The lord of the rings

I had walked a kilometer away from my office to have lunch. After I was done, I had to walk back. It was a bright sunny day and I was enjoying the cigarette that I held between my lips.

I passed by a ring-seller. One of those who sit on footpaths and if you stop by, they ask you your zodiac sign, catch your palm, make comments about your present and future and then suggest you some stone that would cost you some money but work out wonders for you. I didn’t stop by. But as I passed this lord of the rings, I noticed something. It was a picture. One image had Amitabh Bachchan. Another had Shahrukh Khan and there were few more that I don’t recall. You could easily notice that all these images showed these stars wearing some kind of a ring. Amitabh Bachchan had them max. Nice strategy, I told myself. In fact a beautiful strategy! It conveyed a strong message the moment you looked at those pictures lying in front of the Lord. And the message was: even your favorite stars believe in the power of rings! I found this concept a cool way to establish your credibility. Now this is called brand building! Here the product was the ring, and the brand ambassadors were all those celebrities sporting rings that held bright colored stones. I was so fascinated that I turned back and went to the lord and not only stopped by, but sat down and started inquiring.

He did what was expected of him. After finding out that I was a Leo, he told me how ‘dangerous’ a sign it was. And then he asked for my palm. The right palm. I passed the fag from my right hand to left and offered him my palm. The right palm. Holding it in his hands, he told me: Whatever you do, you do not succeed. Your efforts are going down the drain. Do one thing, get a red ruby and eat two rotis on Wednesday. Allah will help you.

I was smiling at myself. Did he really believe that I was going to buy a ring for 200 bucks? When he didn’t find me saying anything at all, he took out the ring that he wanted me to buy, placed it in a tin bowl, placed the bowl over my inverted palm, took out a small wooden hammer like thing that was painted blue and started rotating it around the bowl. And then he did a trick, which I enjoyed. As he rotated the hammer like thing around the bowl, the ring inside rotated too.! Ha! Whatever.

He was done. I don’t think he had more tricks to offer. I told him ‘thank you‘ and stood up. I passed the fag back to my right hand, took a drag and moved on. Who wanted to be Amitabh Bachchan? 😛