Third Child of The Goat: Part 1: Banish The Irish

In a far, far away land, there's this eating out place which named itself  "West Ireland Cafe". It could as well be East Ireland, but that doesn't change things much. I saw it a couple of times while driving by; it's in the  rich and posh area of the city. 

To seem authentic, and genuine, like either of the first two goat children, they even put up a shamrock logo on top of the restaurant signboard. However, what follows below is not only mysterious, but also defies any logic that the most over the top Rajinikanth stories suggest. 

"A Thai and Continental food place". Wait, what? THAI? As in not the body part thigh, but rather the food genre that represents the country Thailand? Since when did Irish men (or women, to cover all scenarios; ah well, I am also adding mad men/women and children) start being good at cooking eastern Asian cuisine?

When you hear about Irish men, some of the few things that pop up in our minds is an Irish pub. In every notable tourist location, you will find an Irish pub or two. They serve beer, steaks, and a variety of other stuff, but nothing Thai. Or even if they do serve Thai food, they never promote or highlight this as their culinary specialty. 

However, this guy, one of the third children, have heard that Thai food is in vogue. So he decided to add it with his fake Irish themed food store to attract more customers. "Enhancing the appeal and broadening the scope of attracting more customers", he thought. 

While people are still searching for Irish themed authentic restaurants and filling their test buds in genuine Thai food places, this guy is wondering why his restaurant stays empty, stays fool.

I am also wondering.

Third Child of The Goat: Intro

Third child of the goat is an unfortunate soul. He or she has to wait for her mother to finish feeding his elder siblings; hoping that there would be enough milk left for him when they are done drinking.

But alas, what happens in reality is that by the time the third child is ready for feeding, the mother has already depleted her internal source of food for the children. The third child feels sad, but before reacting, he notices that his siblings are now well fed, and they are jumping in joy. 

The third child, without thinking much, starts jumping up and down; just like his siblings--the first and second child of the goat mother. 

After a while, the third child forgets that he has not yet received any food/drink, and there isn't really any reason behind his profound happiness.

But he keeps on rejoicing. Just because others are doing the same. After a while, he even forgets why he was there and what he was supposed to do. He only imitates the feelings of others, and joins the bandwagon.

All hail the third child of the goat. 

I wanted to add a nice, shiny picture of three jumping goats here, but couldn't find anything appropriate. If I ever find something like that, I will definitely add it here.

This'll have to do for now. 

New Story: Poked By the Ball

Poked By The Ball

Today, when I was taking a shower, a story idea suddenly hit me. I guess multiple factors are the motivation behind this story:

1. Watching the movies "Horrible Bosses" and "Bad Teacher"
2. Going through some hassles regarding a bad "office" (not mine, of course--the Italian Embassy in Dhaka, if you must know)
3. The idea of a horrible office where horrible people can fit in.
4. Reading a lot about Steve Jobs.

The main character in this short story is named Steve, but it has no resemblance with the real life Steve Jobs (RIP).

New Writing: The Rude Awakening

Please take a look at my latest writing below:

The Rude Awakening

I wrote it for a Quora board challenge. The challenge was to write a 250 word prose on a certain theme. The theme is given below:


And that is how he came to awake in the alley behind the Taco Bell, 400 miles away from where he last remembered being, wearing a nun's habit and clutching a naked Barbie doll. 


Please read and provide comments. In case the submission doesn't get approved, this will be the only record of this writing. 


I wanted to write more. In fact, I might elaborate the article sometime later. I already published a draft which actually had around 500 words. 

Tales of Dhaka City Roads

Please check out  my article in


Here's the link

or you can read it here, too:

I observed a very unusual incident a few days ago. A young guy was talking on the cellphone while riding his bike. One cannot really imagine how this feat can be achieved unless seen by own eyes. To make things more incredible, he was actually using his one hand to attach the cell phone with his right ear while trying to maintain balance with his solitary unoccupied hand. Result—he stumbled in front of a car and almost got hit by the rickshaw I was riding. The guy had a minor fall and I gave him a friendly advice – “Brother please don’t use the cellphone while driving”. My words did not register in his ears; he did not even look at me. He simply got up, set his cycle on the street, gave a meek smile and within no time, I saw him repeating the same activity. Soon he had to slow down again to avoid getting hit by another speeding vehicle.

This is an extreme example of the roadside hazards that we face everyday in our beloved Dhaka city.  Thanks to the bread earning job, everyday I have to make two mandatory travels—one in the morning and the other after sunset. Apart from these, I also have to do those small strolls and extended rides to satisfy various needs during the day time.

In my opinion, pedestrians and rickshawpullers are the prime reason behind traffic jams and accidents in Dhaka city. Almost everyday, we have to exercise rock’ n roll dance moves in our car in order to save the lives of a pedestrian or two.

Let me paint an everyday picture for a better understanding. Imagine you are driving your car at normal speed on a typical Dhaka evening. Car movement is slow due to dense traffic. Suddenly you notice that there is a significant gap between you and the next car ahead. Naturally, you would want to speed up to cover the distance. However, it is almost biblical that a stray pedestrian will want to utilize the gap and run to cross the road. So what happens is that you have to break hard, make some deafening tire screeching noise and stop the car “just” before hitting the adventurous jaywalker.

Now you just stopped yourself from killing an innocent. Innocent, is he? No, he is not.

He did not assess the traffic situation before attempting to cross the road. He failed to notice the incoming, speeding cars. He is totally irresponsible to both himself, his family and everyone around. He nearly killed himself, and it is only because of your extraordinary braking skill and driving finesse he can still glare at you unharmed. It is only natural that he will shout out obscenities at you for being a “mad, people killing” driver while you will be in a bewildered state.
The pedestrian walks away unharmed, but you, the driver, continue to remain grumpy and shaken. He just “unmade” your day. For the remainder of the journey, you tend to be over cautious and slow. This causes you severe annoyance to the other drivers on the road. They get impatient by your slow driving and make it a holy quest to show you the way “it is done”. For the remainder of your journey, all you hear is deafening honking of varied horns at the back. 

According to everyone’s trusted friend Wikipedia, a vehicle horn is a sound-making device used to warn others of the approach of the vehicle or of its presence. However, I am quite sure that once overused, the “warning” part of the definition turns in to “annoying”. Actually a vehicle horn becomes a sound making device that is used to annoy others.

It seems that drivers are always keeping a hand on the horns just to annoy pedestrians and other drivers on the roads. The relentless honking of several kinds of horns (ranging from hare krishna hare raam type sounds to vuvuzela imitators) will make even the most ardent heavy metal fan’s ears revolt. It is a mystery how we, the Dhaka city dwellers are still eluding deafness. Or are we? Maybe there is some unpublished statistic that shows that on average, 80% of the city dwellers are already suffering from some kind of hearing imparity.

And these are just a few examples of what goes on in the streets of Dhaka....

No Reply

Jack was standing in front of a shiny BMW car. It's a black car, and the glass was also black. The raindrops falling on the windshield was looking awesome.

"Damn, the wiper dude'll have a tough time wiping off the raindrops tonight".

"Hmm...can I even call the wiper a dude? Dunno..could be yes"

Okay, enough of self talking, thought Jack. He remembered, there used to be a proverb in English, that'd say raining cats and dogs. But modern English has progressed, and cats and dogs got substituted by Torrents. Does it have any resemblance with bittorrents? Who knows? Who cares? Don't be afraid of the elements, said the commercial. But once his faithful M65 got exposed to water, and the cell phone hanged. It's kinda irritating. As if Bill Gates wasn't enough, with the damned blue screen error. The blue screen error goes away with Windows XP, and now comes hang-incidents in cellphones! A deep breath escaped himself. The sigh was a tribute to a longtime, retired friend--the 3310 that is now resting in peace, safely deposited inside the confines of the last drawer of the cabinet.

"It served me well. In sleep, I slapped it off the bed. It fell down with a bomb-dropping noise, and yet it was working. It was faithful in waking me up, with the repeat alarms. The vibrator never failed--5 years have passed, and it's still as good as a new handset.

But.......

"I was in a group gossip, and suddenly the blunt and ancient monophonic tone came out from my pocket. Joe was just in the middle of a good joke..people were just preparing for the "laughing" part..and then rang the phone. Suddenly I became the killjoy of the group. People started giving me weird looks".

The same thing got repeated again, in another occasion, and Jack got the new phone. Not being afraid of elements, Jack brought out his cell, and pressed the first few digits of the number that he has been dialling for the last 5 years. The first number he called was this same number. He thought "Hey, both of us are loyal customers. We are using the same number for 5 years. At least we got something in common". He pulled off this joke successfully, in multiple occasions. The thought brought smile in his face, perhaps for the first time in the whole evening.

3 hours, he thought. Standing in the rain, getting wet, and trying to reach that particular number. All in vain. He called the home number, and got the reply "She's not home, call later". He tried to reach the cell again, but heard the boring t-mobile voice.."Sorry, blah blah blah can't take your call now. After the tone, kindly leave a message or you can just hang up".

"Bitch...I know I can hang up"

Robert Bruce and the Spider Web story was no longer inspiring. He was drenched, from top to bottom. The cell was still in the warranty period, but he wondered whether he'll get a replacement/free servicing if they get to know that he deliberately let it get wet.

A car screeched by. A speeding Jag. There was a momentary vision blurring, due to the bright headlight. After the car got away, Jack found himself wet to another extent. The driver was kind enough to speed over a puddle of water, and the water was dynamic enough to jump up and attack him.

"Damn, I'm going home. Let Susanne and that BMW dude rot in hell"

"More water pouring down, or more water running down the drains?

More water pouring down, or more water getting lost in the form of tears?

More cats and dogs, or sorrow?"

He saw him get in, but he never saw him come out, and the cell was turned off. Maybe, forever? "5 years is a long time, and its about time I change my number, too."

This story is a tribute to the famous Beatles song, "No Reply". And as dheki shorge geleo dhan bhane, my story also has a lot of mobile stuff in it! Pardon me sire :D"