Sonal Panse

An uneventful, quiet life together is more my idea of a romance.___eally? Oh. Well. It won't get you featured in any of the ballads though.___es,_ he said, with a heavy sigh. __nd that will be the great tragedy of my romance.

Cross my heart, it's the truth. My Ma consulted a Seer when I was born. He's fated to marry a girl that wears that ring, she said._ __id she now?_ I said. __ell, this is in mad fashion in Mahmonir, so, prepare yourself, you're going to be overburdened with wives once the word gets around!

There are people that have had worse happen to them. All those people that died in the hotel bombing? All those that were maimed and left orphaned?

Family is everything!_ he always said when he went overboard with sentimentality. __f you don__ have family, what do you have?

We have no business squatting on other people__ land and we have only ourselves to blame if they take a dim view of it. I mean, c__on, what would you do if someone barged into our house and just took it over? How would you react? Are you going to say, welcome, intruders, take it all, we__l gladly confine ourselves to the bathroom. That is, until you want us out of the bathroom as well. Then we will happily kill ourselves and leave you to deal with our bodies as you please. Is that what you would say? Of course not. You would make a complete ruckus. So why are you surprised when other people do the same?

Why should I ignore them? In my own house? Spiteful snobs! I__e appalling taste, do I? I__ skeletal, am I? Anyone would look skeletal next to them. They are both starting to look like porkers! As soon as I go down, I__ going to mention it. I__ going to particularly point out Isolde__ thunder thighs. I suppose it__ appalling good taste to display them in such tight jeans. I__ going to ask how she even got into those pants without splitting the seams.

Shut up, lumpen-head,_ Billy had said, setting the stage for our future amicable relationship. I remembered that very well too. That had been a first too. Nobody had called me a lumpen-head before that. Tavi had had to explain what it meant, and then I had punched Billy in the stomach. People had to help Pradyun separate us and one of the ladies had exclaimed, __ut she looked like such a sweet, little girl too!_ __he's not a girl,_ Billy had said. __he's an ugly lumpen-head, and her parents found her under a toadstool._ Billy had been a sweet, little boy himself. Still was. Hadn't changed a bit over the years.

It had been a big mistake, introducing her to Tavi on one of his visits home. She had fallen hard and made up every conceivable excuse to turn up at our place that week. Tavi had taken it in his usual stride; he was accustomed to my friends making idiots of themselves over him and he had developed a fine knack of rebuffing them without hurting their feelings too much. __ou deserve a Prince,_ he had told her. __o here's a tip _ don't waste your time on a common man like me.

She__ a mixed-breed and not the least bit aggressive. She decided long ago she wanted to be a pet dog, not a guard dog. I think that__ another reason why that man wanted to get rid of her. I__e never understood all this fascination with aggressiveness. It__ like an epidemic. People don__ just want aggressive dogs, they want to be aggressive themselves.

She__ a mixed-breed and not the least bit aggressive.She decided long ago she wanted to be a pet dog, not a guard dog. I think that__ another reason why that man wanted to get rid of her. I__e never understood all this fascination with aggressiveness. It__ like an epidemic. People don__ just want aggressive dogs, they want to be aggressive themselves.

Salila!_ said Maia, outraged. __nother DOG? ON TOP OF ALL THE OTHER ANIMALS?___O WHAT....?_ I began, and then got cut off as Polly attempted to land her shaggy grey bulk into my lap,unmindful as ever of our respective sizes, long floppy ears flopping and entire behind wagging, whipping her long tail, and barking in ear-deafening bursts.

LOOK AT HIM! Mum, LOOK! OUR NEW DOG! ISN__ HE A BEAUTY?___nother DOG!_ came Maia__ amazed voice.

It was a fairly large house, larger than all our previous dwellings. There were two pinkwashed, picture- windowed, orange gable-roofed storeys, encompassing eight rooms, and an adjoining, presently shuttered garage. A friendly, unsymmetrical house, with pink bougainvillea hanging over the iron-lace decorated, semi-circular front porch and ivy climbing from the walls to the uneven gables.

People might say that they liked honesty, but they didn__, really.