"Who will you vote for?" asked Moh diffidently, for she knew the responses she would get.

"Ugh!" said Eeny with disgust. "Who goes to vote?"

"I heard there is no AC in those trolling booths," added Meeny.

"Polling booths," corrected Moh.

Mynie just shuddered at the thought. "I meant," lied Moh, "that if you were to *hypothetically* vote for someone who would that be?"

Eeny said, more to herself, "I *love* those dimpled cheeks."

"Me too," said Meeny.

"I adore his dimples too," said Mynie. "He was bloody brilliant in Chak De!"

They all laughed.

Nehrendra Chol̠an was the greatest ruler of the Chol̠ā dynasty, whose influence extended to all past, present, future, and unknown regions of the Universe. I once travelled with a most scholarly taxi driver when in Sangiliyandapuram. A Vulcan, he talked about how Nehrendra and Spock helped sustain Indo-Vulcan ties. Nehrendra gave Vulcans their salute. Live Long and Prosper. 🖖

The bubbly quartet walked in and took their usual nook in the terrace bar.

Eeny ordered Cabernet Sauvignon, a suave name for a wine, and along with it, some hors d'oeuvres, a sophisticated name for chakhna.

"Supreme Court finally allows women inside that temple," started Eeny. Meeny, who had never been to a temple in her life, rolled her eyes up. "Why would anyone go to a temple? It's just oh-so-superstitious."

"Ugh!" chimed in Mynie, who considered her last visit to a temple when she was 3 as a trauma to be remembered.

Moh was sipping her wine.

God said, "Let there be Light," and there was light.

And the Light was bright, and God said, "Yippee!"

And God made a vessel to hold the light, and said, "Behold, for this is Lamp!"

It so happened that the light was extinguished and the lamp was broken, and God was dismayed. And God said unto Herself, "What the," and left the statement incomplete.

And God looked around the enveloping darkness and saw a dark Shape ominously approaching.

The dark Shape said unto God, "You may be the Lady of Light but I am the Doyen of Darkness. I am Andhakar."

And the innings starts with a single from #TeamPatra.

https://twitter.com/DDNewsLive/status/1044861806232113163

#TeamBOTCH reads the googly well. Surprise. And a dot ball.

https://twitter.com/amitmalviya/status/1044862208935628800?s=19

Rahul, Kejriwal, and Trudeau walked into a bar.

The bartender saw them, took a deep breath, looked up at the sky-themed ceiling, and said to himself, "It's gonna be a long day."

The bartender greeted them and turned to Rahul, who was in his best torn kurta and untorn jeans.

https://twitter.com/UnSubtleDesi/status/1043507536215908352

"Sir, what would you like to have?" he asked.

Rahul grinned confidently and said, "Let me ask you the question. What would *you* like to have?"

The bartender swore under his breath, "I would like to have this evening off."

"Royal Salute? Scotch?" he ventured with a smile.

Abdul smiled at the brand new smartphone. His first thought was to take a selfie.

He tapped on the camera app, then on selfie mode, and grinned as he held it at his arm's length.

A voice from the phone piped up loud, "sau tunchh maal, Abdul!"

Abdul dropped the phone in shock. If we want to know the reason, we have to go back to that one fine winter morning when senior Congress leaders were summoned for an urgent meeting by Torn Kurta.

The smartphone hardware was ready, with "Designed in 10JP" neatly written at the back. But what about the software?

"When I was growing up the gods were never angry," Eeny said to her friends at a quiet dinner party.

"I know," concurred her friend, Meeny, pouring some more wine for herself. "Look at what they did to Hanuman!"

"I adore Hanuman," said Mynie, "and his cute elephant trunk." "That's Ganesha, you dunce," said Moh. "Haven't you seen saffron stickers of angry Hanuman on the back of cabs?"

"Ugh!" said Mynie, disgusted. "Who goes in a cab?"

"The point is," said Eeny, "that Hanuman was always a nonviolent god. Remember how he won over Lanka with love?"

Ravi Shankar Prasad: I will use phone 📞 a friend.

Big B: Kya karte hai aapke dost?

RSP: Waise kuchh nahi karte...bas andhakar phailaate hain!

Big B: Computerji, Prakash Javdekarji ko phone lagaya jaaye! I think I need to go back to #TeamPJ. @Flyfiddlesticks @a_muglikar @AniruddhasT

The young mountain felt suddenly old looking down at a young human walking and trekking along the icy slopes.

His feet dispersed the powdery snow that rose up like smoke. His gloved hands held an iPhone with which he took a picture of the young mountain. His mind did nothing. 1/ "Oh come on! Take your bloody finger off the lens!" shouted the mountain in the language of the wind.

The picture came out all grey because of the gloved finger. The young man looked at the picture and grinned.

"What an idiot!" exclaimed the mountain, and felt even older. 2/

It was a rather uninteresting day. The bandh against petrol price rise, in most places, was as non-existent as neutral reporting in TNM.

It was a good opportunity for BJP's Outstanding Technical Communication House (BOTCH) to highlight the failure of the nationwide bandh.

https://twitter.com/gopalbalaji/status/1039195048691126272

BOTCH was buzzing like a beehive which has been set on fire.

"Any ideas?" asked the Head of BOTCH.

"Why not post short videos of what people thought of the bandh, either life as usual or needless inconvenience?" asked a volunteer, who was then promptly thrown out of BOTCH.

Pat Ria Arky asked Miss O. Jini, "What makes George of Kerala say such things?"

Miss O. Jini shrugged her shoulders, even as Bigg O. Tree walked in and said, "He reminds me of Nirupam."

Pat Ria Arky replied, "In essence, yes, but George is protecting his Mushrooms."

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1038474706108735488

Miss O. Jini asked, "What does that mean?"

Bigg O. Tree said, "It's simple. Mushrooms are paramount, everything else comes later."

Pat Ria Arky said, "Aha! Not that simple. It doesn't explain the Nirupams."

Bigg O. Tree was confused. "Aren't Mushrooms paramount for them too?"

A voice uttered for all to hear,
An ominous message from sky:
O Kaṁsa! Count your days with fear,
A warning that you soon shall die!

On hearing what the voice had said,
The king was trembling like a leaf;
His eyes that never 'd known dread,
Were filled with doubt and disbelief! The voice, further, boomed its decree,
As motionless the world remained:
The eighth child born of Dēvakī,
Will finish you as is ordained!

The import of this message when,
It dawned upon the cruel king;
The only thought he'd there and then:
If Dēvakī were not living...

Here is a true story that you may like.

"I have never known anyone who had a brain like him," said a neighbor, referring to this mathematics prodigy with an IQ of 167 at a young age.

In fact, he was so good that he skipped the sixth grade, and later, also the eleventh grade. In high school, he spent a lot of time working on advanced mathematics.

"A walking brain" and "the smartest kid in the class", he finished his school and entered Harvard on a scholarship at the age of 16.

At Harvard too, he showed his brilliant streak and remained shy as ever.

Freedom is not lost all at once, it is lost in units of one, one at a time, one cracker, one diya, one temple till finally it’s each one of us. I wonder where such genius ideas come from to Follywood fellows. Stringing together random words to sound profound.

A heavy atom floated precariously near other atoms, its nucleus bobbing like an unstable jelly.

"I am going to kill you and eat you," it said menacingly.

"He He He," laughed an atom with a sunny cheeriness.

"Tufailium," said the atom, "atoms don't kill and eat other atoms."

https://twitter.com/tufailelif/status/1032194572330430464

Tufailium was one of those freaks of Nature that happens in the big bad world of quantum mechanics.

In a region covered with atoms of Silicon and Oxygen, a host of Tufailium atoms, heavy and inert, had once appeared out of a quantum anomaly that pinched space and reversed time.

When Shekhar was in school, his favorite subject was biology.

When the biology teacher first asked him what the functions of a cell we're, he raised his hand and said, "division".

Since then he got nicknamed Mitosis.

https://twitter.com/rajsan2017/status/1031861236625891328

Oh, Gboard! Why you be like Shekhar and divide a word by apostrophe? It's were*.

𝓐 way with words, and words with way,
𝓣hat matchless wit, and gestures firm;
𝓐 leader tall, with gentle sway,
𝓛ike Sun he shone, shining his term! 𝓑uddha, he made, to smile once more,
𝓘n roads, he made, his inroads strong;
𝓗is reforms made the Lion roar,
𝓐nd yet he fought the battles long!

Today I realized that Nehru's birthday is celebrated as Children's Day not because he loved children, but because those who love him behave like children. Imagine the love they have for him when the tallest politician of our era passes away, and all they could think of is Nehru this and Nehru that.

Instead of neurons they must be having nehrons, which explains why they can't think straight.

When Kudratey Schuer was young, her Math teacher asked her:

"If George had 12 eggs earlier, and now he has only 8, how many did he break?"

Schuer answered, "George protected more eggs than he had broken."

"Well, that is nice but what's the answer?"

"George was a vegetarian." Only the clang of the bell averted a nice one off her cheek.

The next period was her favorite, English, which, by a quirk of fate, was taught by an Indian, O Ranganathan.

"Can I call you Auranga?" she had asked.

Like most Indians, he couldn't say no to a fair-skinned child.

White Beard and Black Beard were seated in large comfortable chairs sipping, what else, Assam tea.

They had invited their party members for a dinner and were waiting for them to arrive.

In an adjoining room, Tina and Vikas were quarreling again. 1/

https://twitter.com/mekansara/status/951855313497374720

"What is the matter, Tina?" asked Black Beard, summoning her, for she was like his daughter. She looked happier than ever.

"Vikas is boring me," she complained.

White Beard was taken aback, for Vikas was like his son.

"I am just telling her stories," murmured Vikas feebly. 2/