the wish list

 By Mukul Sharma

A man once found an antique brass lamp half-buried in the sand. If I cleaned this, he thought, what a fine present it would make for someone. Back at home, however, he discovered he had no brass polish. As he sat there wondering what to do, idly rubbing the lamp with his fingers, there was a poof of smoke and out popped a genie.

"Thanks for freeing me," said the imp, stretching its body, "and for that, you get three wishes. But hurry up, because I've got a lot of stuff to do." The stunned man was so taken aback that all he could blurt out was, "Well, um, I wish had some brass polish and a buffing cloth." The genie was aghast. "You don't get it, do you, dude?" he said. "You can wish for fame, power, money, women - anything. So think, what'll it be?"

"Right," said the abashed man, "Ia¦ I wish to be the most intelligent person in the world." The genie snapped his fingers three times and the man's IQ immediately shot up to 300, but before he could use his enormous intellect, the genie's voice interrupted him, saying, "Second wish!" The man thought and said, "I wish to be an awakened soul like the Buddha." Again, the fingers snapped thrice and he was instantly enlightened.

"You've got a third and final wish left," the genie reminded the man who had slippedinto a meditative trance.He opened his eyes like lotus leaves unfurl at dawn but he didn't speak till a frustrated genie said, "Yes, I realise you probably don't wish anything any more but, hey, rules are rules." In turn, the man looked at him with infinite gentleness and said, "Oh but I do. I wish for some brass polish and a buffing cloth."
 taken from 'cosmic uplink' The edit page 14 the Economic Times Mumbai Tuesday February 2012