“Akbar Badshah ne sasstaatay huay kaha, ‘Birbal
ye kumbakht itni sasti na hoti
isse mein shahi nasha qaraar daita’ ”
Jub ahsaas hua ke i wasn’t alone when i
said these words out loud, a hint of
fowl play entered the proceedings
(only some of which exited through the
window, three-quarters open), followed by
a peal of silence which muted
the appealing sense of occasion
like a bullet unaccounted for
in the chamber of a silenced twenty-two
shot accidentally in the foot
thus hobbling in to work the next morning
and disabling my faculty to proceed with
plans already under way to pluck the
forbidding apple of alluring fruitiness
who otherwise goes by the name
of Miss Marina d’Augmentina, late of
Sunnier Climes Travel and Tourism Agency
minos – octomber 2008
