BY BIKRAM VOHRA
Since we all live in the ether and invade each other’s privacy with less tact than Attila the Hun I am hereby informing all those stranger girls who write to me on the Net to desist. It is a futile exercise. I am not available even to Ivana who has a daisy in her mouth and is pining to get to know me. I am truly sorry Ivana but I find it very hard to establish a rapport with girls who have flowers dangling from their lips. I have nothing against flowers per se, I just feel ‘stalked.’
Then there is Lavinia who sends me messages every few days telling me her husband is out of town and how she would love to get to know me while he is away. Is your husband ever home? And what is your husband, a pilot? I know you will be very disappointed, my dear, and I do feel sorry for your state of loneliness but I am 66 years old and too busy applying Deep Heat on various limbs to really make the grade as a Casanova. Let us just say my swash has buckled and my get up and go got up and went about two decades ago. So you might like to ask your husband to please stay home or look for someone else to play scrabble with since I believe that would make for a very entertaining evening though let me warn you I am a tough opponent. However, we could do chess instead.
And while we are on the subject there is also sultry Dawn whose picture is a bit risqué and the sort we men reluctantly ‘delete’ because we do not know how to copy it and keep it in a secret folder being uneducated in the intricacies of whats apps and we have wives who may not take kindly to such visual liaisons. But whenever she does appear it breaks my heart to tell her I am now more the Dusk type because we are now well into the ‘early dinner and read book and sleep by 9.30’ phase of our lives. Therefore, darling, you need to seek a friskier colt than this old horse.
My favourite is Delina Delight and she slides onto my page every now and then and asks me out for a good time. I guess no one ever calls you out for a bad time so it is a bit of a redundant element in the invitation but since she lives in Nairobi and I in Dubai it is a bit of a bother making a 4000 kilometre trip for din din. What if she pulls out a flower and places it between her lips during the first course. This sort of botanical come hither could be quite intimidating. Also, it is not quite clear who will be paying for the trip.
See, that is what happens when you get to my age…you ask stupid questions. Who do you think will be paying?
This endless parade of everlovin’ girls is one bookend of my Internet life. The other magnetic pull I seem to have is for freshly baked widows with oodles of money. At least once a week I get a tear soaked letter from some lonely lady with $70 million left by her evil husband who treated her very badly but finally the Fates intervened and he kicked the bucket, leaving a mountain of uncashed chips to her. Talk about greenback Mountain. Now from 6.2 billion people on this planet of whom half are either Indian or Chinese she has plucked (migoodness, I think Ivana is exerting influence) my name for comfort and solace and support. Naturally for supplying these commodities and helping her salt away that money, $20 million is mine. Face it, it is flattering. How many people even give you ten bucks these days without setting it to music. Here is Marissa Kipchochoge giving me her all as she irons her widow’s weeds. Makes me feel like Sir Lancelot sloshing about with the milk of human kindness.
Then there is Jessica who tells me every second day that I can make $2,700 a month sitting at home and people are blocking my path because they are jealous, if only I listened to her plan for me.
I don’t want to work, Jessica my pet I want to go to Nairobi with Marissa’s money.