CAR

It was truly hard to make the choice; this car is beautiful or that car. On the top of it the cute lass in minimum possible clothes was given the task to hook me up making it more difficult. She was stretching my financial limits beyond my worth in true sense & embarrassing me. Perhaps it was her duties to squeeze the buyer & put him to shame, other than compelling him buy the costliest available car. ‘This has more bhp & torque, see the leg room & elbow room & largest boot in the category…’ her continuous chatter was now making banging noise in to my ears. Just half hour back when I arrived here I’d thought I was the lucky man with such a close proximity with such a beautiful girl, her talks were sounding jingle to my ears. Plus the plush glass showroom, that cool breeze oozing air conditioners, posh couches & polished men & women with meticulously chosen use of words in order to convince, confuse & coerce the customer.

‘What is this bph?’ I chose to get myself clear as it was me who was going to pay the big money. She laughed with her beautiful teeth shut avoiding eye contact. ‘How about the average?’ perhaps I’d shown my true worth to her since all those around laughed even small kid of some customer playing with play car. Leaving my both the questions unanswered she sneaked behind some glass door & vanished leaving me stranded unattended, I got disturbed & thinking of leaving the glass walled showroom after all I still remember having read somewhere ‘customer is the king’. Actually I had other questions too just behind my teeth waiting to spill out like, what is elbow room, leg room, boot, ground clearance, MPFI, rear spoiler, keyless entry….

She left & a sales man of weighing hundred & thirty five kilogram ‘coal black’ complexion appeared from nowhere. Perhaps he was ready, tying pads & gloves the way cricket batsman do, somewhere inside in the hole of his size to tackle customers like me. It was straight way my insult I can never forget. How on earth they can take away such a great damsel & send in the black monster? ‘What for you require a car, sir?’ his sir was adding pinch of salt in the salad of bitter gourd, otherwise I felt he was ridiculing me. ‘What do you think why should one buys a car?’ now her exit had already taken toll of my patience & the fellow of my triple size with his belly touching my flat stomach asking me stupid question. ‘Sir, there are various reasons, say for single use from home to office, for family use, traveling long distances, for business purpose etc.’ monster was mellowing down.

‘I want a car which should be cheap, more on average, sturdy, low on maintenance,…’ perhaps he’d put in his little finger of his left hand into his left ear & shook it for a moment when I’d lost him on sight. Finding even the son of elephant disinterested in me I left the place. I heard they took a sigh of relief, yes indeed I heard! I then decided to use my grey matter however little I received. Logged onto internet, my daughter in sixth has trained me on this, & downloaded the various sites. Whole week I was immersed in cars in each of their minutest details. There were many manufacturers ready to offer their cars viz. General Motors, Ford, Suzuki, Maruti, Nissan, Tata, Mitsubishi, Skoda, Lamborghini, Mercedes, Rolls Royce and what not.

To my amazement, all cars have comparison figures just close to each others say 799, 803, 1403, 1400, 1500, 1504 on cc of engine same for their length, width, bph, torque etc. etc. but price wise hell of a difference. I reached to the conclusion that prices are determined by not the value the car delivers to its buyer car but the perceived worth of their brand in the market. ‘Look’, I called my wife, poor woman since very beginning she’s been my patient listener whenever I talk & vice versa of course. ‘There are two types of cars based on their fuel, diesel & petrol. Now a days petrol cars are modified to LPG & CNG’. Looking at her confused wrinkle on her forehead I clarified, ‘gas & natural gas’. ‘We want petrol, no gas thing’, she issued her final order while I listened patiently.

‘There are three sizes, small size, mid size & big sized cars; bean shaped saloon & sedan. I mean without luggage space, with small luggage space & large luggage space’ I explained in details. ‘Luggage space for what? We don’t often go out, & if we go out long distance there are buses, trains & when ever your office permits we have air travel too. We don’t need luggage space’. Again final decision from the Supreme Court. ‘Then we’ve little choice darling’ I call her darling either in bed room or whenever no body is around & I notice whenever I utter ‘darling’ she blushes. Which wise man in the whole world doesn’t want to stay with a satisfied wife if both are to live up together? ‘This costs…’ before I started talking she cut me short, ‘look we have a son & a daughter to educate & to marry, take care of our parents, think of our retirement; why waste?’ she was absolutely right I shook my in head in affirmation. ‘But the car doesn’t have air-conditioner, no leg room, no elbow room, ground clearance,…’ I was still taking chance if by chance she approves we might have bigger better car. But, the Supreme Court whether at the heart of the nation or at the heart of the husband works on pure logic. She stopped me before I finished, ‘you’ve have not replaced our ceiling fan for last six months the whole summer passed without fan air why do we need air conditioner any way, if we have space to sit inside our legs & elbows will also adjust. And as far as the car runs on ground that’s it. We’ll go for such car only, which is that car?’ she bent herself on the glossy papers I collected turning her hairs back from her cute innocent face.

She was looking just beautiful, better than that showroom girl. Not only because she’s my wife & easily reads my mind but also because she knows better where to spend & why to spend.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

TAX

‘Gosh! This is going to kill me one day’ my exclamation caught rare attention of my wife ever filled with bliss while in her Kingdome the kitchen. ‘What has happened? What is going to kill you?’ she came wiping her ever wet palms to some cloth always stuffed to her waist. ‘Look they have increased the Education Cess by a percent point’ I stared at her from above my half rim glasses with popping eyeballs. Surely it was going to make a hole to my pocket while my customers might hardly share me with the difference. She looked deep into my eyes, perhaps thinking I’m growing miser as I age. ‘It is just a percent point on that sixteen percent of the excise duty such a tiny amount, why worry so much, you are impossible!’ and she was about to go leaving me look like a fool seating in our bedroom gallery garden of cactus. ‘Madam, never undermine tax be it tiny or tons. It takes toll of the tax payer in the end just like camel which initially offers to save its head of the outside cold. In the end the camel is inside the tent & poor Arab out in cold’. I compared tax with story of camel & Arab to make her understanding of taxes rather clear. But, if anywhere in the world if anybody declares that his wife takes him seriously & successfully proves it. I think he doesn’t have to do anything to get moksha or salvation. He’s already attained it.

I never knew, by just inkling of the increased Cess what might have happened outside. ‘Eleven rupees sir’ the rickshaw driver demanded in as rude manner as possible, perhaps determined to squeeze the money. He refused to take ten rupees bill which I’ve been giving him for last three months & thirteen days, thanks to halt in rising petroleum products prices. ‘But yesterday you took ten’ I tried to put my point after all it was matter of point not penny. ‘…tax has increased…’ and the way he made face, I understood what he wanted to convey me. It was actually, ‘you silly bum, don’t you read the news paper…’ I sheepishly searched for the coin in my inner pocket & put it onto his sweaty dirty palm & got rid of him.

‘Pay your tax & hold your head high…’ they are not leaving even Ravindranath Tagore too through news papers advertisements on paying Tax, I murmured reciting his ‘Where the mind is without fear & head is held high…’. To discuss the issue I thought of calling a friend who must be equally stressed on the subject of rising taxes. Before I picked up the receiver, it rang & I was amazed to note it was him only; telepathy is this I patted myself. ‘Could you lend me sixty five thousand bucks?’ he opened his mouth without any morning greetings, asking my wellbeing etc. he must be tensed otherwise even over a cup of tea the fellow asks me, ‘so how are you?’ ten times; sipping tea five times, just leave sipping whiskey aside. ‘It is tax I must pay’ he clarified.

I lent him, that night we met over a glass of drinks, the poor fellow was too worried, and he’d postponed his daughters’ marriage to pay the tax by borrowing remaining money from me. ‘Why do we pay tax? I’d refuse paying now. It is we who earn toiling in the sun & pay so much for what? What do we get in return? Corrupt politicians, corrupt government, lethargic society, no social security,…’. He spoke & spoke while I listened. ‘Don’t rub the soap so much’ I cautioned him interrupting him. ‘What soap?’ he raised his thick eyebrows over his red lull eyes. I persisted saying ‘I say don’t rub the soap so much. It consists of taxes up to forty percent. So every time you rub it against your body & hands forty percent of its costs are going to government’.

On paper napkin, we finally drafted the proposal to the government. He said, ‘let’s ask government to take entire of last months’ salary of salaried men or profits of businessmen & give us a pass. No more taxes then after’. I laughed at his innocence, finally we came to the conclusion & drafted our joint proposal that, government should take seventy one point thirty three percent & let us get our daughters married, sons studied, family members get hospitalized & people like us drunk in merry or in grief.

‘How come you arrived at that seventy one point thirty three percent figure?’ wife screamed as if she thought the Finance Minister listened us & he developed complex of squeezing so less so far while public was prepared to pay more. And the fellow was going to call the Secretaries of Direct & Indirect Taxes, Revenue etc. & ask them to make a blue print; it should be called red print I sincerely believe, on what all needs to be done. ‘Look, actually since morning I was trying to type what all we discussed & scribbled onto the paper napkin last night. You know you can’t drink & write’, this sentence I uttered in low tone to save my truthfulness & skin both. ‘Read this’ I handed over my neatly typewritten paper on my electronic typewriter & reached for towel to head towards bathroom. Actually we’d decided yesterday night only to pay less in tax to the government by way of our small small bits. While bathing I decided to use lesser water, cold water so as to not to pay tax on water & electricity. Rub soap lightly only to more sweating area like face, neck, armpits etc. After bathing stand erect & jump twice or thrice to help letting body water drain away by gravity, then wipe remaining water with towel slowly to save tax on buying new towel premature. There are plans to ….

While wife was reading that proposal paper aloud, women are number one in publicizing anything before they happen. Fifty three percent of the seventy percent of the total exchequer may be kept aside for corruption. Twenty three percent for the defense, zero point zero three percent for education, one point thirty two percent on infrastructure development, zero point fifty nine percent on internal security like police, home guards etc. one point ….

‘Since we were not truly agreeing to certain percentage there could be tolerance of five to seven percent point’. I told her seriously, noting even though I finished my bath, she was still reading the same paper with popping her already large eyes.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

ELECTIONS

Like all others now a days even I too felt election fever once. ‘Why not run for the elections?’ I whispered into ears of my wife, thinking if she finds it just rubbish no other person would know. But to my amazement, she spontaneously agreed hugging me close, ‘tomorrow is the last day for filing nominations, come on let us do it’. When my wife agrees to something, I’m sure it won’t happen, and I slept in assurance, had she said no then I might have given a thought. I don’t mind her taking part even in Formula 1 drive on the busy street of Kalba Devi. But, if she agrees with going on Bajaj Street to vegetable market, I’m scared till she gets back home safe & two days even after her safe arrival. As she doesn’t know how vehicles may might have collided & banged their head with walls or onto other vehicles in pursuit of saving my ever ignorant wife.

By my first tea next morning, I received my first call congratulating me on my decision of filing nomination for the elections. I was more than astonished but when realized the fellow was my brother in laws friend active in politics, I came to know it was my better half who had publicized our bedroom goofing. ‘Listen’, I was trying to keep my cool while calling her, yet the volume was just more than normal. ‘Look, it is just the matter of few million bucks, so why bother. I’ve managed everything; you just sign the papers’. Wife should be like that who just rightly guesses what her husband wanted to tell her; furthermore if she knows how to cool off her husband before he opens his mouth than it’s icing on cake.

It all happened just automatically, as if I was dreaming. By noon there were few hundred people gathered in front of my home sloganeering & hailing my name. I even visualized my photo dangled on the wall just next to Mahatma Gandhi for a moment. My wife had turned me into politician just within hours; it took me more than half of century to somewhat settle in life & take breath of comfort in chilly air-conditioned atmosphere. I had sighed of relief that my both son & daughter got married to their best of choices & settled rich abroad. And we were just relived off, returned from our world tour & I’d just started feeling of my dream of lifetime got true. I never know my thirty year companion was so explosive & excited on my entering politics through electioneering. It was not even twelve hours that I was filing my papers in collector office with much funfair after I first spoke of elections just like that to my wife in utmost privacy.

I was more than amazed with all those banners, posters, larger than life size cut outs, hand bills as if it is only me who exists in the city. Suddenly at every nook & corner people started giving me familiar glance, everything bought out not deserved. ‘When do we leave to meet the public in our ward?’ to my such a honest question everybody, including the poodle in my wife’s’ arm I suspected, plunged into laughter. ‘Your huby is too immature in politics’ her brothers’ friend said to my wife while skillfully holding his liquor glass taking care it won’t spill down. ‘It is all taken care of my innocent buddy’ my flamboyant brother in law assured me while patting my back & perhaps winking at others in the party I clearly felt. ‘You just get ready tomorrow morning in dhoti instead of in jogging suit’. ‘Dhoti, I’m not used to dhoti, I just can’t handle it’. I tried to resist yet nobody listened, as if all was set I’d to do as said. Next morning, they made me up with clean shave, tikka on forehead, dhoti, long shirt, Gandhi topi to cover my graying hairs & oil applied Kolhapuri chappals in my otherwise shoes wearing feet. ‘Always keep hands folded’ my wife made it too loud & clear by chanting the line till she slept yesterday & since woke up in the morning today.

Trampled each & every lane & by lane in the ward I stood. Kept hands folded to every living organisms while my wife kept constant vigil on me. Offered prayers at least three hundred plus temples, broke thousands of coconut to wherever they asked me to be it at the temple, gurudwara, mosque doorstep or launching gym to airport terminal to railway station, which never will come up, during those eleven days of schedule. I spoke lie countless number of times as I went on reading the master minded drafting handed to me. I promised just everything but heaven during the elections speeches making me feel myself no less than god, if all those promises come true. It felt like I truly got fed up all those yet, thanked profusely to my family doctor, the poor guy would come every night to apply some soothing lotion, spray on my whole body especially my aching legs & make me pop few pills to get me relived of day long hectic leg breaking walks.

It was result day, everybody but me were anxious to know about the announcements. I was more than sure that, with so many lies, loss of money, fooling around people; who’d vote for me. Isn’t there a place for commonsense? How can I make airport where making a Jogging Trac was impossible due to space scarcity. How to build dam without flowing river, power plant with no chance of getting coal to burn, flyover where in there is not even a trail or no laying railway tracks at the destination where hardly any people ply. Having done business for so many years I knew it was just not easy to generate jobs. And without money the really real big money how it would happen? ‘You won!!!’ even the air trembled in our hall with that; it was none other than my wife. She hugged me & kissed my lips passionately in front of our kids their spouses & other hundred odd men. And I reduced to paltry flesh & fell in our posh couch, partially due to ashamed of being kissed in public & largely due to knowing my false promises to the public & my inability to deliver. I’d to wonder among them as being called myself as liar.

‘Politics is the play of impossible’, my brother in laws’ friend was patting his friend with laughter spilling his lips I never seen before.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

Appearing Interview

‘Where is Chile?’ his words were hardly percolating through his thick jungle of moustache. ‘Chili?’ I was more than confused. Already I was feeling tremendously uneasy. The chilly atmosphere in the reception & here in the cabin of interviewer had filled my urinary bladder & it was pressing my already tightened leather belt. The tie was perhaps tied more tightly than required it seemed, it was almost chocking my neck. Since the volley of all those uneasy & unexpected questions were seemingly making it hard to gulp my saliva. ‘Chili must be there in the chili field or in the kitchen’ I wiped my sweat from below the left ear in that chilly air. It was more than an hour waiting outside the cabin in the reception & some fifteen minutes here inside the cabin; my lungs were deprived of smoke. Want of smoke was making my head unclear too. ‘Young man, I meant, Chile the country, where it is?’ It was not the effect of chilly air but his question which sent shiver through my spine; was he planning to send me to Chile or what? ‘You have branch there sir, in Chile?’ I gathered guts to ask him back. ‘No no, I was testing your GK’.

Straight I visited toilet to satisfy my lungs & reprieve my bladder at once. Then first thing I bought was the sphere of earth, who knows someone might ask me where is Madagascar, Peru,…. ‘Which are basic colours?’ ‘How many satellites are there in the solar system’, ‘Who invented cigarettes?’ one should be ready to face all such question during interviews especially when you are going to seek a job of industrial marketing & your specialization is chemistry. When I couldn’t answer the name of cigarette inventor it was a matter of shame for me. Having turned thousands of cigarettes into ashes I must know its inventor. I felt deep pity on me; grief of loosing job was nothing then. Later I postulated that the fellow must have got stumbled over these questions volleyed by his young son or daughter at home. So he’s quenching his thirst this way. But one thing, he wouldn’t ask the relevant questions which he knows he knew them little. By being in dry administration, his touch with basics has faded away.

Many a times you shouldn’t speak your mind but lie especially in the interview, I learnt a hard lesson at the cost of loosing a good job. ‘Strom the structure’ was my flat answer to the years of nagging problem of Ayodhaya during my early interview for a good post in the cement company. I was declined the job. ‘Anywhere but in Punjab’ on, if I could be transferred anywhere, I answered to the interviewer of the leading courier company during Punjab’s worst days in history. I never got reply neither the job.

What they gauge in the interview is really a big question. Since all those forward & bright friends of mine have mugged up & conditioned their brains to ‘lie & only big lie’. While they were preparing to lie I used to pray the god to collect my courage to stand & sit there confidently & answer them. ‘You fool, they don’t listen what you answer; they see how you answer’. You have to bullshit there yet confidently’. My flamboyant & fearless friend said bellowing while puffing borrowed cigarette from me patting my back. Till I breath my last I can not forget his advice.

‘Can you come for the interview on seventeen? To this call just after that advise, I fearlessly said, ‘just a moment, let me check my diary’ took two three puffs then refused to meet the date & asked for delayed date. To my amazement the fellow agreed, plus offered to & fro air fair too. I purposely visited the venue fifteen minutes late & regretted with putting blame on the limo which was supposed to carry me from airport to office. On the contrary I’d visited the place previous night by state transport bus, stayed with friend free of cost. Sat in the chair more comfortable than the interviewer himself. After initial talks it seemed like he was convincing me to join his company & I was reluctant at the post & package he was willing to offer. In the end he paid me more & gave bigger post too.

Perhaps I spoke sheer nonsense which fetch me job with more than hundred & fifty percent jump. Thanks to opening economy, all those bulls & bears are running forward only.

Hats off to my friend who taught me to lie yet confidently.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

EXAMS

‘But it is almost seventeen years I appeared for any exams,…’ I was arguing with psychiatrist during our first meet. He listened to me with all the attention I deserved making me sit on the easy chair for more than sixty five minutes. While he was quietly listening to me as if he’d no other work left in the whole world to do. ‘Well, you get nightmares due to your fear of exams which you used to appear for?’ he was trying to simplify me. ‘No no, not exactly that’ I cut him short; actually he was not understanding the gravity of the situation. ‘Look, I get literally drenched in the sweat in the mid of my sleep, many a times I cry, shiver in utter fear of not being able to solve the sums in my dreams…’. ‘These are the capsules & take them properly’ before letting me complete my explanation to let him understand the gravity of my nightmares he scribbled a few lines on his letterhead & handed over to me. ‘You may make payment at the reception’ he didn’t forget to make me remember of his fees while lifting his intercom; must be to inform the girl at the reception for the amount.

Declaration of my sentence date might not sink me so deep than the declaration of my exam date. Exams have really filled me with tremendous fear as if it was going to the end of the world. I’d collect all those notebooks & text books, loose papers, journals, drawings just everything. Sit & make schedule of the studies as per the respective subjects’ exam dates. Start solving previous year’s questions papers as much as possible. ‘Tonight it’ll be seventh paper I’d be solving for all the subjects’ my classmate quipped a week before our first paper. That much was sufficient for me to pop in fever pills; actually there should have been fear pills since I’d solved only five papers then.

I’d take a bath in cold water even if I run shivering fever contemplating, if I don’t take a bath it would not be auspicious, with a fear of failure peeping in. Then apply Tilak on the forehead, wear the previous day clothes if that paper was satisfactorily solved else fresh clothes; many a times for all those ten days I could be seen in the same dirty stinking shirt & pants. Till the last bell or till the examiner pulls the book from my hand & throw them in the hall corner I’d be glued to the books & read. Who the hell knows which question is going to appear in the exams? Even after solving all those papers satisfactorily if someone comes up with his own theory of papers being sent to tough paper checker or to some other district. I’d just pray god to save my papers from getting lost in transit, eaten away by cattle, wet in water, burnt in fire & even go in the hands of tough & miser paper checker. My biggest worry was my own handwriting. I’d read somewhere, ‘mans’ own enemy is he himself’, whilst my own enemy was my own handwriting; even doctors can scribble legible than me. During my education years I was fed up with my handwriting.

But all are not equally fool like me. There were great souls with whom I’d shared the same time space, class space & even exam-hall space. ‘Write that answer, will you?’ & meekly I’d hide my paper below my closest exam hall-mates’ paper & write the answer for him. Just to keep myself exam writable for the next days’ exams looking at his muscle popping up from his half sleeve shirt. ‘No the answer page is torn from this guide’ I’d given the guide back to my fellow student, later realizing had I been caught with the guide in my own hand than?

‘Squad’ used to be cruelest entity living on the earth then. They were permitted to barge inside any hall, search any girl of boy writing exams. During those days only I truly understood the meaning of discovery as witnessing these squad would discover copies hidden at various places. Inside ear, shirt collar, blouse, skirt, shirt seam, pants seam, inside innerwear, compass box, behind the ruler, inside socks, inside hollow of shoe hill, written on hands, palms, thighs in details or in abbreviations the list is long. Many forward guys & girls would visit toilets in the mid of exams many a time & get back loaded& get back loaded, while I’d be seen begging god for some more time,.

Even in the freedom struggle I’d have fought against rulers with much ease than fear of exams. My teen has been spoiled by these exams; I could not even make any girl friend forget about loving one, these exams never left any time for all such things. Weekly, monthly, quarterly & yearly exams & on the top of it surprise exams had left me shattered. Those who say college life is the best life, god bless them. For me it was hell, just like having asked for all that gold from the god & out of fear of it getting stolen away making it to be seen by self only in the second & the last wish. Upon granting the wish when the god disappears with a chuckle, you realize what is left behind.

Exams left behind all those notebooks & text books, loose papers, journals, drawings plus one more roll of yellow paper with a red engraving onto it, my degree certificate. Leaving me grope for the job in the mid of jungle.

I put my first step on the footpath out of the psychiatrists’ clinic assuring myself popping these pills might get me rid of that haunting exam-phobia.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

AT MISERS' CLUB

‘…even he doesn’t buy daily news paper but gets stale one from the waste-paper bin…’ I overheard my neighbour whispering to his friend & I doubt it he must be referring to me. Since at my inkling he stopped chattering. ‘Whatever people say about me but why should I change my lifestyle?’ I made my point to my friend who had trouble with me. He’d heard somebody mentioning that I switch on lights till it is too dark & at home bang my head on the wall. Or I don’t miss any dinner invitation, have no car still uses thirty six years old fathers’ bicycle, didn’t marry, didn’t paint walls & now the bricks beneath are visible, ….

‘It is very simple truth; you need more time to earn than to blow off your hard earned money so why spend?’ I chose to speak the sentence while preparing my speech at the ‘Idealists’ club’ instituted by me only some fifteen years back. Few fools call it as ‘misers’ club’ instead, well we never felt bad about it. Since then many people joined & due to our hard restrictions & exclusivity many self proclaimed hard core misers had to quit their memberships. One such spendthrift was thinking of shifting the present venue of our meeting to some other ‘at least’ non stinking place, it was shame on us & we unanimously decided to remove him. How can we abandon our meeting place which was slaughter house before we occupied, since they felt it was unhealthy for them. How can he ignore that the place doesn’t need to pay any taxes, no lights to be burnt & nobody comes here too. Apart from this we can plan our investments meticulously.

One member on whose inclusion I was responsible & really feel ashamed on my decision & even apologized a many times to my fellow members. The rascal wanted tea to be served during our fortnightly meeting at ‘Idealists’ club’ & that too at our own cost. Whenever I’ve sipped tea it is always at somebody else’s place or at party wherein I was invited. How could he think of such largesse? Since it was the thumb-rule of our club was to ‘fill our stomach at somebody else’s expenses be it a party, canteen, office etc. & if we’ve to eat buying our own food do not eat more than the body requires to burn the calories in four hours time. Our junior member only, who chose to open the door before our meeting time & close after the meeting, kicked one of our members who bought new clothes. We congratulated him profusely on his timely decision, since it could have been detrimental to our code of conduct. Since, one of our senior & illustrious member fainted down at the news as he never bought clothes. He stays naked at his home, a single occupant, goes out for work in factory uniform & for the meeting in his school days clothes stitched & stitched & altered at many times by his pet tailor who is also our member. Having such an apostle of miserliness how can our club member dare to spend money on new clothes?

I’d postulated our three point regulations & all our members had to stand by it if not better it.

Don’t buy.
Don’t spend.
Invest as per the club guidelines.

These were the main points which were easy to remember. Other less important points were even written with a piece of coal on the wall against the window were:

1. Eat less at our own expenses. It will save us money as well as getting sick since we eat more & burn our calories less. Many of our valued members have shown restraints of not eating for four days in row once they’ve filled themselves at some party with no gifts.
2. Dress & undress only when required, you might tear off your pants while putting it on & off frequently.
3. Never go out unnecessarily since it calls for expenses. If at all go out never carry cash & it will help you from spending it.
4. Do not maintain relationship with relatives. If possible don’t marry; having made a mistake don’t dare have kids.
5. Don’t spend big money on wife’s ailments you may have another at that cost.
6. Water & earth the soil are the best medicine try them & you get rid of all the ailments. Walk & walking will keep you fit & spend nothing.

I’d many other & noble ideas too to make life better & richer. Who can boast of being rich; the only one who has riches. Who can count money spent; but one can easily count money held!

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

FUN

‘Seen eunuch die of heart attack?’ the question stunned all fifteen plus of us gathered to have fun at my friends’ place that night. Few splashed their drinks from their glasses, few stumbled to something kept in the hall at their feet, and almost all remained openmouthed with the most unexpected question from him. He was known for such jugglery right from his half pants days. ‘Remember their way of clapping, they in a way are doing acupressure & avoid dieing of heart attack’. He although finished with serious note, the whole hall was over flown with great laughter. ‘Why on earth someone goes to see how the eunuch has died?’ my friend quipped struggling hard to keep his laughter beneath his teeth. Yet, ‘his mere presence is fun’ somebody spoke in low tone clearly honouring his great sense of humor.

‘What is there in life? Have fun’ my other lighthearted friend is known to enjoy each minute of his living. Even our greatest funny moments are filled with his memories only. He’d just clean shave his head neck up even his thick moustaches; he’d not even spared his eyebrows too loosing his bet on winning India to Pakistan. Just after the match was over in the evening the fellow lived up to his bet & headed for his home. ‘Whom do you want?’ the obvious question was from his own father with specs on who opened the door. It was another close shave at home. He was the true connoisseur & true fan of James Bond 007. Who otherwise can buy all those eighteen (then) CDs of James Bond sees them in one single stretch. in pursuit of aping him barge his scooter on half feet width & eight feet long wooden board with speed of eighty into his home which was four & half feet high from the ground. And, expectedly, broke his right leg with multiple fractures in his right arm with scooter onto him? We still call him bond.

One of such would follow allegedly egoistic girl who’d never even look at any of us always sitting onto the cement benches & gazing closely to each bypassing girl as if that was the sole work left onto earth outside our college then. He’d follow the girl so much that the girl then complained to principal who warned him of dire consequences yet the fellow didn’t budge & remained after her. He’d keep watching her below her building in pouring rain just to get her glimpse. Lastly the goddess of beauty & blonde came down to earth from her heaven to ask him in her mesmerizing honey drenched voice, ‘what you want? Why you follow me’ thinking he’d fell on knees & plead for her love. I literally fell on the ground form the same cement bench & got my head injured listening his answer. He’d said to the girl, ‘what you think of yourself, you look so lousy & dumb…’. While he could’ve otherwise said, ‘I love you’ which I must have. I’d no courage to ask him on what was the girls’ reaction?

We were on numerous occasion caught in the exam hall for, truly, not copying yet helping those deprived copy, ran away from the table after stomach full snacks without paying & got caught at the very counter & headed for the kitchen for washing utensils. We’ve even won cricket matches with huge margins on scoreboard & not on ground & got hit with the same stumps & bats. Once even tried traveling WT on train & whole five hundred plus kilometer there was no inkling of TT. Police squad caught us at the station on charges of crossing tracks & not using stairs.

Life has been fun just like dollops ice cream, enjoy if before it melts away from hand.

I madly loved a stunningly beautiful girl next door & with all the sincerity had decided to marry her. Keeping the same aim in life, I tried to excel myself each day & year since I gained adolescence just to be able to be her life partner. With bit of a complex in mind if she refuses I settled with her not so great looking younger sister. ‘Actually sisi wanted to marry you from the core of her heart since her girlhood, she loved you so much. But you chose me how lucky I’m…. My newly wedded wife was electrocuting me on our honeymoon night.

It was fun!!!

By
Vijay Yelmelwar

SWINDLE

‘You miser bum you’d even think miserly!’ my closest friend was showering his immense praise on me. Fed up with the mundane life we were discussing trying something different which would refresh us & provide money as well. Being good at thinking I coined the idea of deceiving common people & earning through it. Actually it would have been the nicest changeover I thought of. With absolutely no risk & high to very high returns. Say, trap a youth convincing him of getting job in say Railways. What it takes to print the letter-head, visiting cards, identity card & make few stamps? What all it takes to fool & deceive a job seeking youth? I can easily swindle him for say fifty thousand bucks. Ten youths a district & so many districts around I see my future is truly bright. To this idea my friend expressed his rather frank opinion about my colossal idea frankly. Over a Wada-Paav & milk mixed black tea he thought swindling say fifty youth for couple of hundred thousands was a miserly act.

Well, I’d considered myself in the act with my forty seven kilogram weight at forty two years of age with obvious spectacles & ageing brittle bones. My friend with his shirt & pants which would bring shame to circus tent, hundred & thirty five kilogram weight & takes hundred & thirty six seconds to get up from the steel chair, I don’t let him sit on wooden chair at my home. We’d to do something wherein we don’t have to do something which we really can’t do say running, getting bitten up in red & blue with the lathis of police etc. Plus with few hundred thousands in the pocket we can easily buy ever thirsty & lusty police, can take care of ever lying lawyers & manage a couple of judges, if at all we get caught. We’d to do something soft.

‘So what the hell you think you dumb?’ I was irritated at him. Since getting such a nice idea in the graying brains takes lot of brilliance. ‘Shut up, just shut up’ he shouted at me, everybody around in that dull, soot smeared ceiling roadside restaurant started staring at us must be thinking, why the thin guy visibly irritating the fat one which is just not good for his own health. Even I considered my merits at fighting physically with him & paper thin chances of winning. We then thought of duping banks with stolen credit card or demand drafts, snatching chains on road & in the running trains, fooling casinos, stealing information from the processing plant or FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) & selling to their competitors. Even we spent time to think on our capacities & abilities of kidnapping kids for hefty ransoms, threatening calls to filthy rich movie men & business men. But both of us were not convinced with the money, thrill & risk associated with the ad(verse)venture. ‘How about hijacking a passenger plane?’ I’m always popping up with the fresh ideas. ‘Even a kid will knock you down with single blow, look at you in the mirror’ my big friend was getting more vocal than he should, with him on the board the plane wouldn’t even take off. Well I gulped my thought with saliva.

‘Have you heard of Albert Einstein & Robert Oppenheimer? My friend chuckled with twinkling eyes’. I couldn’t note what he meant, rather I stared into his eyeball for visible stupidity; otherwise why on earth he’s talking of nuclear physicists while we discuss on something rather serious issue of swindling & minting fast bucks. ‘Look’, he changed his posture on the cracking steel stool at the rusty restaurant leaning almost to my face he revealed his idea sprinkling his saliva on my face. It took me some time to understand him & when I got him, I reached for my purse to get coins to pay at the counter & started walking. He chased & caught me with all his elephantine body & with elephantine efforts. Considering the big & really big bucks involved, we started making blue print of our plot.

It was simple! All we’d to do is to learn more about making of the atomic bomb. Window to the world was open in internet to us. Rest of the missing links was easy to link. For the missing links we’d decided to make a few trips to Pakistan, Iran, Korea, Vietnam & we’d even thought of visiting Iraq but later dropped the idea. Collect the information with some material such as enriched Thorium, Plutonium or any radio active material with bit longer stability. Having collected all this we’d to just get the information passed onto the internet just plainly with no ambiguity.

We’d listed a large number of takers including unstable nations, failing economies who wanted to twist arms of their rich neighbors & obviously if nobody turns up than our very own fixed customer was Osama bin Laden.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

WE PAINT

‘I’m dreaming, yes I’m…’ and the whole hall plunged in the laughter. I was aghast to see, they all stood up & started clapping in my praise or to be specific in my humility. Actually I was getting truthful not humble. I hadn’t painted the painting & the auction was done showering really real big bucks on me. Somebody one who called himself painting connoisseur bought my painting for almost big buck.

It was a free weekend for me The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was the obvious choice then. Truly speaking I was longing to visit the place since my School days. I’d one duplicate Rembrandt, one original Raja Ravi Varma both were my priced possession. Especially Rembrandt self portrait was in true sense since I used to brag its ownership saying it was the original one. ‘Can we too come with you this time?’ I just couldn’t refuse my daughters’ cute & pleading gesture & took both, her mother, too to my forthcoming official visit to New York City. It was nice till we were passing through titans of art world like Frida Kahlos’ self portrait, Andre Derain. Andrea Mantegna, Vinci’s’ work, religious & emotional work by Rogier van der Walden, Jen Fouguet. Even my daughter liked Albrecht Durers’ Head of an Apostle I took longer before Peter Paul Rubens’ The Judgment of Paris while my wife lingered before Nocturnal Composition of Georges de La Tour. ‘Dad’ she shouted & caught everybody’s’ attention around. I reached her leaving the Judgment being passed on those beautiful ladies behind. ‘I can draw this Milk Pouring maidservant’ she was pointing her finger towards Jan Vermeer’s’ all time great. I admonished her to keep quiet & the first frame caught my attention was Eugene Delacroises’ Liberty Leading the People while my daughter was spending some more time in front of abstracts of Turner, Kenneth Noland, Jackson Pollock & of course of Pablo Picasso. Wife had switched her position to ‘A wheat field with cypresses’ obviously by Vincent van Gogh.

‘Will you teach me to paint?’ kids can ask for anything pulverizing parents’ ego to shame. Her dad & mom took few minutes to shut their mouth while we were returning from the museum. I had to lower the glass to get some ice cold breeze to bring my senses to normal. ‘I can buy canvas, brush, paints & that’s all my baby; I can’t even hold a brush’ the truth is you can shamelessly express your inability before kids only. ‘Well, get me those dad’ she was more than reluctant to resort to means than the end. I was actually an accomplished painter in my own right & my limits were drawing two to three hill tops with sun rising from behind any two of them, with a blue stretch of river as if originating from the ball of sun. To fill the canvas I might paint a hut or two with a number of flying objects which might resemble with birds & yes coconut trees. With such accomplishment what can I say or do before the kid who had seen the worlds’ best brush men?

To really quench her thirst I bought a dozen canvas of different sizes with heap full of water colours & oil paints with different sized brushes, stands etc. etc. my wife cleared our store room for her paintings & we took a dip sigh as the summer was going to be rather cool. But my first evening after office hours at home was going to be just different. Not only canvas but entire home was drenched in water colours & oil paints. Each of walls turned into frescoes by my darling daughter. Her mother was laying on sofa seemingly popping painkiller for her obvious headache. She had to be taught to use brush & paints on the canvas only. To teach her we too started to try our skill at the brush. Later on our golden Labrador too tried its luck by intruding himself in the store room & churned himself on the laying canvas. Our mewing cat too then followed the suit like her big foe turned friend. Meanwhile even the black coffee got splashed onto the very canvas while my wife slipped on the soiled floor. I then took the decision to keep the canvas onto the terrace to dry it as early as possible. Yet the plight of the canvas war far from its end. It had got drenched in rain showers that summer night.

Contemplating her priced painting closely the little kid said, ‘Dad can we keep our painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art?’ I was more that stunned even it was me & my wife to hear our sweet & innocent little daughter. Yet, to please her I took a nice photograph of the canvas which was terribly spoiled & far from getting anybody’s attention. Mailed my daughters’ creation to all of our relatives. Her aunt at Orleans called back to enquire more about the painting. Behind me my wife lied to her elder sister saying the painting was done by me. How can her daughter do such a damn thing?

My sister in law had arranged all that at Paris even the auction of our painting contributed by us all including our lab & cat even the rain showers in painting it. ‘Frame it with the best of wooden borders’ she didn’t forget to ensure through her numerous calls & e-mails.

I was sinking in shame while the auction was going on. My wife, her sister & her husband were more than happy dreaming of owning big bucks. Daughter was happy too; her painting was kept on silver stand.

Art connoisseurs were examining the canvas with their sharp eyes covered with spectacles & lenses in their hands. Their delight was spreading through their upward curved lips. I was nervous, with my downward curved lips.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

MALL

‘…but Dad, you can buy pin to plane there’. My twelve year old one was trying his best to convince me. I could clearly see his stretched face; bow shaped strained eyebrows his body language everything spilling his obvious frustrations. I could gauge all that, as if he wanted to tell his adamant father that is me, ‘you ignorant old man you don’t know what the Mall is. Just open your eyes & try to look where the world is moving…’. Truly speaking I didn’t know much about the Mall & I hadn’t seen any before; neither I was interested. Actually I was in a teasing mood, ‘look sonny, I don’t need any pin & I can’t afford the plane either. So why go, you better study exams are coming up’. He left room thumping his feet as hard as he could. My ‘study’ plot was just right weapon to unarm him. ‘Let’s go the Mall today evening, can’t we?’. Exactly third minute my son disappeared from before me, I heard a sweetest possible voice from the kitchen side. He was my son after all; he’d filed his petition in the high court, from where he knows judgments are issued without any hearing. I folded the Sunday Times to take all that valuable afternoon nap. The request from the kitchen side wasn’t so, it was an order. Any obedient, not so obedient, harsh or a man who calls himself husband can easily understand. So why not take a sweet nap before getting raided?

‘Deposit your baggage there’ a strong & sturdy lady in uniform advised us in as politely as an hundred & thirty kilogram weighing six feet heighten coal dark coloured woman would in her voice resembling five quintal weighing snoring sick ox with common cold in the stable. I meekly obeyed her whispering into my sons ear, ‘but if we have to buy something inside?’ ‘They give us different bags inside’ now my son apparently started distancing himself from his ignorant dad.

It was too a big space inside bigger than my whole company where I go to work to be a part in manufacturing automobiles. It was posh & chilled than my managing directors’ cabin. ‘How’d they afford to sale table salt in here?’ now afraid of my sons body language I filled in my wife’s ear with my ignorance. She too walked swiftly behind her son leaving me behind, keeping me unanswered. Whole of my life till then I was never neglected like this, thanks to development & changing culture. I was used to buy table salt in kilogram bags full for my monthly requirement from regular grocery shop standing outside the counter in hot sun while the fellow inside fill the grocery duly weighing. Here every woman customer barring my sari clad wife were half naked & men barring myself & my son were in half pants & T shirts. They were taking things from the shelves & stuffing into their wheeled carriers as if they were not buying but burgling the mall. It had all that I’d seen & much much more than that. Imported chocolates to dog chains, designer bras, only my stupidity revealed it was bra, ‘what’s that cobweb like?’ when I asked to sales girl I’d never seen through my naked eyes to woolen over coat which may not be useful till the ice age comes or in place suitable like Siberia, Alaska etc.

Mall was filled with items just stuffed with. I was thanking myself for getting chance to see all those things in one place & having discovered living so far without those too. ‘You’d have to cross the road outside the mall there in that restaurant you’ll get water, we keep only cold drinks’ a beautiful film actress material sweet girl was explaining me. Tired of walking inside those by lanes while I’d quenched my thirst just looking at her only. Finally I decided to buy a bottle of cold drink to really quench my thirst which that sweet girl did with opening the bottle in my hand. ‘How much you get here?’ I popped up a question to her taking undue advantage of my gray hairs. Sometimes simple decisions can change the life. I’d refused to buy the costly dye & decided to remain old looking man till I get my economy pack usual dye. Her answer almost fainted me. She was getting much more salary as sales girl than what I was getting as production manager in my company. And foolishly I was thinking I was a successful man.

My whole brain below my gray hairs filled with repentance. Why did I chose to be an engineer, why production, why this company,… lastly I even repented to take birth as a man & why not like that girl? While I was sinking like ship in the deep ocean my son & wife who’d made me realized the truth came with pushing their wheel carriers crammed with innumerable items I’d never seen before & not going to use in rest of my life. Yet, I was calm, perhaps after true realization great souls get calm like me. I handed over my wallet itself to my wife & dragged myself out of the Mall. They noticed just nothing about the thunder in my mind.

Nobody noted, that night after everybody slept I put my computer on silence mode & trying to log on to web sites of Wall mart, Reliance Fresh,….

By
Vijay Yelmelwar