San(')s Sanity

I’m sitting in the Patisserie with friends when K shows up and asks, “Do you want to hear a joke?”. Innocently enough we acquiesce. K continues, smiling, “There is this large village where it rains a lot. When it rains, it causes floods. Now, there are two girls, Gita and Sita, who wish to cross a river overflowing due to the floods. There are two ways to cross the river, one, a strong stable bridge which takes you comfortably to the other side. The other option being to swim through the crocodile infested river and the strong currents. Gita peacefully crosses safely by walking across the strong stable bridge whilst Sita toils and slogs across the river, fighting off the reptilian monsters. However, the dumb Sita is adjudged to be the smarter of the two, why?” As he ends, emphasizing on the last word, we, the listeners, are left befuddled. Looking blankly into each other, we try to hypothesize an answer but to no avail. Finally as we surrender to his grinning face, K replies, “Its quit...

Jimmy went through the wine menu one last time before he chose a Beaujolais . Only after he had ordered the expensive uncommon vino, did he realize that he didn’t know whether the person who was going to join him would even drink wine. Cursing his irrational thinking process, he decided to take a chance and stick with his call. Drinking wine was nothing to be ashamed about. The restaurant was dimly lit and honeyed romantic tunes played supporting cast to the several ornamental candles that adorned the tables. This was definitely more a lover’s spot than a rendezvous for two friends. Friends? More like two individuals who used to be friends and have not met each in over 5 years. Jimmy was growing impatient with every irritating minute that passed by as he waited. He started playing with the fork and his spoon much to the chagrin of the other patrons of the bistro. At one point, he got so loud that he was treated to the harsh cold stares of two sisters who had incidentally co...

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.I was hyperventilating. I tried to calm myself down. Closed my eyes. Inhaled a long whiff of air. Exhaled. I hate when this happened. When I start breathing excessively hard. Which is usually a result of some haunting dream. I tried recollecting the dream and as usual, my efforts were in vain. I sat up and searched the table for my glasses. After fumbling around a bit, I found them. I put them on. I looked at my watch for the time. It was 3:27 am. My sleep was very much disturbed. I opened the door and made my way to a favorite retreat, my balcony wall. Sitting on the parapet, I stared at the waning moon. I was in two minds. Should I call her now? Something told me not to, not to wake her up as such an inhuman hour. But then I had to. I dialed her number and watched the flashing fluorescent screen as it tried to connect. Shortly afterwards, I placed the phone to my ear and heard the melodious song she had re...

Wouldn’t it be great if the whole circle of life was reversed? I mean, look at the way we live our lives – we have the best of times in our childhood and great times at the threshold of entering the world of adults. The remaining part of our dutiful lives is spent toiling at some place earning loads of money to buy expensive clothes and splurge in exotic foods and other such nefarious worldly pleasures but never as happy as when we were during the innocence of our younger days. I read a comment of a comedian some time back and this inspired me to muse that all is not right with the way we age. In fact, it would be much more fraught with meaning and significance, not to mention enjoyable and gratifying, if only the whole circle of life was turned on its heels. Here’s the right way to do it. You enter this lovely world as an octogenarian or a nonagenarian or if you have enough good karma from your previous births, you could even be a centurian. Straight into an old-age home. Yo...