Author: neoalchemist

Time: 2800 BC, Location: Salisbury, present day England.

The chieftain of the clan, hubbylulu, was really powerful, he was a just ruler and the clan was proud that they had such a wonderful leader. There was only one weakness of the chieftain, a hobby, of collecting huge stone boulders and polishing them. Other clans knew his weakness and used to send huge boulders as gifts to this leader. The leaders of the clan – Huobou, situated in present day Wales sent most of the stones. Hubbylulu had a wife wifeylulu., who just hated the stones. There used to be domestic problems because of the boulders piling up at their house. Finally the Hubbylulu ordered his minister to keep the stones somewhere, where the chieftain could visit them. The minister, who had masters degree in circular art, arranged the stones in a particular fashion., and located them at different places. The minister also had a hobby, but his was of collecting wood. For arranging the stones, he followed the same pattern of the woods..

Time flew by, Romans invaded, many of these structures were destroyed.. In time these structures were ignored, till in mid 20th century, where some archaeologists began studying the structure.. They concluded it as an enigma, an unsolved mystery of ages and named it Stonehenge. Druids claimed the place as their, and so did several people.. Legends started sprouting up, and today the ruins attract more tourists, who look at it amazingly.. and wonder and tell how they were “spirituallly” touched and how wonderful the structure was!! Indeed, some universities also pitched in studying the Henges. Today its one of the world’s famous mysteries. Still there are lot of stories about the henges, but no one knows about the chieftain-hubbylulu and his minister and their pranks!!

ps: Ok.. I made up part of the story..

Sushil had never been to windsor castle., and it was the nearest attraction other than “the Hampton Court”, near where we stay. So in the morning(morning means anytime between 11 am and 1 pm) Myself and Sushil drove to the castle. The most interesting was the great walk, where we took off our shoes and walked a long stretch.

Soon Sushil was busy at the shopping center at Windsor, as he is a really value-for-money-choosy-sort-of-buyer. I left him free, after finding two bookshops in the vicinity, and I spent most of the time browsing through the books.. The list of books I wanted to buy started to grow longer. But then I curtailed it to only two for the moment.

I bought Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. I had another two books shortlisted. “The hitch hikers guide to the galaxy” by Douglas Adams and any of the “Harry Potter” book by JK Rowling. But then I ruled out buying them, as I could borrow them from the library. Sopihe’s world and Siddhartha, for me felt like books to be owned!! My friend Praveen had recommended both the books., and I had read the malayalm translation of Hesse’s Siddhartha.

After spending more time in the high-street, than we spend viewing Windsor castle, we pacified our rumbling tummies at the nearest Pizza hut, before returning home.. Hmm a good day and a nice beginning to the weekend.

It always happen with myself and my friend Sushil. Whatever movie we go to, turns out to be a damp squib. So it was to happen, He came from switzerland today to spend weekend here at london, and I booked tickets for the Bollywood Blockbuster “Yaadein”, as per his request. Yes!! indeed we had fun time in the theatre, passing on the scenes we found interesting. The movie was not interesting, the company we were in was.

So after an average of 3-visits-to-bathroom (the reason being the X-large carbonated drink we all had) in between the movie(there was no interval), finally the movie was over.. Thank god, we rushed home back, for a game of rummy followed by bluff and good sleep. I dont want to critcally analyze the movie “yaadein” since I dont want to have any yaadein related to that.. Thanx..

ps: et tu subhash ghai?!!