Ganesh pressed the power button on the laptop. The screen gave a dim glow.
Ganesh: (cracking his fingers) Lets get started.
Vyas looked out of the window, his fingers caressing his now non-existent beard. He saw the huge gutter filled with slush, a corner of it where all the floating plastic waste had gathered. “Inspiration comes from the strangest of places” he thought.
The story starts from a river bank. Vyas began.
We will name the first chapter - Love on the riverside
Thats a cheesy title, Ganesh grumbled.
Love on the riverside
On the banks of the Ganga, the King, Shantanu used to roam in the evenings in solitude. Away from his bodyguards, he would ponder over nothing and try to find solutions for everything. Several years ago, he had proclaimed himself a brahmachari, devoting his attention to his people and expansion of his borders. But in the present day, things were very different from ‘several years ago’. It was rumoured that his chastity was the reason for the state of mind he was in. There were rumours that chastity had bought in frustration in his mind and he was simply ‘loosing it’. But the people who gossiped on the rumours were unwise. In fact, he was trying to figure out why a small piece of tile skips on the surface of a river, while a large piece of tile drowns in the river whiteout even skipping once! Skipping a tile was his latest fetish. His fetish had reached to such an extent that he used to break the floor of his room and secretly carry pieces of tile chips in his pocket. Sitting on the banks of the river Ganga, he would throw his chips and try to increase the number of skips from 10 to 11.
On a lazy Sunday Shantanu, was throwing away his chips away when one chip came back. Shantanu was bewildered. In his 215 days of skipping tile chips, none of them had ever come back. He took the chip and threw it into the river. Lo! a few seconds later, the same chip came skipping back to him. He knew he was about to discover something about skipping that would make a dent in the universe. He dreamt about his name being mentioned in physics text books after the dawn of Kaliyug. His name etched on a trophy that would be given to notable physicists every year. His name written in…
“Hello there…” a sexy little voice broke the trance of the King who had turned into a physicist for the shortest amount of time.
Shantanu had frozen. A shiver ran down his spine causing temporary numbness. With great difficulty, he turned around to see a beautiful woman blinking her eyes like Bambi. Time went into ‘Inception’ mode. Seconds became minutes and minutes became hours. For long had Shantanu not known the beauty of a female body. His brain had become numb but his heart was beating faster.
“Will you marry me?” a question popped out of his mouth even before his eyes had set on the woman’s eyes.
“Why should I marry you?”, the beautiful damsel asked him. ‘Do you even know my name?’
“Because you like skipping tile-chips like me too” his voice squeaked.
‘Tile-chips? Are you kidding? Even little stones can skip’ she said.
Shantanu was bewildered. His room full of broken floor came into his mind as the woman continued.
“All you need is a stone that has a little flat surface. Actually, in technicality, just a 20 degree angle between the stone and the surface of the water is optimal. You know when you throw the stone, it rotates and the angle of the stone pushes the water slightly down and gives a lift, just like a flying disc!”
He knew this woman had to be his queen.
“Listen lady, I don’t care what your name is. I am King and I name you…’ he looked around and saw the river flowing gently ‘… Ganga… and I insist that you become my queen.’
Ganga, the newly named woman pondered over the proposal. Only the voice of the flowing river lingered in the background.
“Ok” She broke the silence. ‘But I have two conditions.’
“Everything accepted” Shantanu was in a hurry to break his chastity.
“Easy tiger… listen to the conditions. If any of the conditions are broken, I shall leave never to return again.”
“Sure things darling. What are those?”
“ Number one - You shall never ask me any questions over my actions.”
“I promise you. No questions ever asked.” That was easy, he thought. “And the second condition my beloved?”
“I wont call you Shantanu. I will call you Santa!” she smiled.
Shantanu’s cheeks blushed. “Santa! Thats kinda cute…”
Shantanu, finally had a wife and the people of Hastinapur, a queen.
