White Beard and Black Beard were seated in large, plush chairs in a dimly lit hall, their faces plastered with a smile as fake as a bride's when greeted by relatives from the other side, their eyes vacant and tired like a reserved passenger's whose seat is taken over by others. "We have got sondesh for you both," said someone whose name they had forgotten.

White Beard waited for a message, and instead, all he got was a box of just desserts.

"Why is it so red?" asked Black Beard after opening it.

There was only a strained silence from the other side.

"Take it," said the officer to Sam Pitroda with a wink, "and go."

So Sam, with a smirk enclosed within his black-dyed French beard, took the EVM home.

He unwrapped it, unboxed it, and connected it to the power supply.

"How does it feel to disrobe a machine?" said a voice. Sam was stunned and jerked away from the EVM.

Did he really hear the machine speak, or was it his own fertile imagination?

Confused, he moved towards the EVM and then gingerly pressed a button.

The EVM moaned, as if aroused, and teased him, "How gently you press my buttons."

It was early in the morning and there was a knock on the door.

Vikas was too tired to even think about who it could be. He opened the door.

Outside was a bearded man, his eyes lined with kohl and anger. Behind him were two hefty men carrying what appeared to be heavy sticks. "Vikas?" asked the man. Vikas nodded and noticed the name on his green-and-green uniform. Abdul Malik.

"You have not given away sufficient wealth and assets, Vikas," questioned Abdul.

"I've already done what is needed," said Vikas feebly. "All my TDS and WDS are done.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Eeny shouted at Moh as Meeny looked on confused.

"Just remove your Choos, Eeny," urged Moh, who had invited them.

"Where the hell are we?" yelled Eeny, sitting on a bench and looking around at the trees, the lushness of which was lost on her. The trio, which had reduced from a quartet ever since Mynie had gone missing after she had married Parvez who called himself Paresh, was seated in what looked like an āṣhram canteen.

"We're in a good place," teased Moh. "Remove them."

"Those are not Choos," said Eeny. "Gucci."

I don't understand the fetish for restaurants to play background music all the time. A quiet dinner is almost impossible anywhere. Mostly, it is some soft instrumental played so loudly that you feel like gulping down the hot soup would actually be a relief. Yesterday, I was in an Italian restaurant. The background music was RD Burman. I told the staff to reduce the volume as I couldn't hear the conversation of my neighbour who was negotiating a December deal. "It's already low, Sir," he said. "Try our new garlic bread with paneer."

"Guard Me, O Nandī, guard Me well!"
Said Pārvatī and stepped inside;
"Leave that to Me, I surely shall
Let no one in," Nandī replied. 1/ The Divine Bull stood like a rock,
Until the Lord Himself arrived;
In jest said Śiv, "Will You now block,
O Nandī, or shall step aside?" 2/

Black Beard and White Beard were seated in thought.

The Jinn, as was his usual way, materialized silently and stood facing them. On seeing him, the two stood up, startled.

"You have replaced Chanakya and Savarkar with Ambedkar and the Buddha?" said the Jinn looking at the wall.

https://twitter.com/kansaratva/status/951854008930516992

The two looked at each other. Unspoken words hovered like promises during elections.

"Where's Tina?" asked the Jinn.

A moment later a young girl, tired and weak, appeared in the room. She looked at Black Beard and White Beard.

"Is she blaming or begging you?" asked the Jinn.

Nārad, as was his wont, traversed across the parallel worlds chanting, "Nārāyaṇa! Nārāyaṇa!"

A stirring of foliage far below in the young mountains caught his eye and he flew down. It had been ages.

He approached the old figure, bowed low, and said, "Salutations, O Āñjanēyə!" Śrī Hanumān stood up, tall like the mountains behind, old and yet nimble, His muscles rippling as He took the gadā, swung it around, and placed it on the ground with a thud.

"It's just me, O Hanumat," said Nārad.

"Salutations, munī Nārad," said Hanumān. "What brings you here?"

If you are interested here are some basics of genetics as explained by a mechanical engineer.

Y determines the male sex characteristics, is passed from father to son, is short, has a lot of junk DNA, and over millions of generation has degenerated.

Chr 1 is the biggest.

https://twitter.com/kansaratva/status/1649385292003164162

All chromosomes undergo recombination which leads to genetic diversity (spectrum of expressions). Y, however, does not except at a few regions.

https://twitter.com/kansaratva/status/1649385386505043968?s=20

"You are a sex-obsessed patrilineal piece of junk, a short stub of conservative degenerating debris, and we shall kick you out of the group soon!"

The Y chromosome was unfazed over the biggest bully, chromosome 1, towering over him and quivering like reality in a quantum world. "You," said Y coolly, "are the biggest cause of genetic diseases."

"If not for you," continued 1, "we would all be a spectrum of expressions, mingling happily in a peaceful paradise with no gender, no patriarchy, and..."

"...no sex," said Y. "We all live in our own fantasies."

The quarterly jungle meeting was about to start. A pride of lions was on one side, the prime lion at the forefront, and scattered throughout were a herd of deer, a pack of wolves, a cackle of hyenas, a troop of monkeys chattering loudly, and others.

"Silence!" screamed an owl. Perched on a tall bush at the center of the jungle parliament and surrounded by a parliament of other owls the speaker assumed a more serious mien.

The owl then turned its neck gradually a full circle to view those that were present.

"Let the meeting commence," it screeched.

"The war is about to start, O king," said Sanjay, his eyes glazed as if he was trying to peer through the opaque veil of earthly illusions into some distant reality.

In that vision he saw the endless armies arrayed in Kurukśētra, Pāṇḍavs on one side and Kauravs on the other. He heard the blind king speak with a feeble voice that seemed to come from unfathomed depths.

Anxious and distraught, the old king asked him what was going on between his sons and the Pāṇḍavs.

Sanjay, his eyes glazed even more, took on the role of the narrator.

~*~*~*~*~

The Pāṇḍavs, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and others stood around Bhīśma as he lay on a bed of arrows.

The battlefield of Kurukśetra looked as if a storm had ripped apart a grove of kiṃśuka trees, strewing their branches and flowers on the ground.

Yudhiṣṭhir, dispirited, thought of Aśōk. "What would Aśōk do?" he asked himself, the way Jesus had asked a century later.

Bhīśma looked at Yudhiṣṭhir and thought, "Today, again, his face looks like NDTV journalists' when elections don't go their way."

Aloud, he asked, "Pray, tell me, O King, what is eating you?"

The British gave us railways
So we can travel fast!
They used to tell us always,
Why don't you give up caste?

The British gave us roadways
So bullocks can take rest;
If we today have highways,
Let's thank the British quest! 1/ The British gave us letters,
And post offices old;
They broke the social fetters,
Of lovers far and bold!

The British gave us spices
Our dishes were so bland;
Cumin and cloves enticed us
To far and fairy lands! 2/

Ported out of @airtelindia.

Airtel still owes me 1298₹ plus GST.

https://twitter.com/kansaratva/status/1601826352218243072

Funnily, the only guy who actually apologized for the goof-up was the one from the porting team. His KPI is to prevent porting.

The lady from their escalation team, after listening to my rant impatiently, complained to me that I am talking continuously and not listening to her.

"Heisenberg was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics. He postulated..."

"He?"

"What?"

"Did you just assume Heisenberg's gender?"

"Let's focus on the uncertainty principle on position and momentum..."

"Momentum? Toxic masculinity again."

"..."

"Mopersonstum is better."

https://twitter.com/ArunKrishnan_/status/1584206747354681347

"Let's ditch that. You love animals , right."

"I am vegan."

"Not that I asked, but you will like Schrodinger's cat."

"Who is Schrodinger?"

"The cat is both alive and dead..."

"So, Schrodinger killed the cat?"

"Consider the quantum..."

"He...what is his preferred pronoun?"

Rahul Gandhi comes from a very poor family who could not even have a good square meal. In fact, most of their meals were circular or spiral.

Shashi Tharoor, when once asked about the poverty of Rahul Gandhi, quipped, "Poverty? It's much worse. I should call it indigence."

https://twitter.com/sanjukta/status/1582614835707383809

Rajiv Gandhi also was so poor that he rarely took his family for a vacation. The one time he did he could only afford one aircraft carrier in a country where even the most poor people could afford two.

In simple ways he and his family would spend time in the shade of a big tree.

"Is there life on the Moon?"

We must go back in time for context.

Around midnight massive bolts of lightening struck many waterlogged roads at once and started a reaction which, ultimately, made potholes come to life.

One of them, looking at the Moon later, asked the question. As potholes came to life they found that there were many of them around. Further, they proliferated faster than concupiscent rabbits.

Two potholes mated by fusing their rough edges together and produced tiny potholings around them.

"We need more land," they said. "More roads."

"Wow! New shoes?"

"Yes!"

"Which brand?"

"Wood."

"Wood? I've never heard of the brand."

"It's the new name for Woodland."

"Oh! When did they change it to Wood?"

"After Waqf." "Sir, what are you doing?"

"Don't you see? I am gliding down a slide."

"I don't understand. Why?"

"You know how I won the elections, right?"

"Yes, Sir. By a landslide."

"All that remains is a slide."

"Why?"

"Waqf."

The smile was always there on his face, a resident even older than his wrinkles which hid his tales in secret depths.

Inside his small home, Hari sat in front of his little temple, singing bhajans and kīrtans as he lovingly prepared his little Kṛṣṇa for the birth at midnight. With a practiced care, Hari dressed up Kṛṣṇa with yellow-and-blue robes and a matching mukuṭ that he had made himself, tied a necklace of bright little stones, and gingerly placed a small flute in the little one's hand.

"You look adorable, my Kānhā," he said and smiled.

The quarterly jungle meeting was tinged with anxiety as the animals waited for the king to turn up. What new rules will be laid?

Even the leaves stopped rustling and the squirrels stopped scurrying.

Out emerged the lion with a bright pink mane and a fluorescent violet tuft. The animals looked at each other perplexed. Should they laugh, clap, cry, twitter?

"I identify myself," whimpered the lion, "as a goat."

Disappointment replaced anxiety as the animals had expected a resounding roar.

The lion flicked his pink mane and passed his paw through it.