.

Suddenly, without warning, he struck his hands together, twice.

The resultant retorts were sharply urgent; loud enough, to override the music and, all at once, there was pin drop silence in the hall. All eyes swung towards the throne. From there they swung to the entrance of the ball room.

The absent knight was standing in the hallway.

Summoned to the throne, he stepped forward, bowed and handed the missive to his lord.

Smiling, the emperor unfolded it.

Lo and behold! Dark clouds hid his happy smile. Ashen, was his visage as he left the court.

By default the gathering stood dismissed. All trooped out.

Long after they had all left, an old woman began cleaning up the mess they had left behind them. She was the surviving queen of the ex king.Many years ago, the present incumbent had spared her life for certain favours she had agreed to render. Otherwise the fate of a leader of men and wolves was similar, once their sinews finally failed them.

Because, the term democracy, had not yet been coined. And there was no mechanism in place, which allowed you to just fade away into retirement, to write your memoirs, and enjoy your loot in peace. Kingdoms were still won and lost on the ruthlessly sharp edge of a sword’s blade.

The cares of the world weighed the lady down, as she hobbled, from chair to chair, sweeping, cleaning, and collecting the refuse.

At last she reached the throne, which was once graced by her husband.

She picked up the parchment that the king had left behind and opened it. Almost instantly her eyes lit up with hope. She smiled.

Written on it were the words “What is won’t be! Times will change!”

Life!
I was speeding to work, and as usual, was engrossed in the early morning calls on the mobile, when I noticed it. It was clinging on for dear life, to the front windscreen of my Indica.

Actually it was right in front of me, almost at the eyeball level. That I missed it for the first couple of minuets of my drive, tells you how distracting it is to talk on a phone, even if you are using “hands free.” The phone engages the mind rather completely.

The wind hitting my car must have seemed like a raging hurricane to it. Try smashing the glass of your car’s windshield and then drive at around eighty km/ph. You would realize the force of the gale that hits you.

I forgot the phone, as I marveled at its tenacity, its ability to stay on the slippery surface.

I braked the car to a halt and peered at it through the see through barrier. It was frozen against the glass. It was tiny, just as big and thick, as my little finger, with a curved tail, that was almost twice its length. And it was petrified. A thin sheath of skin covered its small, protruding eyes, and its tiny jaw was frozen in determination, as it struggled to hang on. The almost non-existent claws of its feet were trying their best to dig into the hard, impenetrateble glass.

It was a newborn, common lizard, which inhabits our homes along with us. Just how did it choose to come along for a ride?

I am no lover of lizards. In fact they are downright eeky. Yet, I did not want it to die so soon after it was born. So I tapped at the glass trying to shoo it away. It did not move a muscle, except for a small, softly vibrating, twitch at its minuscule throat.

It was breathing. Other than that, it may well have been a small rubber stick-on toy that kids play with. As it chose to ignore my knocking, I wondered if I should get down and poke it with a piece of paper perhaps, to make it run away.

But instead, I started the car and moved on. This time, I eased my foot on the gas pedal. The wind pressure lessened. My tiny friend suddenly moved. It darted to my left, and in an instant disappeared down the hood.

There was a scalding hot engine there! If it survived that, it would encounter a host of pipes, not to mention a fan with wicked, ruthless blades!

Will it survive, I mused? I felt a kinship with the brave fellow, so far from home, so far away from his parents. Don’t we all cling on to something every day to live?Our work, relationships,status? Then I shook my head clear it of the defeatist thoughts. That is what life is all about.

That is the beauty of the life cycle. The moment you take birth you want to live, no matter how desperate the circumstance, how steep the odds against you. It is nature’s most deep-rooted principle. The survival instinct. The reason why the world is. Even that tiny being was not willing to give up on life without a fighting for it. All the way.

You may be a miniature, insignificant insect, doomed to perish the very night you are born. Yet for those few moments you celebrate. You zip around; you flirt with a flame or a skylight. You die, but before you die you live, Fully.