...I loved listening to stories. Then I met AB who loves narrating stories. We clicked for many reasons one of them being his gift of gab. The flair with which he tells his stories is so captivating that he has earned a title of 'story-teller' amongst friends.

All these stories would be of people he comes across, incidents at work, many made up on the fly too! He also comes up with extremely convincing arguments or ideas that are often hard to say no to.

One afternoon, we were traveling in a bus from Borivali to Mulund. I was tired and deprived of sleep. I asked him to tell me a story and put me to sleep. He asked which kind of story I wanted to listen to, and I said the story of a farmer and a king. To my surprise he made up a beautiful story and I slept like a baby!

Ever since, I always ask him to tell me stories especially before I sleep and I give him a topic. There have been stories of naughty children, fairies, animals, birds and so many other things! My favourite characters are a squirrel named Rabbit and a rabbit named Squirrel who are best friends, Cookie the cat, Motu the naughty kid in the village, Chiu the bird, the enchanted forest of Guguland, the list just goes on! Every story has a moral, a feel-good factor to it and loads of cuteness. I sleep listening to them and get beautiful dreams...

Many times I think I should write his stories down - call it AB's fables or Tales from Guguland, but sadly, we seldom make it to the end of these stories. Half way through, either I fall asleep hearing his soothing voice or he falls asleep from fatigue and the stories remain incomplete.
Hmmmm, maybe I can make a daily soap out of it... Trust me, it will be any day more interesting than those stupid K-serials!

I, on the other hand, am a complete disaster when it comes to making stories. One day AB asked me to tell a story about Minku the monkey. I started off pretty well and neither of us were sleepy. I went on and on, but did not know how to end it! So I made a plot and had Minku bite and cut the lion's tail when he was sleeping and then the lion attacked Minku and ate him up. Phew, end of story! Pleased with myself I turned to look at him, only to find him deeply upset as I had killed his main character. Sadly he said "Tune mere Minku ko maara..." (You killed my Minku).

That night we both had terrible nightmares, thanks to my evil story! Ever since, telling stories is his department.

Of the many things that make a relationship special, I have my 'Tales from Guguland' happily added to the list!