The Present

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.His bed was next to the room’s only window.
The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours on end.
They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their
involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.
Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up,
he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.
The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods
where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity
and color of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans
played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young
lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the
man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine
this picturesque scene.
One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Days, weeks and months passed.
One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only
to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.
She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be
moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his
first look at the realworld outside.He strained to slowly turn to look
out the window beside the bed.It faced a blank wall.
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased
roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.
The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.
She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’

Epilogue:
There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations. Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled. If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy.

‘Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present".

(A collection from my emails, shared by my friends)

Once upon a time

The interesting story received by mail from one of our friends : story about a software engineer, who tried to live out the moral story learnt during his childhood. Read on...

***

Once upon a time,

....there was a software engineer who used to develop programs on his Pentium machine, sitting under a tree on the banks of a river. He used to earn his bread by selling those programs in the Sunday market.

One day, while he was working, his machine tumbled off the table and fell in the river. Encouraged by the Panchatantra story of his childhood ( the woodcutter and the axe )

He started praying to the River Goddess. The River Goddess wanted to test him and so appeared only after one month of rigorous prayers. The engineer told her that he had lost his computer in the river.

As usual, the Goddess wanted to test his honesty. She showed him a match box and asked,

Is this your computer ?

Disappointed by the Goddess' lack of computer awareness, the engineer replied, No.

She next showed him a pocket-sized calculator and asked if that was his.

Annoyed, the engineer said

No, not at all !!

Finally, she came up with his own Pentium machine and asked if it was his.

The engineer, left with no option, sighed and said Yes.

The River Goddess was happy with his honesty.

She was about to give him all three items, but before she could make the offer, the engineer asked her, Don't you know that you're supposed to show me some better computers before bringing up my own ?

The River Goddess, angered at this, replied, I know that, you stupid donkey! The first two things I showed you were the Trillennium and the Billennium, the latest computers from IBM !. So saying, she disappeared with the Pentium!!

********

Moral:

If you're not up-to-date with technology trends, it's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a genius than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Environment under attack...!

We are gradually accumulating the nonbiodegradable waste. The levels are already in the danzer zone. Environment is under attack with such waste. Help the environment by minimizing the use of plastic bags etc.

A small piece of information i received through e-mail about the time taken for decompositon of various items.

TIME TAKEN FOR DECOMPOSITION :
Banana Peel- 3-4 weeks
Paper Towel- 2-4 weeks
Paper Bag- 1 month
Newspaper- 6 weeks
Apple Core- 2 months
Cardboard- 2 months
Cotton Glove- 3 months
Orange peels- 6 months
Milk Cartons- 5 years
Wool Sock- 1-5 years
Plywood- 1-3 years
Cigarette Butts- 10-12 years
Leather shoes- 25-40 years
Tinned Steel Can- 50 years
Rubber-Boot Sole- 50-80 years
Plastic containers- 50-80 years
Foamed Plastic Cups- 50 years
Plastic Bottles- 450 years
Aluminum Can- 200-500 years
Disposable Diapers- 550 years
Monofilament Fishing Line- 600 years
Plastic Bags- 20-1000 years
Glass- 1-2 million years
***
(You may read Telugu short story "Vision" , about the future effects if the environment is getting damaged in the current pace, published in Eenadu Sunday (6-5-2001) and "Online Love"(Visalandhra Publishers, 2008). Click here to read "VISION" ; to download it (3.5 MB), right click here and select 'save target as' : download VISION ).

మూడో నేత్రం : The third eye

Imaginations do come true....
I felt very surprised and happy when i read a news item published in Eenadu, dated 5-03-2009 regarding the 'bionic eye' .
It exactly resembles what I have described in the story, "Moodonethram", written almost 10 years back, in 1999 and published in Andhrabhoomi weekly in the year 2000 (25-02-2000). Very happy to reassertain that our imaginations do come true with time.

Read the story (pdf version)(432kb)
Click here to download : click here (right click and select 'save target as') .
The story was published in the colelction of short stories by Visalandhra Publishing House as "Online Love"

If you do not have have adobe or any other pdf reader, you may read it on scribd . Select 'toggle full screen option at right upper corner, to view it bigger.
click here to read it online on Scribd.

"ONLINE LOVE" : collection of my short stories

Recently Visalandhra Publishing House, Hyderabad has published my short stories (published in various magazines like 'Eenadu Sunday' , 'Andhra Bhoomi' ) as "ONLINE LOVE" . The book was reviewd by some of the news papers as well.

(Click on the images for larger view)



The following is the review published in Vaartha Sunday Edition on 28-09-2008.



A new story has been added in the book : " Medhavee...Meluko" : regarding the brain drain to US . Read the story



You may read my published short stories and other articles at :

"SAHITI SUMANJALI "