The Man Who Sold His Soul

Illustrations: From Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the Devil to cure his Dad's cancer)

Genre: Semi-Fiction (Everything is..)

Ratings: *

Warning: Leave your Sanity behind.

A couple of days back Namita (my mentor from Graphology Classes) thanked me for encouraging her to write as she started to blog again. This is her comeback show - Masala Chai..!!!

I only texted back in whatsapp – Blog brethren missed you :).

I had a wide grin on my face, a thousand times wider than the smiley that punctuated my response on whatsapp. She is part of a larger scheme of things which she will realize when it will be too late for her to dig herself out of the pit. It’s a Devil’s apprentice at work.

About a year back I met this guy who called himself  - The Devil. That very moment I realised life disappoints you in many ways. This devil wasn't how I had imagined it to be like the one I saw in Onida Ads (Neighbour's Envy, Owner's Pride). He was a smooth talking guy in suit who loved to preach. “Talking” he told me was what makes us human. [I was trying to understand him but all I could do that moment was to imagine my Babita Aunt as 20 times the human that I am. If words were actually physical objects no one will have a room to move when Babita Aunt is around. More about her later.] Throughout his lengthy monologue, all The Devil asked me to do was to make people text/blog/write. Everyone should text or write and write so much that they stop talking to each other. To end the eloquent pitch, I agreed to sell my soul to the Devil and make this a non-communicating noiseless world.

For every soul claimed, I was duly awarded – An Alto for a Car, Badminton fellow mates for this sports crazy guy, a won’t-disturb-you-while-you-sleep maid, a nexus 7 to read e-books, a won't-bother-you-after-sex for a girlfriend (too much :P.. ok, ignore the last one). A small man has small needs and even smaller desires (often even in his dreams). I may put it here lightly but once upon a time, I was a nice guy too and crossing the line wasn't easy. Initially, I had to cope up with shame and its first cousin despair. Slowly and steadily, I drowned all the feelings of malice in Scotch. It no longer kills me to take away a bit of humanity from every human’s life.

Despite history teaching us otherwise we dwell in underestimating the power of alcohol. Those who haven't tasted will never understand or agree that fine tasting single malt was all it required to convince Nehru to agree to the partition (True Story!!).

A small man has small needs and it’s the Devil who understands it!!