The nervous politician hastily drew the curtains in his house, and looked out furtively through a small opening in the folds, “What’s happening husband?” asked his troubled wife, running to the window, and nearly drawing the curtains open, “Are there assassins outside? Murderers who want to get your blood?”

“Don’t pull the curtains,” whispered the politician fearfully, pulling his wife’s hand away from the closed curtains, “They’re all out there, ready to kill me!”

“Then inform the police,” said his wife fearfully, picking up the phone.

It was at my cousin’s office years ago that I met him. He was, according to my cousin, a star salesman, “Hear him Bob,” said my cousin, “He has the gift of the gab!” Which meant he could talk fast and easily as words came out of his mouth faster than a speeding race car.

But my cousin fired him in a month. “I don’t know what was wrong,” he said, “He had the gift of the gab, yet he failed to make a sale!”

She was pathetically thin. The jeans she wore faded, cast offs maybe, the top cheap printed kurta also from an orphanage pool basket. She stood against the other well- dressed children on the stage, a contrast really. She was blind. The spotlight was focused on her, and the audience wiped a tear as she stood awkwardly as the children’s choir sang around her.

When the song was over rough hands shoved her this way and that, she was pushed back again as the soloist stepped forward for her standing ovation. She stood confused on stage and then slowly tiptoed away.

As a little boy, I used to wonder about some tall stone platforms that looked like ancient Druid structures just next to a level crossing we had to pass, and had asked my dad what they were. “They are platforms built years ago for villagers coming into the city to place their baskets of wares which they have been carrying on their heads,” said my dad. “This way they could rest their weary feet for a while, and then when they were refreshed pick up their loads without having to bend down and carry on, on their journey.”

Whoever built them must have been a very thoughtful person!

Life’s problems aren’t as complicated as we make them out to be. Most have very simple solutions:

A large truck attempting to go through a railway underpass found itself stuck between the road and the girders above. The emergency crew sent out by the truck owners tried without success to extricate it and in a short time traffic was stalled for almost a mile on both sides of the underpass.

Finally a small boy walked over to the emergency crew’s foreman and said, “If I were you I’d let some air out of the tires!”