How Petty Can You Be? :)

She had pretty much made it clear what the “meeting” was about. They had been in a relationship for four years, and now the ‘dates’ had become ‘meetings’. "I guess that’s as good as a signal gets. She’s pretty mad!”He thought to himself.

So he got there and she was waiting for him (“wait that’s not where we usually sit”)-and looks almost as pretty as the day they had first met.

He sat down next to her, and she said “You know what this is about, don’t you?” “Sort of. This is about me ruining your car, isn’t it?” “I want to break up with you, Sid” she said at the same time. “Wait what? You’re breaking up with me over the car? How petty can you be?”

Paro continued to stare at the pizza all the while he was shouting. “Are you done shouting? It’s not about the car. It’s about the infidelity. You cheated on me, and I can’t be with you anymore.”

He said, “But that was ages ago! It was like a year ago or something and if I recall correctly, you forgave me for that.Heck, when I was in that accident in your car two weeks ago, you came running back to me and told me how you couldn’t imagine your life without me. What happened to all that romantic crap, Paro? Now suddenly, out of the blue, you decide I’m not good enough for you?”

Pause. The whole restaurant was staring at him. But he did not care. He wanted some answers and he wanted them now. Deep breath.

Paro said, “Ok.Listen carefully because this is the last time I’m going to bother explaining something to you. I’ve been thinking about the whole ‘I can’t imagine my life without you’ nonsense that I said to you. Yes, I meant that at the time. But then I realized that I need to have a life beyond you, I need to stop being so dependent on you and I think if we break up maybe I can figure out who I am  without you looming in the background. This is my life and I call the shots!”She said and got up to leave.

“Hey don’t you think you’re forgetting something?”He said. She turned. “Since we’re broken up, don’t you think you should pay your share of the bill?”She smiled and said, “Be grateful, darling that I’m not suing you for damages to my car!”And she left.

“I knew this was about the damn car!”Sid thought to himself..:P

The Hoarding

It just had to rain again didn’t it? Rishi had to make a quick run to the market because he was out of matches and the inverter would not start again. He didn’t have the cash to replace the battery since business was slow these days and he had been barely breaking even for the last few months. Painting hoardings was not as profitable as he had thought it would be. His workers were all sick this month. So he kept putting off the replacement of the inverter battery. And now it was pouring again. He hated the rain.

As he was standing at the shop, he saw the old lady again. She was always doing the same thing, gathering up all the broken glass bottles, even though it hurt her hands and the blood kept flowing. It made him squirm, but he couldn’t do anything to help her. He had tried to give her money once but she had declined saying, “Sahib! I do not beg nor ask for charity. Please remember that you should not encourage begging, the things they do to children and women is too horrible to narrate. I’d rather die an honest woman than beg or receive charity.” That was strange really, an old and apparently poor woman getting on the high moral ground when she was clearly in need of money. And that wasn’t all. She said the same thing to everyone who gave her money. It puzzled Rishi.

But today she came up to him. She said, “Son! I am a very old woman. I’m dying of tuberculosis. I need a favor from you.”

Rishi said, “Amma! You should have taken the money that time.” She said, “God bless you son, but I do not want money. I know you paint hoardings on the roads. I want you to design a hoarding for me before I die.”

And that was the last time he saw her. He had agreed to design the hoarding for her. He went to see her in the hut she lived in the next day. But she had already passed away. A note addressed to him said, “Thank you son! I can die in peace now!”

And he looks up at the sky, and the hoarding he had gotten painted for her that day. It said, “Prevent Begging. Do not give money to any one who begs, you will be doing them a huge favor. In the memory of a woman who spent her entire life fighting this evil. Please do not give alms to the poor.”

He had done something for free for the old woman and yet he felt like the richest man on earth. A single tear trickled down his cheek as he looked at his best work yet.