Ramesh Tiwari

Read a story in Snippets of Life Music that shows how politicians, the police, the court and musclemen treat the common people and how heavenly justice comes into play when worldly justice turns a blind eye. The story aims to cover three aspects of social life: first, it describes how people clash sometimes on account of their wrong judgments and suffer a terrible loss for nothing; second, it portrays the corruption among those who are responsible to maintain law and order; third, it represents favouritism giving rise to public reaction. Here's an excerpt from the story: ‘Devil, you see things through the wall!’ groaned Ranjeet. ‘Where’s that lane behind my house?’ ‘That space has been covered over by your backyard, blocking off our way to the neighbouring colony,’ Maiku countered in a firm voice. ‘The property-dealer divided up the whole strip of the land equally between you, me and Bhallar. He planned a street in front of them with a 3-feet wide alley behind them. They both ru...

My granddad used to tell a story about a hermit and parrots which is immensely popular in India. I have retold this ancient fable in English under the title ‘Hermit and His Disciples’. To enjoy this fable translated from Sanskrit into English, Here's an extract: The following month he asked them to repeat the whole sentence (A trapper may come here, spread a net, strew it with grain, but we won’t fall into the trap.) after him. The parrots successfully started doing that, too, and had to undergo this sort of exercise for the whole of this month. Then, in the third month of their exercise, each one of them was asked to recite the saying to the class. Finally, from the fourth month onwards, the parrots began to chant it all the time. One day a trapper really came there. But when he listened to what the parrots were chanting, he was disappointed. At first he thought to retrace his way, then later he decided that he would do his job no matter what the result. He spread the net on th...