For someone who'll read this

500 years from now

How are you?
I am sure a lot has changed

between my time and yours,
but we're not very different,

you have only one thing on me -
hindsight.

I have all these questions for you:
Do cars fly now?

Is Mumbai still standing by the sea?
How do you folks manage without ozone?

Have the aliens come yet?
Who from my century is still remembered?

How long did India and Pakistan last?
When did Kashmir become free?

It must be surprising for you
looking at our time,

our things must seem so strange to you,
our wars so little,

our toilets for 'men' and 'women'
must make you laugh

our cutting down of trees
would be listed in your 'Early Causes'

our poetry in which the moon is still
a thing far away

must make you wonder, both for that moon
and for the poetry.

You must be baffled,
that we couldn't even imagine

the things you now take for granted.
But let that be,

would you do me a favour,
for 'old time's sake'?

Would you go to the Humayun's Tomb
in what used to be Delhi

and just as you're climbing the front staircase,
near the fourth rung, I have cut into

the stone wall to your left -
'Akhil loves Rohit'

Will you go and see it?
Just that, go see it.

The Laughter-Lover

Why weren�t you lying down heads-up?
The best and most famous doctors in the city ordered me to sleep like this.

How do you know he�s not coming in by the other gate?
When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?

Time, my good man, to mix me some dark wine.
I�m not thirsty.
Do me the favor while I�m still alive.
How long were their necks, that they could drink from something so deep!
Have my dinner-clothes sent here.
Since you�re under an oath, here�s the fifty thousand. But throw in for free a small casket, in case I need it for my son.

Now you�re mad that you found me screwing your mother for the first time ever!
So is she your daughter?
(You have no clue who your real father is.)
First murder your own children and then tell me to kill mine:
Father, you eat the children; I�ll take mother.
(It�s polite to call her Ma�am.)
She was a fighter.
What made you do it?

The time will come when I�ll build a threshing-floor so big that I won�t be able to see you and you won�t be able to see me.
I got something I wasn�t bargaining for:
Me, now that I�m alone �
Thanks to buddies like you!
(Look after them well.)
There are a few fire-logs still left. If you want to stop suffering, get yourself cremated on them.
Because you love me.

But what if the boy dies during the night and I lose my fee?
(If he had lived, he would have been all of those things!
If he were guilty of all that, he should have been cremated while still alive.)
What�s your rate for the night?
You can choose. But we don�t have a crumb.
Do you want me to get healthy and be forced to pay the doctor?
Alas, what shall I do? I am torn betwixt two evils!



Punchlines from the earliest known joke book, the Philogelos, attributed to Hierocles and Philagrios. Translated by John T. Quinn. Submitted by Daniel Galef.

The Famous Squib Case of 1793

Scott v Shepherd

A lit squib
was thrown into a crowded market
by Shepherd

and landed
on the table of a gingerbread merchant.

A bystander, to protect himself
and the gingerbread,
threw the squib across the market

where it landed
in the goods of another merchant.
The merchant grabbed the squib

and tossed it away,
accidentally hitting Scott in the face,
putting out one of his eyes.




From Wikipedia's article on squibs, retrieved 12 September 2014. Submitted by Susan Taylor.

Gatherers

They are likely to have seen a world
much more alive than ours,
where every tree or hill may have had
the Spirit
or been associated with past times
or mythical stories,
where the soul of a man might inhabit
a dog after his death.
They would have known few other people
and few things they called their own.
But then
it�s worth remembering
the Scottish winters spent without houses,
the dangers of travelling
between islands in primitive boats.




Notes taken by a family member during final year of studying Archaeology at Glasgow University, 2012. Submitted by B.T. Joy.