People try different things to beat occasion’s blues. I did it by counting my savings. It worked until family expenses mounted and the hideous piece of plastic called credit card entered my life. Now, the state of my finances has me perennially in the pits. So, my girl friend keeps on supplying me with fresh ideas to earn more. Only sometimes she takes it too far. That day when she saw me flipping through a recently released autobiography she was at it again. “Isn’t it time you also wrote your memoirs?” she asked matter-of-factly as if I were Brad Pitt and writing memoirs a child’s play. Preposterous as the proposition was, I tried to counter it with reason. It works sometimes. Even with her. “What’s there in my life to write about?” I said. “It’s not what you write about yourself but the spicy things that you write about others that sells it. All you need is some imagination to make two and two 22”. “But you know how modest my writing skills are?”, I said. Unfazed, she rubbed it in, “Can’t you hire a ghost-writer?” “Oh, they all have become pricey, writing for the celebrities. But suppose I find one, I still can’t see why anyone would read an unknown person’s autobiography”, I said.
“We are not going to ask people to read it”, she said. Puzzled, I asked, “What do you mean?” “I mean people need not read it. If they just buy it, our purpose would be served. Anyway in this country those who pay for books rarely read them. Why, you buy so many. Do you read all? In fact, I am thinking of selling them to the raddiwala”, she said. Feeling threatened, I fell in line. “Please don’t. I’ll do what you say. But don’t blame me if people sue me for writing all sorts of things”, I warned her hoping that at least this would work. “Stop worrying about that. They won’t be able to prove a thing. You know I have even thought of an appropriate title. It’ll take care of everything”, she said exuding supreme confidence. What ace does she have up her sleeve? I thought and asked, “What title do you have in mind?” “ My Experiments with Half-truths”, she said.
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