Saturday, October 06, 2007

A long story cut short

I've heard this short story in my childhood. A few days back, I narrated it for my friend. She is an avid reader herself but of course there is no pleasure like listening to a story, at bedtime, tucked in a cosy bed. She was all excited but not as much as I was. I was all prepared to give her a little surprise. Here is the version of story I told -

"Once upon a time, in a far far away kingdom of Shingmingling, there lived a king called Tinminging with his beautiful queen, Chinminaga. One day both died."

I took a pause and then said, "Good nite!"

And I got up to go to my bedroom. My otherwise effusive friend blinked blankly at me. I smiled and said this is, a, short story. She barely managed to say - it is the most horrifying story she has ever heard at bedtime. I was amused.

BTW, my story was adapted from following Hindi story -

"ek tha raja, ek thi rani,
dono mar gaye, khatam kahani"

I'm sure my friend had difficulty sleeping with the weird feelings.

On reflection, the story underlines the monotony of the cyclic path of life. It is a template of life which is provided to everyone by default at birth. It is our choices that decide what becomes of our life. It is ironical a decision that we made in past seems foolhardy in future. But this is the beauty of life, it keeps evolving.

So, keep trying.


1 comment:

Kirubakaran A said...

Little did she know that there is such a profound moral in such a kick-in-the-throat story.

:-)