The beauty of landscape and the portrait

As the river spans endlessly in a landscape filled with serenity, he gazes at the horizon and feels with a sense of amazement that there cannot be a more congenial place to paint her portrait. As the sky seems to paint the river water blue, he gets ready to paint the epitome of beauty.
"I am already done with two full cups of coffee and I would be needing more caffeine to paint her", he tells to himself with a smile on his face while looking at her image he had drawn some time back and orders for a cup of stronger coffee this time. He selects a brown shade to paint the colour of her skin which creates a striking contrast with her shining bright eyes.
He strokes the brush gently and  spreads the colour evenly to capture the immaculate complexion of her skin. He paints her stunning smile showing her perfectly aligned teeth and her flowing hairstyle with hair falling slightly on her forehead.
Just like the landscape seems incomplete without the horizon, he knows the beauty of the portrait cannot be complete without painting her eyes he has reserved for the end.

  

Another day at the Olympics?

The stage is set. It is yet another day in olympics with many records tumbling and medals won. He continuously stares at the horizontal bar which he needs to clear.
He would have done it comfortably had it been one of those high jumps taken during his training sessions. For the first time he starts feeling the pressure to perform at the biggest occasion of his life.
Years of focus and intense practice has finally brought him to the stage he has always dreamt of. As his turn comes, he takes his position and sets himself up for the launch. He suddenly feels a wave of confidence rushing through his blood and everything starting to seem familiar.
In his usual way he plans his execution by creating a map in his mind, marking all the points spaced at distances he should be reaching with each step he takes.
3-2-1 and he starts pacing down exactly how he does everytime. As he gets closer to the bar his speed goes up, covering larger distance with each step, very much in accordance with his virtual map.
And then he launches himself and curls his way down without brushing the bar and hits the mat. As he starts jumping with jubilation, he realises rather painfully that he has fallen down on the floor from his bed.

Ironically the doctors need to be adviced too...

A huge multi speciality hospital consists of many doctors with different specialities in medicine, but with rather strange specialities in their characters.
A physiotherapist, who is a fat bulky man and who is totally out of shape and who takes some time to stand up, munches a few burgers for his lunch every day before he treats his patients and advices them to take proper care in maintaining their fitness levels and in controlling their diet.
The patients who approach him feel he’s too fat to give advice on physiotherapy, but they still listen to him. One patient rather irresistibly makes a sarcastic remark at him saying his face also resembles a nicely stuffed burger.
A lung specialist goes out taking frequent breaks, quickly smokes a few puffs and returns back with pieces of advice regarding how harmful smoking can be, as he treats the patients suffering from lung infections.
A psychiatrist treats his patients by smacking them with a mighty stick he possesses and at the same time with a laughing face, when they fail to listen to his advice on mental dis-orders properly. An ENT surgeon, who experiences frequent nose-blocks, prescribes his patients, the medicines and gives them tips for keeping their nose clear.
A doctor, who treats liver, always struggles to talk fluently towards his patients and keep his eyes open for longer durations, thanks to the fooling water bottle he brings every day. He says, excessive consumption of alcohol is harmful but consuming little quantities everyday isn’t all that bad for health.

When cough gets onto your head...

When you are on a coughing spree, the living experience can be very different and certainly very horrible.
Mukesh drinks bottles and more bottles of cough syrup in vain, only managing to develop a liking to the taste of the syrup. His colleague Rajesh teases him saying "you have transformed into a roaring animal from a relatively silent human".
Meanwhile Mukesh keeps coughing, while in discussions with his friends, in the official meetings or while spending his time with his family. He gets suggestions from his team mates to have some whiskey, reduce his smoking habits although he has never smoked, etc.
He visits the doctor, keeps taking medicines and keeps coughing. At times when he coughs violently, his head aches as if some kind of an invisible bullet is fired from his respiratory tract right into his cerebral cortex.
His coughing also develops into a weird rhythm and his whole body shakes in tandem as if he is dancing to the tunes of some kind of an unpleasant, disharmonious and rather rough vocal rendition.

Welcome to corporate jungle...

Here comes the appraisal time for the animals in the jungle. All the animals gather at the dens where their bosses, the lions, would rate them one by one depending on their performance. Performance is decided based on how much meat is hunted and brought to the dens to feed the lions for that financial or rather fleshy year.
Tigers which are the best hunters, get very good ratings every year by impressing their bosses with their performance. Foxes which are the smartest, use some of the automation techniques to trap the animals.
Foxes from various departments arrange secret meetings and collectively develop great mechanisms for catching their prey automatically.They would never inform about their developments to any other animal in the jungle including their bosses.
While all the other animals toil ceaselessy to catch their prey, foxes spend most of their time relaxing and relying heavily on automation by just pressing a few buttons. They would end up capturing as much prey as any other animal does if not more, without any effort.
Giraffes on the other hand, who used to bring huge quantities of leaves to the dens, however failed to impress their bosses who are more interested in meat. Gradually they would lose all their interest to carry the leaves all the way to the dens and would eat them themselves, not bothering about the ratings.
They get the least grades but do not show much concern, moving nonchalantly, standing tall and munching those leaves endlessly.

The gang of four...

"Demonetization has drilled a big hole in my father's pockets. Well, you guys know that he owns a small scale textile industry where almost all the transactions are done in cash. Post demonetization, we have been running into losses. He even had to lay off some of his employees as he could not afford to pay them. It has been a terrible last few weeks." He gulps down a decent amount of second beer he has ordered and almost slams his beer mug against the table in anger while placing it.
Akshay likes drinking beer and feels no other drink can match a chilled beer. The four friends meet quite often for sharing their experiences and ofcourse the drinks. Vivek adds some ice cubes in his second peg of Blender's Pride and gives it a nice stir. "I feel sad for the problems that your father has had to encounter but I think he should start adopting cashless methods and that is going to be the only way of survival in the future in a cashless economy. Everything is going to be digitized."
"Old Monk Rum with Coke is the best combination ever. It is economical, tasty and ofcourse it gets you on a high rather quickly", says Rajesh rather assertively and with a sense of pride. "I haven't drunk for a year now, post marriage, as my wife doesn't like it. Now that she has gone to her hometown, I would want to finish the year's quota." He had already finished 4 pegs in about an hour's time.
Harish is a teetotaller and always carries the responsibility of dropping the drunken trio to their homes safely. Rajesh continues, "I am sorry guys I couldn't concentrate much on the last topic that you guys were discussing about. I heard something like demonization, yeah i have read some books on that before. That evil spirit, that black magic, that unending darkness. Everything is going to end..." Harish pays the bill using PAYTM and manages to carry Rajesh to the car while the other two were stable enough to walk by themselves. The car speeds along the roadway and the friends sing the song.

As the summer blazes away...

Summer has come again with more vigour and intensity. The cliched phrase "this time the summer is hotter than before" seems to add meaning for the first time.
Buses resemble mobile furnaces emanating heat waves from its metallic panels. As soon as you occupy the seat, you get heated up as if the heat waves stored inside the cushions are released at once as it gets compressed. Sweat starts dripping from the pores as if a million fountains are let open at once from a water reservoir.
As the kerchief runs out of its sweat absorbing capacity, I wait desperately for the office bus to start moving after the day's work. Only as it starts moving and as the lazy winds lacking intensity are pushed to their limits by the speeding bus, is some solace found.
During the whole day, these mobile furnaces must have been getting baked in the sun absorbing all the heat and then served red hot for the passengers ready to get in during the evening. Just like a dish is made to consume from the stove immediately after cooking.
I had one day unintentionally kept my mobile phone under the sun. After a few minutes it was showing 'device overheated' and when I touched it I felt as if I am holding an iron block after heating it up in the flames.
As the news of wild animals getting driven away from their forest land which seems like an inferno, of leopards getting spotted in the back yard of a house in search of water and of people travelling for more than an hour by trains for fetching a pot of water in remote villages are getting more common, this summer seems to ruthlessly cast its fiery spell upon the streets keeping the mighty sun up its sleeve.