Far Out ... of Line

WE ONCE FOUND a snake taking shelter in a small crack under the main entrance to our farmhouse. I alerted my uncle who shooed it away and asked me for some plaster to seal the hole. I did as I was told, then asked, “Is that enough?”

With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Enough to fill the generation gap.”

R. RAJESH, Mandya, Karnataka

IT WAS PA’S 93rd birthday and we were celebrating it with a family reunion. Pa would never miss an opportunity to visit his place of worship. But over the past two years he had simply refused, always offering some excuse or other.

On his birthday, I tried to coax him to go and pay his respects, but as expected, he declined. After much probing he finally revealed the reason: “If God sees me, he will realize I am still down here and may call me up.”

R. B. COOPER, Pune

SOME YEARS AGO I was on a flight from Jaipur to Delhi, where I met a tourist called Nick Green. We got talking and he told me a funny incident about his brother.

This was in London in 1996, and he had finally received his Australian residency visa after a long, painful process. Arriving at the Sydney airport, he queued up at immigration, his new visa in hand and not expecting any trouble.

The serious-looking immigration officer took his passport without a word or a smile.

Thirty seconds passed. The officer started typing on a keyboard.

Finally, he looked up. “So, Mr. Green, there is one problem.”

Not having anticipated any issues, he was quite baffled. “What’s the matter? I spent years trying to get this visa!”

“Who are you going to support in cricket now?”

“Definitely the Aussies,” he asserted, with full conviction.

“Welcome to Australia,” the immigration officer said finally, with a smile.

VIJAY SRICHANDANI, Jodhpur