Sharda and her daughters were really excited. After all, their resort was finally reopening after being shut for almost 3 months (87 days, 7 hours, 22 minutes, to be precise, but who was counting!). Another two hours, Sharda thought, and my poor kids will finally have food in their stomachs. They had been surviving on leftovers for so long, they’d forgotten what fresh food tasted like. Like any mother, whenever she saw her kids, she always felt that they needed to eat more, as they were becoming ‘sookh ke kaanta’. But in her case, it was actually true, as food had been scarce to come by lately, what with all the brouhaha about the death of three tourists swimming in the waters of their resort.
The media had attacked the resort authorities like the hungry sharks who had eaten those tourists. The Director of the resort had offered to resign, the General Manager had actually resigned, but their sacrifice was not enough to satiate the bloodlust of the media and the authorities. They had made the beach a No-Swim zone, and closed down the resort indefinitely.
But tonight was finally the night when all their hardships would end. The new management had greased the right palms in the right quantities, and was now all set for a Grand Opening. The Mayor himself was cutting the ribbon at the entrance to the beach, and he and his family had decided to be the first people into the water. Sharda was very happy that the Mayor had taken criticism of his flab to heart, and decided to make a statement by appearing in public in swimwear with his equally rotund wife and pudgy kids.
But first, they had some speeches to endure, and when I say some, I mean a lot. This was followed by public felicitations, followed of course by some more speeches. Sharda’s daughters had started getting restless by then, but she told them to be patient, that their time was just about to come.
And the speeches did indeed finish, and accompanied by a huge display of fireworks, the Mayor cut the ribbon, disrobed, and walked into the water with his wife and two kids. The photographers were having a field day, it was going to be a day to remember for the town.
And it was then that Sharda told her daughters, “ATTACK!”, and the three Killer Sharks pounced on the unsuspecting Mayor and his family, and gobbled them up in one gulp, not even waiting to take a dakaar. Sharda and her daughters were hungry no more, and for the town, it was certainly a day to remember!
jagahdilmein 