Love, Wealth and Success

Love, Wealth and Success

A woman came out of her house and saw three old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them.

Then she said, "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.
"No," she said. "He's out."
"Then we cannot come in," they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.
So, he said, "Go tell them I'm home, and invite them in!"

The woman went out and invited the men in. "We do not go into a house together," they replied. "Why is that?" she wanted to know.

One of the old men explained. "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and pointing to another one he said, "This man is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now, go and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said.
Her husband was over-joyed. "How nice!" he said. "Since that's the case, let us invite in Wealth. Let him come in and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "Why don't we invite Succe      ss?"
But, their daughter was listening from the corner of the room. She jumped in with her own suggestion. "Wouldn't it be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"

The wife agreed. "Then, let us heed our daughter's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love in to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the three old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest." Love got up and started walking toward the house. Then the other two also got up and followed him.

Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success, "I only invited in Love, as you directed. Why are you all coming in?"

The old men replied together, "If you had invited only Wealth or Success, the other two of us would have stayed. However, since you invited Love... wherever He goes, we go with him... because wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!"

Lessons about Indian Roads

If you are a law-abiding citizen of some foreign country, newly arrived in India and a total stranger to the Indian roads and traffic system, the following are some of the lessons that you will do well to remember!

1.    If the road is being very smooth and the vehicle is running so smooth, beware – there is a bigger pothole the size of a lunar crater will be just lurking ahead.

2.    If the driver in front of you uses side indicators while taking turns, beware. This guy knows the rules and regulations and will stick to the useless speed limits too. It won’t help if you are in a zipping hurry and want to rip through the traffic to your destination. Just kick his back and zip ahead.

3.    If the driver ahead of you does not use the side indicators, don’t be dismayed. We are suffering from hectic power outages across the country and hence we do our little bit to save electricity by not using the indicator lamps.

4.    If you are a person who obeys the traffic signals, probably the ‘pole position’ is not for you. If you stop at red at a signal, make sure that you stay at the third or even fourth row from the stop line. This is because, we Indians have a tendency to start moving the moment the signal counter starts counting down from 10.

5.    If you want to stick to the line and wait for green light, please be prepared to receive some choicest epithets.

6.    The worst combination of drivers to be sandwiched between will be a dumb auto-driver behind you and an aged person driving ahead of you. While the old person ahead will not heed to your horns, the driver behind will not stop honking. There are other deadly combinations too – between a bus driver (behind) and a load-carrier (ahead), a school-bus ahead and a crazy youngster in a two-wheeler behind and so on. But we wish that you do some research on your own too!

7.    We will not be obeying the signals when the cop isn’t around. So, in case you had green in your signal, while we had red in ours, but the road was freer on our end with no cop around, we will still zoom ahead and if any accident happens, we will squarely blame you.

8.    If you are planning to overtake a bus on a free road, think twice - or even thrice. You may suddenly find your shirt splashed with saliva – may come without flavors normally or if you are lucky, you may even get the same in different flavors like betel leaves, tobacco, gutkha and so on. We Indians don’t use the helmets without reason!

9.    Similarly, while riding in the roads, if you see the windows of the vehicle ahead being rolled down, caveat! You may find water-bottles, pet bottles, empty snack pockets, or any such assortment of garbage being dumped on the road. If you are not lucky enough, you have all the possibilities of the same being splattered on you.

10.    Imagine this sight – a Skoda or a Toyota or even a BMW or an Audi pulls ahead in front of you at a signal. The door opens, and a fair hand with fingers brimming with rings made of various metals opens the door. If you ever come across such a sight, turn your face the other way. If possible, even move your vehicle away from the same. Else, you might need to witness a mouth-waterfall– again in various flavors ranging from tobacco to ghutka, wetting the asphalt beneath.

(to be contd.)