Enduring memories

The bus driver looked familiar, but she couldn’t figure out how she knew him.

And then Priya was suddenly catapulted back to her school days. The bus driver was then a peon at her school headmaster’s office.

Those combative and competitive days when every day represented an opportunity to be active, alert and upbeat in an otherwise sluggish life. After all, there was only so much excitement in a railway station master’s daughter’s life.

The bus driver didn’t quite understand why Priya smiled at him.

Little did he know that he had opened up some long lost memories in her.

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This post has been written for the following prompts –

Today’s Author Write Now prompt for December 17, 2013 where the post had to include the phrase – the bus driver looked familiar, but she couldn’t figure out how she knew him

Velvet Verbosity 100 Words # 359 where the post had to include the word catapult

Three Word Wednesday 3WW CCCLVII where the post had to include the words – combative, represent, sluggish

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Verses for Introspection: 2

आहारनिद्राभयमैथुनं च सामान्यमॆतत्पशुभिर्नराणां|

धर्मो हि तॆषामधिको विशेषो धर्मॆण हीनाः पशुभिः समानाः||

Aahaara-nidraa-bhaya-maithunam cha saamaanyam-ethath-pashubhir-naraanaam

Dharmo hi teshaam-adhiko vishesho dharmena heenaaha pashubhihi samaanaaha.

–      Hitopadesha, 25.

Meaning:

In the matter of taking food, sleeping, fear and conjugal life there is no difference between the humans and the rest of the creatures in the world. The knowledge associated with Dharma or righteousness is what makes man different and superior to other creatures. Without the wisdom acquired by righteousness he is equal to animals.

Inspired by Swami Bhoomananda TirthaJi’s talks and satsangs. 

Poisonous Morons

Stepping up his election rhetoric, Mohan Narayanan (MoNa), was always curious to know what primary rival in the elections, Ganesh Rajan (GaRa) was going to talk about in his next election speech. In fact the election campaigning by both the parties, its supporters and both these leaders had reached historic lows, so much so that they were picking on individual words such as ‘poison’ used by each other in different contexts and twisted them completely out of proportion.

For example, MoNa’s supporters claimed that the free medicines that were being distributed by GaRa’s ruling party were nothing short of ‘poison’ given that some of them did not even have expiry dates printed on them. Taking severe objection to this, GaRa’s party not only filed a complaint for defamatory statements against the election commission, but also started mentioning instances of ‘poisonous’ behavior by MoNa’s party when they were in power a good 9 yrs ago. All this dilly-dallying led to the inevitable war of words where both parties used every possible election rally venue and speech to deliver vitriolic speeches against each other.

While the electorate and the media had pointed out on numerous occasions to both these candidates and their parties that everybody including the electorate would be better off by having individual candidates and political parties presenting their manifestos to the people, and highlighting their plans in case they were elected, it seemed that this election season, negative campaigning was the flavor and was here to stay.

In fact, the noise from the speeches had reached such a crescendo that both candidates were now wary of actually being poisoned, quite literally by the enemy camp.

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This post has been written for the Three Word Wednesday prompt where the post had to include the words, curious, inevitable and wary which is why they have been specifically highlighted in the post.

This is only my third attempt at political satire and has been encouraged by the kind words and comments to my earlier two posts in this series – Clash of the morons [Link to post] and Moronic pinnacles [Link to post]

Related articles

• Moronic pinnacles (mahabore.wordpress.com)
• Clash of the morons (mahabore.wordpress.com)

Kidnapped

Image courtesy : http://www.moscowtopnews.com/

As if the bitter cold of wintry Bangalore mornings was not enough, Sanju’s hands were bound so tight that his fingers had gone numb and he couldn’t manipulate them.

Although his kidnappers had taken precautions in terms of not letting him know anything about his surroundings, they had not anticipated one important thing.

When he was released Sanju confidently told the policemen that they should start their search in the old libraries of Bangalore. As a teenager he had spent so much time in these places that the smell of old books was something he was extremely familiar with.

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This post has been written for the following prompts

The Write Tribe Wednesday Prompt where the post had to be about the smell of old books

The Three Word Wednesday Prompt where the post had to include the words bitter, manipulate and tight

Moronic pinnacles

When it came to campaigning, Mohan Narayanan (MoNa) had very few parallels. He would meticulously draw up his itinerary, study the most optimal routes to travel, figure out the most accessible public ground in the locality he was due to visit, and ensure that his campaign featured promptly in the local dailies of the localities as well. If any of his party workers slipped up on any of these aspects, then all hell would break loose as MoNa had quite the reputation of being the perfectionist and tough taskmaster.

MoNa’s aggressive nature did not stop with only his campaign planning but also extended to the barb and jibes that he would constantly direct towards his primary rival and so called “prince in waiting” of the ‘other party’ Ganesh Rajan (GaRa).

In fact, MoNa’s constant criticism of the other party and more so his pointed criticism of the way GaRa carried himself served to heighten the already vilified atmosphere that the election campaigning had created.

The sad part though was the fact that GaRa didn’t even stand a chance against the concentrated onslaught that MoNa unleashed against him. Given his limited ability to impress the public with his oratory skills, GaRa had managed to put his own foot in his mouth on more than one occasion with unnecessary references to scientific phenomenon such as ‘escape velocity’ and also talking about ‘poverty being a state of mind’.

While MoNa was being moronic is his single minded approach to electioneering by putting down the opposition, GaRa was adding to the stupidity by his completely out of context references in his speech. What remained to be seen was which moron would be chosen by the electorate.

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This post has been written for the Three Word Wednesday prompt where the post had to include the words aggressive, heighten and limited, which is the reason that these words have been specifically highlighted.

This is only my second attempt at political satire and has been encouraged by the decent response to my earlier post in this series – Clash of the morons [Link to post]

Clash of the morons

Mohan Narayanan (MoNa) had built quite a reputation as the most able administrator that his Municipal Ward had seen in the last 40 yrs. In fact so much so that he had won the last 3 elections and was pretty much considered the Godfather of that locality. And given that he had humble beginnings as a person who used to run a shop which sold iron cables and that his old moniker was “Iron Man”, he had come quite a long way.

Ganesh Rajan (GaRa) was different. Somebody from his family had been the Mayor of the city forever now. In fact his great-grandfather was the first mayor of this glorious historic city and then his grandmother went on to become the first woman mayor of the city. His father followed in this illustrious legacy until his reign as mayor was tragically cut short by a freak accident involving a tight leather belt, a sandalwood necklace and severe skin burns. His mother, although not the mayor herself exercised significant influence on the current mayor, who in any case suffered from a chronic severe laryngitis condition which anyways meant that he couldn’t talk for himself most of the time.

MoNa and GaRa were pitted in a head-to-head battle this time around as the iconic campaigners for their respective parties in the mayoral election this year. MoNa’s party had gone as far as naming him the official mayoral candidate from their end, despite the fact that he had done nothing of note beyond the boundaries of his Ward limits which ended with the dirty Sulabh Shauchalaya at the corner of 4^th and 6^th Main Road. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, neither of them had any clue as to what they need to address their constituents about and had a coterie of extraordinarily bad speech writers to assist them as well.

GaRa by virtue of his convent education knew a smattering of English and Science and therefore used to resort to terms such as “escape velocity” and “state of the mind” to end up confusing the already confused masses just that bit more. But MoNa was not to be left behind. He more than made up for the fact that he was uneducated by attacking the GaRa family legacy at every given opportunity.

In every speech of his, he would amplify his vitriolic against the “first family of the city” as he called them and criticize every word and every move that GaRa had made in the last few years.  So much so that by now even the crowds attending his meetings had started to moan the moment he used the term “that little prince” to refer to GaRa.

The elections themselves were only a few weeks away and by this time most people had even lost interest in this electoral battle they termed – The clash of the morons

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This post has been written for the Three Word Wednesday prompt where it had to include the words amplify, criticize and moan and that is the reason these words have been specifically highlighted.

This is my first attempt at political satire and please pardon any minor indiscretions that may have crept into the post as a result of my uneducated attempts at humor 😀