Close encounters of the Four-legged kind

The pile of sand that also doubles up as bed for my acquaintance was unoccupied yesterday. My acquaintance is a cow. She acknowledges my arrival every day or every night rather, by nodding her head. Guess she thought I was a nice guy who waits for his dad when three fourth of the city is asleep. The other one fourth is made up of call center employees, she once told me. Ok, she didn’t tell me. I made it up. Something irked me when I didn’t see her yesterday. Guess I missed her. But hold on people, here comes the star of the night. She emerged from the mythical darkness into the famed Chennai Corporation Street light. She looked like Julia Roberts under the spotlight. In fact she looked a lot better than that. But something was not all right. Her gait said that there is something wrong with her hind limbs. She was limping her way to her bed. A small part of my heart went numb.

Eternity...

Does the sun really set when the sun sets? Does pregnancy last for only ten months? Does a Kodak moment last for only 1/500th of a second? Is a candle-lit-dinner all about the dinner? Is the film titanic all about the ship? Is hi only a two letter word? Is vande matram only a song? How long is a kiss? How long should your birthday be? How much time is too much time? Sometimes a three hour dream seems like a lifetime.. A half an hour bubble bath seems like a whole day.. A five minute phone call, an hour.. And true friendship – an eternity…

Little Huts

As salesman for a publishing company, I go to that small fishing hamlet once every year, to finalize the contract for school textbooks, from the only English medium school in the locality. After meeting with the school principal, I went into the teashop for a cup of tea, deeply immersed in my quotation.

‘Tea, sir’, said the tea vendor handing me a cup. I put the papers aside and started sipping the tea. A small girl entered the tea shop, steel tumbler in hand. The vendor poured some milk into her tumbler. She then walked into the hut opposite the tea shop. The one thing I have always observed about that hut is the number of kids. Two years ago, there were three kids, all within the age of five. Last year there was a new cradle. And this year, there is yet another one! ‘It looks like these people know nothing of family planning!’ I said to the tea vendor. ‘No sir, Murugayya is a friend of mine. We both had the operation done in a camp, a couple of years ago’ he replied. ‘We even received the bag of rice from the government’ he added, with a sheepish smile.

‘Oh come on! Then how do you explain the kids. They didn’t come into existence just like that huh?’ I said with a wink. ‘Oh ho, if that’s what bothering you, then don’t think too hard. Only the first three kids are his, sir. The fourth one is a tsunami survivor from our native village, Nagapattinam. She was orphaned by the killer waves. The last kid is only three months old. She was found in a dustbin nearby. Murugayya adopted her too. That’s why I didn’t charge her for the milk. It’s the only way I can help them. After all, don’t we all have a little responsibility towards our society?’

Did anyone tell you that big hearts reside in little huts?

Hello World

Hello World :)