Aunt's b'day

I was convinced of flowers as b'day present for aunt after deliberation and thoughtful evalution keeping in mind the lucre in my wallet. This decision landed me at a florist who sat watching the funny insensitivity of Chennai's traffic on an evening which with the sun pulled down a few drops of the clouds, to make the roads ever more greasy. The little girl next to the lady, I guess her mother, seemed more interested in business as she bumped onto her mother on spotting me wanting someone to take my order.
I handpicked the master flower and left the rest to the belief I had on the florist, who in turn produced a beautiful little bouquet I proudly carried into Vaish aks home.
Auntie was at the helm of her usual chores, taking tuition's for over thirty children. She accepted the posy I stretched, wishing her 'happy birthday', and admired it more to please me than as demonstration of her real appreciation for the flowers.
That the air was vacant despite the presence of myriad of children signalled that Vaish wasn't at home. Yet I enquired out of sheer curiosity and got the truth,that aks wasn't at home, verified. I spent the following half an hour damning myself and a few kids who I was expected to help with their math. I was defeated by inadequacy of my literature in connecting with them.
I sensed that aks is home from the indifferent remarks that kept shamefully pouring in even as I deliberately neglected them. That is typically how mutually shameless we are to our idiosyncrasies.
We were soon in front of the computer, on fb creating nuisance as usual; me chatting under false credentials- aks account!.
Aks's aks arrived with her family and soon aunt blew the candle and cut the cake, thereby setting up the stage for celebration. Kids sat waiting patiently for their turn to receive the snack and cake, as Vais aks performed the cruel and disgusting anatomy to the cake. That I should stand witness to the mess she made in the name of dividing the cake, was my bad luck. But aks was the best for the job, to whom the cake meant nothing to the joy of treating the kids.
I noticed there was more competition for chips than for the cake, and I was myself a competitor. But when it came to autie's tasty Parupu Dosas, I had them all sans any competition.
It was a brilliant evening, the finest of its kind; one in which I could see that the best of man's creation is a family, and that for its sustenance more than one genuine wish goes into the sacred pyre. And that compromises are not just common, but also essential for its existence. It was with these simple, yet profound lessons that I bid adieu to the family.
But the story of how I got to start my adamant moped is something only aks and I know.

Bessy beach

I grew up believing fairy tales are real, that their are places where happiness is the way of life and good always triumphs over evil without waiting for too long, and that time never makes one grow old.
Life seems to be depicting stories I was deliberately kept from reading to preserve surprise. The long ride with a fine companion on the pillion, amidst the traffic and doubts of making it before it darkens is typically not how an convincing tale begins. But that is how mine began.
We reached quite in time and the celebrations began. We walked like vagards and talked desperately like children and shot photographs on the shore, close to the sea and before the fire flakes that streamed out of the corns as they were shown over fire.
Their was no single best activity that evening, everything was best. From circling clinging to a friend's arm to walking abreast and the gitty merri-go-round, it was absolute fun. None of us wanted the evening to end, and it din't seem to.
But, we had to go; carrying memories of yet another fantastic evening. We left taking the evening into our head and the sand in our shoes and pants