Whose wine is it, anyway?

I am seated atop a salon chair, Come hither merciless thread, And rip out my upper lip hair, Until my skin turns crimson red. Pluck it all out, From the corners of my mouth, To the point below my nose, While I hold a sturdy pose, Or display a duck-faced pout. Pluck it out from below my chin, pierce all areas of my skin, Shape my eyebrows; overgrown, show the world, parts of my face they've never known.  Be a good thread and shred,  All unruly growth off my face,  Before it grows and spreads all over the place.

  We have amongst us an author and witty writer who, like uncle Fred, is sometimes a blighter. WhatsApp Forwards, he cannot help, but send to the great annoyance of our cyclist friend.  This cyclist of whom I speak, Is an athlete and a fitness freak.  She can be both friendly and severe.  She's a well meaning and inspiring dear. It is nothing but calling for trouble to irk her,  which is one of the hobbies of our dear cinematographer.  This cinematographer, is the naughtiest of the lot. The teller of stories, the conceiver of plots. He is the Galahad of the group, always in the thick of things.  He is the self assigned Cupid without wings.  Another teller of tales, is an insurance man who should write more as and when he can. His horror stories will scare the bravest of us all,  By that, I mean, a certain Federer fan, a tennis know-it-all.  This brave Pu La Deshpande fan, Is also a dog lover and beagle owning hooman. Which brings us...

We didn't get off to a good start, did we? When we first met, I found you haughty, pretentious and arrogant.  You were the type of city my mother had warned me about. You were overbearing with your tall buildings, non expungeable  odour of refinement and blatant air of aloofness. You were emotionally and economically unavailable. You were high handed, like the pretty boys in college I totally avoided. Here I was, stuck with you for a month. I must admit, I tried to get away from you. I had a brief, very enjoyable fling with Orlando, but Orlando was a summer romance and It didn't last.  Here I was, back to square one or rather to the 1st avenue. Back into your unwelcoming arms! You gave me a smug smile and I resigned to your company.  Did I like you? Hell no!  Was it love at first sight? Definitely not!  But you were a persistent bastard, weren't you? Every time I thought I had you figured out, you'd surprise me with your enthralling charm. Who would have th...

My boss is having an affair and it isn’t hard to tell! She's always chuckling, while on her cell. You'll find her sometimes in the corridor, prowling behind the fire exit door. Her phone is glued to her cheek. She’s always laughing. She seldom speaks! She can't seem to get any work done, because she is always in the mood for fun.   She's always giggling on the phone from dusk to dawn and dawn to noon from noon till eve and eve till night she's always giggling when in plain sight.   Husbands seldom make their wives laugh!  I am, therefore, certain it’s not her better half. Who then could it possibly be who makes her blush so unwittingly? I decided to investigate the matter and solve the mystery behind her gigglish-chatter. In order to dive into the plot's mysterious depths, after work, I decided to shadow her steps.   She continued to giggle, after work, even in the elevator where there's no network! She giggled against the elevator's doors, her laughter ...

I live around 20 minutes from the nearest train station. To be honest 20 minutes is an estimation on the higher side. If I take an high speed auto rickshaw I reach the station in 10 minutes. If I walk, it takes about 45 minutes. These figures are averages I've drawn up based on my experiences. If however, I take the infamous 206, aka the local bus, the time to reach the station would be roughly 30 minutes. So here's my problem. I am just a bit slower than the 206. If I were Ussain Bolt, I'd probably overtake the bus. That's unnaturally slow for a bus that operates on an engine and has four wheels. I've often found myself seething as the 206 crawls through traffic and trudges through by lanes. The problem here, cannot be the BEST because, 206's counterparts like the 240 and 203 zoom ahead and assert their dominance over arrogant auto rickshaws and reckless bikers. The 206 on the other hand submits to the authority of its peers. The 206 obliges everyone. It wou...

After being diagnosed with diabetes, life changed quite a bit. I wasn't allowed to indulge in sinful desserts. I had to eat optimally and regularly to keep my blood sugar level in control. It broke my heart to know that I'd never be able to eat an entire slice of cheesecake again or drown my sorrows in a tub of ice cream. I confessed to my stoic doctor that my future as a gourmet was bleak. “Woe to me” I said hoping I’d stir her emotions. She simply shrugged and said "you can have one spoonful of ice cream or a tiny block of chocolate now and then. But I'd advise against it". "Why?" I cried "Because you're young and I want you to control your diabetes through a balanced diet! Why do you want to depend entirely on medicines?" "But is this fair? I have no family history of diabetes and here I am being told to stop putting sugar in my tea! What have I done to deserve this?" She scribbled something in her writing pad, tore i...

A bell tolled tirelessly in a distance. The rooster who had, hitherto been asleep crooned unapologetically. I watched the rooster through the bars of my window. The rooster was oblivious, of course, to the fact that his wake up call wasn’t needed. No one in the house had slept the previous night. From a distance, through the morning mist, I saw two young men approach the front yard. They were dressed in white and wore somber expressions. I turned from the window to look at the crumpled dupatta on the floor. I had made an attempt to sleep, but had failed. On the floor, beside the door, was a plate of uneaten rice and pickle. My sister in law, Laxmi, had pushed the plate through the gap, under the door. I had made no effort to pick it up, so it lay there, cold and forgotten, just like me. I remember distinctly what my sister in law had said "Eat this food, it’s the last you'll get". I rested against the wall and slid down into a seated position. The floor was cold but ...